An ode from her son

I am grieving at the loss of my mother, my darling mother, my పిచ్చి తల్లి – the bond we shared was as deep as they run and I will not even try to encapsulate it into words. I am also grieving for the many, many who were part of her life – for whom she was the steady voice of reason, calm, optimism and cheer, and for who life without amma will be less complete. But I am most of all grieving at the loss of a remarkable human being – there are individual facets of her personality that can be found in many people, but to find all of these in just one person, the diminutive and delicate amma, was what made her so, so special. If there is a “global human index” that measures the collective of our humanity, our compassion, our intellect, our connection with nature – it would have registered a noticeable decline the moment she left us.

I am writing this to memorialize this multi-faceted, multi-dimensional personality of hers – to serve as a reminder in the years to come of how blessed we were to have enjoyed her company, and to help me and perhaps others reflect on how much better we can strive to be.

A social person

She was a friend, companion, adviser, confidante to countless people – as amma, akka, pinni, peddamma, atha, ammamma, naannamma, Tanya, Tanya garu, Tanya aunty. All of us felt so good in sharing with her our joys and sorrows, from special happenings in our lives to the mundane, because she had the patience and the ear for every one of these – she did not merely listen, she absorbed what she heard, it mattered to her whatever we were telling her.
She had the wisdom and the caring to offer a suggestion, some positive thoughts, some salving words, a path forward, a way out of a crisis. And she didn’t always wait to be asked for advice – she cared enough about us to voluntarily pipe up if she thought she should say something
And she could connect with people of all ages and backgrounds – from someone as young as her teenaged neighbor Meghana who would share everything happening in her life; to the various people who worked in our gas agency over the years; to her many, many friends in the various apartment buildings they lived in over the years and the friendships that she nurtured over the years since; to the many, many in the extended Kanthamneni and Makineni families but also in the Potluri family where she made up for the less social naanna; to Namita’s family, to Sohini’s family, and of course to Medha, who was the jewel of her eye
And she established a connection instantly – on the annual train journeys she used to take to come see us in Delhi, there was not a single time when she did not strike up a meaningful connection with her fellow passengers, not once. After her flight from New York landed in London, in the time it took all passengers to disembark while she waited for wheelchair assistance, she ended up engaging with the British Airways pilot who told her all about his family, she told him about hers, and the gentleman eventually took her by hand, walked her to the wheelchair and sat her in. And in the various cities we lived in, she always ended up knowing more of our neighbors than we did.
And all this – she did with little effort – never did she actively go out to make friends or acquaintances – these just happened to her. It was perhaps in the way she made eye contact with people, with her ever cheerful visage, that people were instantly drawn to her and felt comforted in her presence.

A nature lover

Amma had no formal training in nature – but her connection with nature was almost spiritual. Any patch of green she spotted and she would visibly get excited and the joy in her voice would be palpable; any water body and she would either want to dip her feet in if it was accessible, or start waxing eloquent about how beautiful the whole setting was. Namita and I were so fortunate that we shared this love for nature, and thus were able to get to go on several vacations with amma to various jungles in India, to our farm in Gurgaon where we spent countless hours, to have her come spend several months in the US to enjoy all three of its bountiful seasons - spring, summer and fall.

With the abundant greenery in NJ and in the northeast, it is sometimes easy to get jaded or at least stop noticing these riches, but not amma – from the day she would land in the US to when she would depart a few months later, every time we would step out, she would unfailingly remark about the greenery and you could see the joy it brought to her.

Despite her frail health, she would, with us or on her own, explore our hilly yard for several hours – and come and tell us about a new flower that just blossomed or an attractive fruit that she decided to take a peck at and how delicious it was. If not for her, we would not have discovered the delicious crab apples, the luscious serviceberries, the tart gooseberries or fruits of the autumn olive – she was always curious (and brave) to pluck one and taste it – and I guess she had the natural wits about her to stay away from the inedible ones.

Amma would take note of and share with us the elegant beauty of the deer and the playful antics of the squirrels – she had a special affection for the latter, “చూడురా దొంగ తల్లులని వాటి ముద్దు చేష్టలను”, and she would break into a chuckle!

She would simply delight in the Indian monsoon, in the gentle breezes and rains that are part of this beautiful season. The countless hours she sat in her balcony, breathing in the morning freshness, admiring and enjoying the coconut tree and the mango tree that she could see from there. And her joy was infectious – there was no way you couldn’t start feeling the love too.

For Namita and me, during the times she was away from us, there was perhaps less joy in witnessing ourselves the flowering of a plant we had planted or a fruit or vegetable that was taking shape than there was in sending her the pictures and getting to talk to her about it, for we knew the joy in her would be boundless. I am so glad I could share with her before she departed about the fig tree in our yard that started fruiting this year.

A love for children

At par with her love for nature was her complete and utter craze for infants and toddlers – and it didn’t matter who they were or where she saw them – they could be in their parent’s lap or stroller while we were out for a walk, or in a market, a train station, an airport, a car stopped at a traffic light, they could be brown, black, white, Indian, Asian, Caucasian, a laborer’s child, did not matter one bit – they could be in a picture or a video sent to her on WhatsApp – a sight of a child and she would start beaming. It was unbelievable – to have that kind of love for children, when they are not one’s own.

