amama...a remarkable life...

amama... Remember amama?

About a week after I had left Kerala, I was sitting in my room in Mysore and I got a text from Divya.. 'Grandma has gone' My heart jumped a beat, and then I thought, well maybe it doesn't mean what I think it means. I called Divya and she was crying and said she would call me later.

I sat, for a while thinking, saddened by the news and decided the only thing to do was sing. So, I got out my guitar and started singing her name amama... amama...amama...

Most of my life has been lived in the absence of grandparents. Although my Teta is alive and well, she lives on the other side of the world and I see her rarely. I love granparents. They have life knowledge we don't have, they have love to give and time to be present. So, whenever I meet an older person, I like to sit with them and learn from them or just soak up their energy.

Amama and I did not speak the same language. In fact, she spoke very little, even in Malayalum (language of Kerala), but she liked to show me how to roast fresh cashews and pick wild basil. She like to show me how to make an ox cart of out palm fronds and dry tamarind pods, but most of all, she liked to sit quietly and read her prayers.

She was in her 90's. She raised 9 children in rural India, in a poor family. As I sat singing to her, I thought of her life and the challenges she faced throughout. She was quite a remarkable women, still physically and mentally strong after all her years. She was the matriarch of the family, 5 generations below her and she had just seen all 200 people two weeks before.

Divya called me the next day. She was still crying and told me. Amama woke up that morning, drew water from the well, made her tea, pruned her garden and suddenly didn't feel well, within a few hours she passed away.

If only we could all live such a life!