A MOVING OBITUARY FROM HER GRANDDAUGHTER SHOBHITA
On December 6, 2010, a really fantastic person left us. This person’s name was Nirmala Mohan. She was a very knowledgeable person, and was always willing to share some of that knowledge with anyone willing to learn. She was also extremely generous, and was an extremely good cook. She was loved by many: her mother, her sister, her daughters, her grandchildren, her husband – the list could go on for miles. And in turn, she loved each of those people immensely and gave them all the love she could possibly give. If she had flaws in her character, those flaws were obliterated by her strengths. And it is about her, and to her, that I write this poem:
There once lived a person,
Nirmala was her name.
On December 6 she died,
And to us sorrow came.
We really shall miss her,
And we really shall mourn.
For she was truly amazing,
And apart we are torn.
HER LEGACY
As observed and recorded by Chitra
There is a famous poem to the effect:
Life is a challenge, meet it..
Life is a game, play it…
Life is a dream, realize it..
Life is love, enjoy it..
It is actually a highly practical philosophy, which I often point to when my children approach me with concerns about school, work, and the various pin-pricks of everyday life. But while Nirmala nodded and smiled when she heard that poem (which I must confess I repeated ad nauseum) I don’t think she secretly agreed with it much. To her, Life was a sacred responsibility at various levels. It was a responsibility to the Divine Godhead that had bestowed it upon us, so we had to live it righteously. It was a responsibility to the family that one was born to, or that one married into, or that one begot. It was a responsibility to oneself, to achieve the most one could, but always righteously. I couldn’t put it better, than a notation I found, written by a teen V.N. Nirmala Rao to the effect:”Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it“. There is a clarity of vision, and strength of conviction that flows powerfully from this note that was written in 1956, and I think, best exemplifies both how she lived her life, and the message she would like us all to ponder.
Anyone who met Nirmala registered her charm and vibrancy. As recently as 2010, when my parents visited us in Connecticut, in the United States, people here remembered her as a delightful person who seemed to fit in effortlessly, and had a kind, yet insightful comment to make to acquaintances. Yet, that charming – some might even say dismissively traditional – exterior held within it a fiercely independent intellectual, a sharp skeptic, a wry cynic, and an incisive judge. Life, with its many challenges, and the constraints of society, might not have allowed all that interior glory to fully bloom or find ample recognition. Nevertheless, to the little Mohan family and its various offspring it was a powerful force and energy that will define, sustain, and empower it for generations to come.
Home is the First School, Parents are the First Educators:
To all those readers who are either contemplating parenthood, or grand-parenthood, Nirmala’s advice was simple – focus on the 5Rs and make sure you create a fully rounded personality in youth. As an educator who had taught both in the UK, and in 1960s India, she did not believe in a pure technical education for the very young. “Learning should be fun”, she said. “But make sure you get the basics right”. Focusing on Reading, w(R)iting, and a(R)ithmetic; and a(R)ts was key to brain development. Along with that should come solid (R)unning around – or enjoyable athletics –to build a healthy body. Encourage continual innovation at home – through painting, crafts, impromptu plays, home grown magazines – and honor the products of your children’s imagination by displaying them, or advocating for venues to recognize them. We can see the inspiration for this philosophy both arising from her satisfying professional experiences in England, and in her own early life among such intellectual stalwarts as her father, Shri V.N. Srinivasa Rao. As she has often recollected, her father, a product of classical English education both in India, and especially at Oxford, started the Madras Majlis, a debating club for young professionals in 1940s Chennai. At home, he would encourage staging plays or tableaus, with all the youngsters of the large joint family innovating plots and roles. Sounds like it must have been loads of fun, and although ours was a nuclear family in Mumbai and Delhi, she strove to create a similar atmosphere for us. The various oil canvases, writings, and endless pictures of dance performances attest to that commitment.
Never stop learning; Pick people’s brains for best practices:
One of Nirmala’s strengths was her thirst for new and better ideas. Doubtless, if she had entered business, she would have been a big advocate of continuous improvement. One of her firm beliefs was that you never knew too much about anything. She felt that progress was aided by the ability to be humble and open to how peers think and approach problems; and if you could learn from a competitor all the better! Her daughters were the first-hand beneficiaries of this philosophy. In a competitive school, if they would complain about peers outperforming them in an exam, her response would be “Ask them how they did it? Assess if you can learn anything from them?”. Another important maxim in this regard was “Judge whom to ask, and then ask for help!”. The biggest obstacle to solving a problem is often not the complexity of the problem itself, but rather our inability or unwillingness to ask help in solving it.
