I landed at Amritapuri a few days ago. Amritapuri is gearing up for Amma’s 60th Birthday celebrations.  While talking to Dyanamrita Swami, he told me about a special event that is happening during  Amritavarsham 60.   A group of 15 artists are using their creativity to capture scenes from Amma’s early years in the form of paintings. The medium for these paintings include acrylic, water color and computer.

During Amritavarsham 50, a team of 108 artists made abstract paintings on Amma which were exhibited during Amma’s 50th birthday and were also published as a colorful souvenir . This time the artists have tried to depict scenes from Amma’s early life.

The scenery of Vallikavu and its surroundings have changed significantly  over the decades.  In those days there were no buildings taller than a coconut tree and no cell phone towers. The huts that were there during Amma’s childhood no longer exist. Nowadays we only see motorized boats, but in those days it used to be hand rowed boats. The artists had to use their imagination in addition to the information that they were provided to paint those huts.

Amma had made a reference to a windmill in Her biography. The team of artists were surprised to learn that there was a windmill around Vallikavu  in olden days and were curious to find out if it still exists today to include it in one of their paintings. They walked around in search of the windmill and at last found it.  However, it  was completely covered by trees and plants.

In some  of the paintings, the artists are depicting Amma when She was 26 years old. There are not many photos from Amma’s early years to use as a reference for these paintings. So, the artists used their imagination to do the paintings and showed it to Amma.  Amma suggested corrections recollecting how She looked back then, like, Her correct hair length at that time, etc. The artists are excited to work on creating these paintings and feel fortunate to get feedback from Amma Herself.

As a young girl, Amma used to climb coconut trees to collect dry husks (kotumbu) for kindling. Amma’s mother Damayanthi Amma used to scold Her for behaving like a boy. Amma made sure that this scene was captured in one of the paintings.

Images of other Avatars like Krishna and Rama were painted by artists using their imagination. Whereas in the case of our beloved Amma, it is an unique opportunity for these artists to have gotten feedback directly from Amma Herself as to Her appearance at different points in time.

I met two of the artists while they were creating their artwork. Srinihal Pouka is a 23 year old artist from Ahmedabad and he was working on completing five paintings. Salvya S.Raj  is a 17 year old artist who was completing three of her paintings.

These special paintings depicting Amma’s early years will be displayed in an exhibition hall during Amritavarsham 60.

– Sudhakar