‘Amma wants to hear a story, a joke’ Mother said. I saw Her swiftly looking at me and I knew the time had come to tell the Her about the funny adventure that happened during my PR seva some years ago.

We were sitting under the trees, just outside Delhi. It takes only four hours to drive from Jaipur to the Delhi ashram, so no one had expected one more lunchstop with Amma on that short last leg of the North India tour. We had all rushed to sit at Her feet. As Amma started serving the plates that were handed to Her, She inquired how people were and looked lovingly from one to the other. Amma always asks for stories and jokes, She loves to see everybody laugh and be energised by the laughter for the rest of the journey.

I got the microphone. It had been the first time I had been asked to do the PR work around Amma’s visit to my country. Then the day before Amma’s program would start the Breakfastnews called. ‘Can you come and talk about Amma live tomorrow morning on the show?’ Of course I said yes rightaway but as I put down the phone I realised I was gonna be talking on live television for 7 minutes about Amma…. at 7.30 in the morning to an audience of 2 million viewers. Ouch …. this was scary. I prepared as well as I could and prayed in silence ‘Amma please don’t let me embarras you’

Next morning I was in the studio waiting for the presenter to come and walk up to me for the interview. ‘Amma help please!’ I prayed. I heard the music start that would introduce my turn. And there he was… I had seen his face hundreds of times on tv. ‘So you come from the Hugging Mother’ he said. ‘Yes’ I said, waiting for the chance to jump in and tell the lines I had carefully prepared.
‘Can you hug me like She does?’ he asked.
‘O… I could never do that’ I said.
‘O come on, hug me like She does’ he pressed on with a smile.

What to do… this was live television… I hesitated half a second and then I took Hollands most famous anchorman in my arms, told him he was my darling son and then I pretended to shower him with flowerpetals.

Amma was cracking up, laughing out loud in Her chair under the mangotree. Her laugh is so contagious. I continued my story: ‘And it will not be just you getting this loving embrace, but hundreds will get the same love and attention.’ I said. The rest of the interview went smooth and I could tell all I wanted to, about the projects, the schools, the pensions and the role of women in India. This funny start had thrown me off my feet and all my nerves were gone. Amma had helped me in Her own funny way. Next day the hall was packed and I heard many came because of the breakfastshow. Even a newspaper wrote something about two men hugging on television…. what a start for my pr seva!
Thank you Amma!

Devadath