Work Effortlessely; Expend the least Emotional Energy:
A practical lesson from the Bhagavad Gita, expressed in strongly modern terms, Nirmala often gave this advice when we would complain of fatigue from the travails of office or school work. “Try to be effortless in action” she would say. It’s something that likely comes naturally to some folk, but for many of the more emotional kind, distancing oneself from what one is doing is critical to building stamina at work and in life. She meant of course that we need to build emotional intelligence, or faith, or detachment from the fruits of labor – as Krishna so memorably expressed to Arjuna. Whatever our creed or belief system, she meant that striving for detached action – or Yoga – was the healthiest way to function in this world.
Differentiate between making a Living and living a Life:
For both the young at heart, and the biologically young, addiction to the bright lights of fame, power and fortune is inevitable, until the bright lights are switched off by politics or circumstance. Yet, the legacy we leave behind is often the service we rendered to our family, or community. “Make sure that you build the requisite skills so that you can make a living righteously.”, she would often say, especially when Daddy would be making a career decision, and certainly when we girls approached our University years. “Without that hard-earned living you cannot fulfill your life responsibilities” (recall that to her Life was primarily a responsibility to be discharged honorably). “..but make sure you don’t believe that that living is your life!”.
Be ruthless in Judgment, be subtle in Action:
Nirmala’s incisive intellect was often ruthless in its judgment of the frailties of mankind. Her assessment of human relation challenges in the workplace was shrewd, and almost always on the mark. Her maxim, and a wise one I think, was, ”Face the truth. Delusion about the character and motives of those around us is at best foolhardy, at worst dangerous”. Her advice to deal with workplace politics (whether at the office, school or home – depending on one’s sphere of activity), was “Find Allies, Find Common Cause”. Finding common cause with a foe or competitor might be a practical solution to a difficult situation, although probably the last resort. The quid pro quo might be worthwhile, but recognizing a human obstacle was an important step in conflict resolution, especially if one of the goals is often survival and not annihilation of our welfare!
Spirituality is universal, Religion is local:
Nirmala’s intellectual curiosity led her to the study of various religious practices, from such Hindu scriptures as Soundarya Lahiri and Vishnu Sahasranamam in her younger years, to an analysis of Buddhism and Early Christianity, especially in her later years. I do not think her analysis was driven by a search for faith, rather a curiosity for how Religion had developed across the world. One of her telling conclusions, which she shared with Daddy in the last few weeks of her sojourn here, was the rhetorical question: “What is the difference between Vairagyam and Virakthi?” She then answered the question: In both Vairagyam and Virakthi, one is fully cognizant of what one is giving up. However, in Virakthi one gives up the object of desire from a state of “not-ok ness”. One walks away from it in anger, much as the fox in Aesop’s Fables walked away from the grapes that it still desired but could not attain. So it “gave it up” in despair. In Vairagyam also one walks away, but one does so feeling “ok” with that decision. In deciding to walk one way, one not only acknowledges the attractiveness of the object of desire, one is fully content and “ok” with the attempt and perhaps success in achieving it. In that fullness of contentment or “Trupti” one lets go.
If there is a God, it is as much Female as Male:
A feminist in her own right, Nirmala often caviled at the restrictions placed upon women by the Indian society of her times. Her intellectual partner, growing up, was her father. During one particularly heated debate with him about why women were typically directed to professions such as teaching, he responded, “You do not realize how lucky you are to be born in today’s world”. This was the in the early 1950s. By 1970s, she was close to fulfilling her dream of achieving a PhD in History and Historical Analysis. While ill-health would not allow her to fulfill her wish to achieve that accolade and a potential career that it might have engendered at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, it did not stop her from guiding her two daughters in a critique of both Hindu philosophy and Indian history. Her conclusions from that study were simple: setting aside the uniquely egalitarian message of the Bhagavad Gita, much of what is classified as religious scriptures was more likely an attempt to create a governable social structure, than spiritual truths. Stripping back those sheaths, one arrives at the essential symbiosis of potential and kinetic energy or Shiva-Shakti. An equality of strength in Godliness, where there can be no One without the Other. I also believe that in her new travels she has possibly also experienced that the apparent duality of those concepts is itself an illusion. She has seen, possibly, that the physical universe and our life are but a journey in reverse – from expression to idea to potency. That when there is no mind, there is no expression, and then there is no duality.
As you can see Nirmala was as much our Shiva as our Shakti. I believe most of us are fortunate to have such women in our lives and families. She was both the idea giver, and the expressive actor. She not only instigated debate and thought in our family, but also worked actively to protect our welfare and enrich our lives. The lessons we learnt from her life and words are countless, but I hope that the few we have shared with you on the First Anniversary of her passing will likewise enrich your thoughts and deeds for years to come.
