Category: WithAmma
travelling with amma
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Call Them Angels
Back in 1991, Singapore sisters, Renu and Preetha, were lively, fun loving tiny tots who often went on tour with the Amma’s group. At the Mauritius airport that year, I noticed the girls in tears. Swami Ramakrishna asked them what the matter was. They said that someone had called them “little devils.” They tearfully asked, “Swami, are we devils?” “No, no,” he reassured them, “you are ANGELS!” The woebegone faces brightened and the girls went skipping through the airport shouting, “We are angels, we are angels!” Eighteen years have passed the girls have grown up into beautiful and successful young…
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special cashew & kabadi with amma
8 march 2009, enroute tiruvalla to amritapuri it was special but not a surprise.on the way back from tiruvalla programme, amma visited an old house. it has not been painted for years, not modified for the last 30 years at least. situated on the side of the main road, this is one of the houses amma used to visit in the early days.the mother of the house, who is in her sixties, welcomed amma and did padapuja. she poured milk, curd, ghee.. chanting her mantra. and in excitement she forgot to wash amma’s feet at the end. since i was…
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Children All Over Amma
25 Mar 2009, Bangalore That was a solemn Shani puja evening in Bangalore. Amma was giving Satsang prior to Puja instructions. The translator was translating, and Amma, having nothing to do, started throwing Her enchanting love glances at the little children in the audience. The front-ramp was tightly occupied by little children and young students of Amrita institutions. Behind them in the huge open-air auditorium, there were rows of chairs for those doing puja. Amma’s love glance first fell on the little kids right under Her nose. Amma signalled one of them to come up to Her. With him rose…
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kuchela of sriranga-pattinam
23 mar, bharata yatra 2009, sriranga pattinam, karnataka en route to bangalore from mysore, we stopped at sriranga-pattinam for lunch. it was sangama of kaveri river. its a beautiful place; the river flowing around the tip of the land, big banyan trees shading the banks, serene atmosphere of the temple, chanting of the mantras by people doing the rituals for their ancestors… amma came and sat on the steps leading down to the river. she sat on the very uppermost step. people rushed to get a seat near amma as always. sometimes i see that the old adage is true…
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Amma, Cultural Ambassador
I always wanted to write a book on Amma’s feats as a Cultural Ambassador of India. I wanted to see Her deeds like Huen Sang the Chinese traveller in India during Vijayanagar’s heyday. He describing the Vijayanagar kingdom’s prosperity gave a beautiful account of a market scene: “They sold precious stones and pearls in measures (one normally uses for measuring milk for domestic purposes) from the heaps by the wayside.” But the material in Amma’s case is much more glorious and too abundant for me to put them together in one life time … So this blog-size will do for…
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Coffee blooms for Amma
Mananthavadi, Amma’s Anandavadi or the flower garden of Bliss! Verily so. The evening of 17th March saw a heavy downpour on the green hills of the lower western ghats. Manathavadi lies in this belt. A little before midnight, after the downpour had virtually stopped, Amma and Her Ashram children arrived in the Manathavadi Ashram. Were the hundreds of Manathavadi-human children alone in rejoicing Amma’s coming? No. The entire undulated region, lush with coffee plantation, rejoiced Amma’s long awaited arrival. They bloomed their rare white jasmine-like little bouquets. All at once, unlike say hibiscus or rose where each bud gets its…
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unforgettable celebration
17 mar, chavakkad – bharata yatra 2009 its always a surprise with amma. on the way to mananthavadi, amma stopped at the chavakkad amrita vidyalayam for lunch. the rest of the caravan was yet to come. imagine what happened there? the school was in session. it was the teachers who came out to amma first. they came out of the class rooms to amma’s car. amma asked them to go back to the classes. she went to a shady are in the school playground and sat there. the children were very much excited to see amma. they started coming out…
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Devoted, Patient crowd at Tanur
It was Amma’s first visit to the city of Tanur, and one could discern the accumulated longing and the enthusiasm of the waiting devotees pouring out on that auspicious occasion. As I was coming out, bleary eyed, early in the morning for my cup of tea, I could barely believe my eyes when I saw the venue already half full, even though the program was to begin only late in the evening. Being a part of the crowd control team, my first reaction was that it was going to be a long and arduous day ahead trying to keep this…
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Mothers grace is not just endless
It was snowing when I left home. I had missed Amma after doing seva around the European programs all summer and fall. Also it seemed that work and other commitments would not allow me to join any of the India tours this winter. The prospect of not seeing Amma until at least summer made me feel sort of empty… Then something came up at work and unexpectedly my boss was sending me to Delhi for a week! Jai ma!…could I combine this with a short trip to Amma? As grace kept flowing Amma planned a tour just in the week…