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Delivering Amma’s blankets
Unlike the Kashmiri Medical Relief Camps which involved 30 people, it was only Br. Amit and I who returned to Bandipora to distribute 3000 blankets. I was busy documenting the project, so the whole job fell on Br. Amit. I write about him, not because he is exceptional in any way. Rather, he is a common example of those Brahmachari and Brahmacharini who Amma sends away from her with huge tasks like this. We in the west have no idea how hard they work for their beloved Amma. Swami Nijamrita bought good, heavy blankets. A whole truck load weighs several…
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Breaking the Rules
I saw her early in the morning, a small, tentative woman. She would come close to the truck for a short while then retreat, afraid to have hope. I knew by her manner she would not be on the list for a blanket. She tried to tell the list-makers to include her name also in the list but all in vain. Sure enough, as we gave our final twenty blankets, she was still there watching, knowing she would again be left behind. Br. Amit saw her too and quietly found a way to slip her two blankets without drawing…
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The List
You can not simply drive to a village with an open heart and start handing out blankets. It would cause a riot. Instead, we rely on “The List”, a hand written record of all the village families. Depending on the accuracy and integrity of the Panch (Village Mayor), his list will ensure a fair and reasonably orderly distribution as he calls out the names. Mata Amritanandamayi Math distributed three thousand blankets over three days. – Scotti
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The end of the road
It is the end of the road. The edge of nowhere. Vast marshland receding into Wular Lake. Aid comes slowly, if at all to Baneyari. Nearly 10,000 people live here, scraping a meager existence from the land and water. At first hostile as they thought we were government, but they soon warmed as they realized that someone such as Amma, all the way from Kerala cared about their problems and had sent them blankets which are desperately needed for the upcoming winter season. About 1600 blankets were given to 800 families in Baneyari. -Scotti
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Lahar of Love in Laharwalpora
Laharwalpora was an area that had its structures under water for more many days. Long queue of people gathered in no time as soon as we started or medical camp there. After those dreadful waves of flood, soothing waves of Amma’s love and compassion was reaching out to this village via the medical camp. For some reason, out of the all the people who turned up for the medical camp, women and children were much more in number than men. Our lady doctors and paediatricians were seeing maximum patients for the day. Here in this village there were not many…
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A surge for blankets
The trucks had come ahead of us. Just as the sun was setting, we stepped out into a pool of Kashmiri faces which surged upon us. Concerned for my safety as a foreigner, there were frantic shouts of “Get him back in the car”. Our jeep retreated to the edge of the crowd. What to do? You can not deliver blankets huddled inside a jeep. More cautiously, we stepped out again with Br. Amit and our local videograper explaining why we had come, to any in the crowd who would listen. A few obvious leaders from the village and the…
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Happy Diwali at Kulhama
Kulhama was another village devastated with floods in the Kasmir valley. As the team of our doctors arrived there, the smile on the people’s faces charged us up. A health sub centre at Kulhama was where we were asked to start the medical camp. Some local people offered their help for patient registrations. Soon the slips were being given out to patients. There were no lights inside the rooms. Some corners were pitch dark. And the space was also quite cramped up. But everyone was so charged up that lack of outer lights and space hardly mattered. Our doctors, paramedics…
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Bringing warmth on a cold night
Amma has sent thousands of blankets to Kashmir. Delayed in the same traffic jam that stopped our medical vehicles, they have just arrived as the weather is turning colder. District Magistrate Shah Faesal is directing us to more remote villages where people have received no aid at all. We pass large areas around Lake Wullar were crops have been severely damaged. After driving several kilometers along the top of a canal (I can’t really call it a road), we reached Zurimanz as the sun was setting. We feared a chaotic rush in the dark, but our local helpers were extremely…
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If it weren’t for Amma, I wouldn’t be here
Called the most glamorous city in the world, and famous for its sophisticated culture, residents of Paris lined up for hours to receive a quick hug from a spiritual teacher from a far away country, born in an obscure fishing village. Although many were coming for the first time, Amma didn’t seem to be unknown to them, perhaps due to the wide publicity she has gotten in France, such as the film Darshan and the publicity from her 3 ashrams in France. (The largest ashram is located in view of Chartres, one hour outside of Paris.) Information on the work…
