Having gained admission into the top masters programme for parallel and distributed computing, that too, in Tanenbaum’s university thrilled me beyond words. I was overjoyed when I heard the news. But the question that trailed along was what next? I mean the expenses for travelling, studies, housing etc have to be covered, and I was confused as to what to do. The options for scholarships were limited and the other only option left was to take a loan. I wanted to ask Amma her opinion on this matter and I along with my friend, who had gained admission to the same university approached her and told her about our status and enquired what should we do? At first Amma asked us, which university did we get our admission into and in which place? We told that we had gained admission into VU University at Amsterdam. We asked her whether it would be fine to take a loan and proceed with the confirmation of our admission into the university. She asked how much would it amount to? We had calculated this before and the entire amount approximated to 30 lakhs. But Amma told us that if we are careful about our expenses, it would cost only $700 to meet our daily expenses. I was really amazed by her. She knew everything too well. She then said we can meet our daily expenses by procuring a part time job in Netherlands. She then asked to contact a person, who deals with the collaboration between Amrita and the universities abroad, regarding this matter. Amma said we should let her know about the details later.

It was a thrilling experience. We didn’t know how to reach her, other than during the Darshan times, but we couldn’t tell her during our darshans. We wrote a letter to her and waited for her on her way back to her room after the Bhajans. We were gracefully helped by many people on the way, who helped us to get close to Amma, when it was actually hard. Every barrier seemed to dissolve and I was amazed by the way we had got close to her. It seemed like a miracle. I was afraid if Amma would be answering our queries amidst the crowd. It was an adventure to talk to Amma with people swarming around her. Amma stopped and spoke to us for 10 minutes. It felt great, a joy beyond words, to just be there, speaking to her, listening to what she has to say about the whole thing, it was beautiful.
A remarkable experience…………..
Archana N
Final year computer science Engineering  student
Amrita University, Amritapuri Campus