Her personality

Amma has known adversity for long periods of her life – from being raised by a single parent since when she was three to the 50+ years spent living with the complexities of naanna to the times when we were financially in the red for a long stretch of time – but no matter what, she always sported her trademark positive and cheerful attitude.
Amma was brave like only she could be – whether taking on a surgery (among the first to get a Lasik, get two spinal surgeries despite the risks involved, get her cataract removed in both her eyes at the same time despite advice to the contrary), taking a peck at a tempting but unfamiliar fruit, to wading through a throng of patients surrounding a single doctor in Niloufer hospital to get him to attend to her son with a high fever to taking solo flights without a care – her attitude was always – “bring it on”. I don’t remember an instance when she took a decision out of fear – it was always the tougher, braver choice. Her decision to continue to live by herself and not take shelter in Ratan’s house during the pandemic may have ultimately cost her life, but she would not have wanted to live any way else.
The path from thought to action was instantaneous – she did not know what procrastination was – her mind was ever rife with ideas and thoughts and she would at the earliest practical opportunity put them into action – and very often it meant she had to labor through physical pain and do it herself without support from those around her.
Lastly but most importantly, we and most people who knew her, only remember a smiling, beaming face – there was that infectious smile to her that instantly brought succor to those around her. Her osteoporotic body meant she was in constant pain for at least the last three decades of her life, but rarely would she complain about it and allow it to dampen her spirits, or take that smile away, including in the last few days in the ICU with the mask on.

A fount of knowledge and an ability to connect the dots

Like many of us, she would spend time poring over a newspaper and going through YouTube or Facebook content, but unlike many of us, she would absorb this content and connect the dots and see how it can relate to those around her. More often than not, when any one would call her to tell her about some malady or a situation, she would know something about it or some solution would ring a bell or she would know some one who has been through similar – this was remarkable.

Business acumen

And cohabiting with this nature-loving, children-loving, and all else that I have written so far, was a lady with sound business acumen. From single-handedly managing our cooking gas retail distribution business in her 20s and 30s (along with raising two kids, and being solely in charge of feeding and caring for her husband and in-laws) to picking up so many real estate gems (with whatever little cash she had at hand) over the course of her life to saving on the monthly household expenses quota and investing these in chit funds to talking to various people to find ideas for Ratan to get started off on – she was on solid footing with the material aspects of the world. If she had a tenth of the education and opportunities we went on to have, I have no doubt she would have created a well-run and sound business enterprise.

Love for old Hindi movie songs

Sleep was never her friend, and in the infinite late hours that she was awake, her constant companion were her iPad and playing on it were old Hindi movie tracks – Lata, Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore. And like everything else she participated in, you could see how deeply she would enjoy them, sometimes humming along, sometimes swaying with them and sometimes beatifically absorbing their melodic beauty.

The relationship with Namita

This was among the most beautiful relationships I can imagine – particularly given the traditional tautness between a boy’s mother and a boy’s wife. Oh my gosh, how much amma and Namita loved each other, cared for each other, respected each other, loved spending time with each other – they were virtually like mother and daughter. Their relationship was a joy to behold and as they say, it takes two to tango, and it was no surprise that the two fantastic women in my life hit it off like magic, from day one.

Miscellany

When amma got her first iPad about ten years ago, she instantly took to it like a duck to water. She and her iPad were never too far from each other – it used to be so much fun to watch and admire her play some word-building games (even with her quivering hands) at her age or read up about the world or listen to her songs. It upped her quality of life tremendously over these years. I cannot thank Apple enough for bringing us the iPad.
Equally, given her age and generation, we used to admire and marvel at her curiosity and sense of wonder to explore topics as varied as the architecture-related posts on her Facebook feed to the golf she used to watch with me on TV with complete involvement.
We will miss her cute responses to every picture / video / WhatsApp forward we would send her. It was not enough for amma to cursorily go through them but like with everything else in her life, she would truly pay attention, absorb all the happiness she could out of them, and care to let you know how she felt.
Her clean, crisp, starched saris were a stuff of legion – for most of her life, she was known for how elegantly she would be dressed in these saris, and most were cotton and worth only a few hundred rupees each, but she had the taste to pick the right ones and took the effort to keep them well maintained and starched. (It is only in the last few years that her fragile shoulders wouldn’t allow her to wear saris any longer.)
Cooking was not an all-consuming passion for Amma yet her cooking was more than competent – she stuck to simple Andhra food, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian and whatever she would make would be done effortlessly yet inevitably churn out delicious fare. As children we of course were partial to our mother’s food but her cooking was popular with many, none more so than my dear in-laws.

The one constant theme through all of these different dimensions to amma was her ability to truly enjoy the world, enjoy the life she was leading, enjoy the company of whoever she was interacting with at that moment, and generally enjoy every moment of her life. It is a rare gift, and glad we were able to witness this remarkable human being and share many indelible moments with her. A mother by default is extremely dear to her children but this ability to be dear to so, so many dear friends and family around her is what made her so special.

As I wrote this homage, there were many a moment when my eyes welled up, but knowing amma, she would have wanted us to look ahead, to enjoy life, to be cheerful and to be good human beings – we will surely try, amma. We love you, always.