Balammama's Memories

Achan was very fond of his father and mother. Achan’s memory of his father was full of love. He lost his father when he was just 7 or 8 years old. He used to say that he wept for a week and was unable to bear the loss for quite a long time. His childhood memories were mostly centered on "Mappila lahala". It is an experience to hear him narrate the incidents of Mappila Lahala. I have tried to tape record the whole narration, but the clarity was not good due to the poor recording of the set and his oldage. I will note down some of the incidents that he narrated, according to my memory.

It has been rightly said by Swami Vivekananda that u should not trade in love. Achan was love incarnate.Though he seldom communicated any grand philosophy, his general talk itself communicated great  happiness in the heart of people who listened to him. To quote an eg. once kunjuttettan( kadannamanna) told me that achan is one of the pillars on whom he got the support for his life.I was narrating this to midukkettan whereupon he told me that its absolutely true in his case also. He further said that he used to come to manjeri once in 6 or 7 months just to relax from the tensions in life and that he used to take leave with a fresh and relaxed mind. We used to sit with achan when visitors come. I've seldom heard him speak anything spiritual. But most of the activities in which he involved, the topics of discussion he handled, all seemed to have absolute clarity, and selflessness and he conveyed absolute spirituality. That was the time when I had been reading COMPLETE WORKS OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA, MY EXPRIMENTS WID TRUTH, GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA and so on gifted to me by rajendrettan( shobhanedathi' s). I was curious to know whether achan has done any sadhanas for attaining such a high quality of living, as the utmost necessity of sadhana for transformation has been stressed in many of the literature.Upon enquiry achan surprised me initially saying that he did nothng, but added later that right from his childhood days he had a feeling that he was not doing anythng and that its thirumandhamkunnu bahagavathy who is making him do everything. And that's it- where is the necessity for any sadhana for the one who has surrendered everything in the hands of almighty( bhagavathy). I was witness to the incessant surge of emotions of  achan once, after a long break( wen he recouped after his cardiac problem) when he visited thirumandhankunnu temple.

Few memories of Amma:

There is a beautiful enchanting photo of Sri krishna in the last bedroom of 'pazhaya mollil' @ rajavilas.During my childhood days  i had a facination of looking at the photo for quite long enjoying the beauty of krishna, may be the stories about krishna might have thrilled my innocent mind.As I grew up ,i had this passion of sitting in silence,mostly @ night (I was even nicknamed "BHOGANANDA" @ Sri Rramakrishna Maruti college of Phy.edu. becauseof this craze!). During such occasions, I sometimes try 2 picturise and  get a vision of Srikrishna, but always in vain. Surprisingly I started seeing the crown of Sreekrishna. This I used to experience without any struggle and still wondered why i couldn't see his face or body.The answer came during a conversation with amma(without me asking anything).She told me that there is a belief that one of our ancestral Zamorin Raja got a crown that Sreekrishna actually wore and that she used to remember the crown of krishna always. And listening to that the struggle I had been having ceased.

Try smiling at the little ones you happen to meet, a child's answering smile is a thing of beauty(innocent and loving as Sreekrishna) .