Amma was always creating something useful out of anything she found.
By Salma Mashood
Sometimes in our lives come people we least expect, who leave an indelible mark or help us to see life differently. Amma was one such person, a petite and fresh faced grandmother who taught me to live life
to its fullest. She was simple, not highly educated, and yet her simplicity and practical attitude towards life touched not just me, but everyone else she came in contact with.
Amma took on the role of a mother to all who needed her sage advice. A genuine and devoted’ mother’ to all who reached out for her support. She was brave and confident and lived life on her own terms, yet didnot upset anyone’s feelings.
Amma was always creating something useful out of anything she found an unschooled, innate talent she passed on to all her children and grandchildren, who today pursue careers in commercial art and architecture, encouraged by her support.
Amma’s gentle humaneness and her genuine love and concern for all drew us towards her like a magnet. And of course, she made it a point to connect with all her siblings, chatting away with them when all her work was done. The glow of her remarkable personality shone on even after her husband’s death and she began to spend more time with each child and grandchild, giving them her undivided attention: a gift few people have, of making you feel extra special.
Amma had a great zest for life and would bounce back to health whenever she fell ill. But when she had a fall and broke her thigh bone, complications set in, that sadly she never recovered from it and she left us with a deep sense of mourning and loss.
We celebrate her life today remembering the poem ” If ” by Rudyard Kipling:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch
If neither foes or loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,
And-which is more-you’ll be a man, my son !
(The author is retired principal of a nursery school in Bangalore and also a practicing homeopathic doctor)
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