A MOTHER'S PRESENCE

My maternal uncle's wife and favourite aunt came to spend a week with me and touched my life with the kind of companionship and love only a mother would impart. Aunty has always been there in my life. As a child I was in awe of her whenever I went to spend holidays in Chennai. I loved accompanying her to the Navy Office where she was an Officer. Like a fairy godmother she would grant my every wish and take me to places of interest and movies and pamper me with icecreams. I remembered describing very poetically to my mother about Aunty's beauty, poise, elegance and her kind heartedness.

During her visit to Trivandrum last week, I wanted her to have an equally memorable time close to what she gave me as a young child. Her visit was like a blessing. Together we visited many a magnificent temples and the most memorable being Nagercoil, Suchindram and Kanyakumari. At Nagercoil, we feasted on fresh hot jaleibis being made at a temple festival. At Kanyakumari she enjoyed the peace and tranquility at the Vivekananda Rock. The Tiruvalluvar statue was under renovation. His quotations and poetry are as powerful and spiritual as Kabir's dohas. We didnot miss washing our feet at the Triveni Sangamam, the confluence of the Bay of Bengal, Arabian sea and Indian Ocean. Across the Arabian sea is my other abode I thought, when a dumb and deaf lady thrusted some beaded chains at my face trying to sell them with hand actions, to which I said 'no'. My attention shifted to her walking away to join a man selling tea and I saw her sipping tea and talking quite well. Would have been a perfect subject and story for a 5 minute mobile camera movie (with permission ofcourse).

Although Aunty believes Chennai to be the best city in India, I know she had a great time in Trivandrum as well, her very first visit having been for memorable darshan of Padmanabhaswamy and Pazhavangadi Ganesha before she toured our little city. As I bid goodbye to my lovely aunt, I couldnt help feeling the same...she is so elegant and poised, both sweet and soft spoken. As she hugged me and thanked me, she parted with 'you are like my daughter' . I was reminded of my favourite sloka in Hanuman Chalisa...when Laskhman was revived by Hanuman with herbal medicines from a coma, Rama hugged Hanuman and said, you are to me like my brother Barath.