Smt Alamelu
Ramamurthy, my dearest mother’s mother, (MM) passed away after a month of prolonged illness
on 20th Aug 2014. As we are
nearing one year rituals (Aabhdhigam),
it merits bringing a blog on this topic.
I wanted to
bring out a topic on this one year back. When my grandfather, Shri.
Ramamurthy Sastrigal, passed away, I could bring an article immediately but I
could not do so for my Granny. Iam
writing this after one year. This may also be “her” wish ….
She had been
ailing for the past 1 month, before her passing away and shunting between ICU in Surya Hospital in
Chennai and residence at Kotturpuram thrice and finally came the end on the
fateful date 5.30 PM, almost a year ago.
She was so
beautiful, able administrator, faced challenges face to face, stubborn, loved
all her siblings, affectionate to all the village people,. Good at kitchen,
faithful wife to her husband, pious in performing her duties and above all, saw
that their kids never starved for food and derailed in discipline..
Born
with 3 brothers and 4 sisters, she had
not had a wonderful “childhood chidambaram life” (where she was born) which
enabled her to “define her life” to execute in Semmangudi life . Daughter of Sri.Sundaresa Sastrigal and Smt
Janaki, she witnessed poverty and the full family had “prasadams” from
Nataraja, the celestial God of Chidambaram. It was the only food for a dozen
people in the family. But she learnt
good conduct, devotion and administrative power in her childhood, which were
used at her later stage in Semmangudi. She cherished her father called her
“ambuloooo” whenever he comes from Natarja temple. Such warmth, love and compassion, she imbibed
from her father and shown to all her kids.
She came to Semmangudi,
as a wife of Shri.Ramamurthy Sastrigal at the age of 16 and she gave birth to
her first daughter at the age of 17. Not
possible now a days as per current law and the education level.
At
the young age as daughter in law at Semmangudi, unfortunately, she lost her Father-in-laws
and Mother-in-law within 1 year or two.
The entire administration fell on her shoulders and how she succeeded in
bringing the entire things under control is something which Shivkhera or Chetanbhagat
would dare to have thought of.
Humiliated
many times by many relatives, she never lost her vision. She knew very well
that this would affect the growth of their children and so, took those head on
and solved and those who did that had taken a humble pie and she had the last
laugh !!
As a typical
village again, she gave birth to 5 daughters and one son besides taking me as
one of the members of the family. Though
money was always problem because of my Grand father’s “sastrigal” profession,
not even a single day, I think, we starved for food. On any day, we had curd and pickles. Our entire family of 8-10 people, in
semmangudi, had never been begging for food.
Astonishingly, if you think now days,
we starve for food either because of many diseases or on account of more stresses. Today, we don’t take food at the fixed time
and also not taking healthy foods.
Actually, I
even wonder - without money, my Grand Father, Shri Ramamurthy sastrigal, would have had more stress and resisted from
taking food. But, I had never seen him
or AMMA starving or resisting. They had full
meals twice a day and also had seen their kids not starving. Incredible in today’s parlance.
Let me tell
you the family tree a bit for those who read this
Smt. Devaki
Balakrishnan
Smt Vasantha Kunjithapatham
Smt. Gomathi
Krishnamurthy
Smt Mythili Muthuraman
Sri.
Rajagoplan
Smt.
Saraswathi venkatraman
All the
above Daughters/son had grandsons/grand daughters.
Almighty is
great and all the siblings nurtured by her were present when she breathed last.
In fact most of them had been present during the 10 days before her demise and
even the last two days, we had enough Vishnu sahasranamam’s being chanted. When I chanted Vishnu Sahasranamam on that
fateful day, I remembered the same being taught to me by Hindi Teacher in
Semmangudi during my childhood. This,
she insisted, to learn from him. Today, this is the wealth, I cherish.
She wished
to be cremated in Srirangam and her rites to be performed there only and as per
her wish, everything was done and it had no hiccups or problems. It was a wonderful journey for her even after
her demise.
She had seen
many happy moments, agony, humilations, stabbing by her relatives and sad
moments. But she withstood by her rock
solid determination which none of us living today had possessed.
It was
saddest day for us when we sold the Semmangudi house 15years ago owing to
settling in City and no one to take care of the house. We all cried on that day. We also visited twice/thrice to that house
and truly crestfallen.
She was a
shadow for my Grand Father. Each and
every function, whether good or bad, had been performed with great aplomb. Such a big house and cleaning the house
itself will take an hour or two. She was
able to celebrate all functions with exuberance and could administer all
rituals/rites with great care. She was
made perfectionist in the process because of my GF who was another “agmark”
perfectionist.
She had
three parts of her life, Semmangudi life
with full of challenges, happy semmangudi life, and happiest post semmangudi
life.
I do not
call her as pAtti as I had been calling her as my mother from the day one. When
I grew to identify the real relationship, I continued to call her amma.
I feel any
kid who was brought up under her grand parents’ custody would be more disciplined
than mothers’. I was fortunate as some
of the kids.
I was also
lucky to have been nurtured by Grandmother
and I was taken by her from Tiruvaiyaru, where my parents were working, to
Semmangudi at the age of 3. . As my
parents were employed and as in 60s, combined family and work pressure saw my
mother sent me to her mother’s house at Semmangudi. (I have written a separate blog about
Semmangudi).
I grew in
Semmangudi with Varadraja perumAl and Anandavalli samEda Agastheeswarar were
the Gods in Semmangdi, If I have an iota
of Bhakthi today, it was because she nurtured it in me.
I was very
happy to be amongst group of people in
semmangudi. A joint family with people
like chitti, mama and periammas and grandfather and their grand children was a
real ga ga situation.
As a typical
village and especially a Brahmin village, my AMMA was showing such a peerless
love to all the people surrounded by her.
The passing
away of my mother (pAtti) on 20th
August 2014, ended an important chapter
in my life history.
Going back
to those golden days where she entered Semmangudi at the age of 16, married. till
she breathed last in Chennai on that day, it was worth to have a chapter on Management
Theory and present it in IIT.
Before I end
this blog, I need to mention about her daughter-in-law, Smt.Bhuvana
Rajagopalan. She was one who took care
of my AMMA like more than her mother.
Till her, last breath, Smt BR was like a shadow.
For this, I
had to thank Smt. Bhuvana from her heart.