Nirlepā Nirmalā Nityā, Nirākārā Nirākulā
Nirgunā Nishkalā Shāntā Nishkāmā Nirupaplavā (Stanza44, Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam)
She who is pure, immaculate, and eternal;
She who is without form, agitation and beyond attributes
She who is indivisible, tranquil, beyond desires, and indestructible.
NIRMALA’S LIFE AND TIMES
ORIGINS
She came from two important families, the Vallur Nattu Rayas and the Calamur Viravalli family. Vallur and Calamur are twin villages close to Tiruvannamalai on the way from Tiruvannamalai to Vellore. It is a beautiful part of the Tamil countryside with lush fields of rice and trees. We got the chance to visit in 1996 on our way back from Tiruvannamalai to Chennai.
Her paternal forefather was Sri Vallur Nattu Lakshmana Rayar or Rao. It is said that his forefather fought for the Arcot Nawab against some invaders and was rewarded with the title ‘Rayar’ or ‘Rao’. Sri V N Lakshmana Rao migrated to Madras (as modern Chennai was then known) sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century. It is said that a British official was particularly impressed by the boy and encouraged him to study. Sri Lakshmana Rao became a teacher in Madras Christian College School. His son Sri V N Venkata Rao later went to the Maharaja’s College at Vizianagaram to teach Sanskrit. His son was Dewan Bahadur V N Vishwanatha Rao who studied in Madras Christian College at Tambaram (on the outskirts of Chennai) and joined the Madras Civil Service. He rose to become a District Collector at Tirunelveli and Finance Secretary in the Madras Presidency. His son Sri V N Srinivasa Rao was Nirmala’s father and my father-in-law.
Mrs. Lakshmi Viswanatha Rao, Nirmala’s beloved grandmother,
belonged to the Calamur Viravalli family. Lakshmi Ammal’s father was Sir Calamur Viravalli Kumaraswami Sastri, the first Indian Judge of the Madras High Court. He was a learned man and was also a Member of the Imperial Council at Calcutta. His brother was Sri C V Vishwanatha Sastri whose granddaughter Lakshmi is Nirmala’s mother. The Vallur and Calamur families were combined in Nirmala. She embodied the grace, beauty and learning of the two families. They were closely involved in the British administration both civil and judicial and her father Sri V N Srinivasa Rao studied in Oxford University and Lincoln’s Inn. She inherited a strong sense of English wisdom and commonsense. Her grandmother was an epitome of grandeur and beneficence and spirituality. She inherited her love of Indian art and culture and spirituality from her grandmother. But she was a quintessential intellectual and was greatly influenced by her father’s ideas on life.
A HAPPY EARLY CHILDHOOD
Nirmala remembered her early childhood as one of the happiest periods of her life. She had a very early memory of walking down a pillared temple hall pulling a toy which was perhaps a monkey on wheels which played a drum when she pulled it. She remembered the toy tap-tapping merrily behind her as she walked on. Her mother later once placed this occasion as a visit to the Madurai Meenakshi temple at Madurai sometime when Nirmala was barely two years old.
On the Saturday before she breathed her last, we had gone to a brand new Mall at Mantri Square in Malleswaram. When we went to have a bite for lunch she chose a special sweet called ‘Kasi Halva’. She remarked that she was possibly eating this special sweet for the first time after her great grandmother whom she called Chinni Patti had made it especially for her. She was probably very small then. Chinni Patti was the mother of Nirmala’s maternal grandmother, Smt Kalyani Ammal.
The best part of her early childhood was her years at Tirunelveli. Sri V N Viswanatha Rao was the District Collector there. In those days, the District Collector was the topmost Government authority on all executive, judicial and revenue matters.
Nirmala recollected the large rambling house of the Collector with a vast garden. Her love for gardens and animals and birds arose from those years. She had a collection of pets which included a couple of rabbits, a calf and a dog. There were lots of toys and plenty of friends. She was the only granddaughter then and ruled the roost in style.
She was especially close to her grandmother, Smt Lakshmi Viswanatha Rao whom she affectionately called Chinna Ponnu Patti. Her grandmother used to perform elaborate pujas everyday and Nirmala was the one to pick choice flowers for the puja. She was also allowed to touch the sacred images in the Mandahasanam, or the portable wooden temple Her grandmother taught her to say simple prayers and perform arathi. She was very comfortable with religious rituals and in line with her grandmother, she was devoted to the concept of Devi or Lalitha Parameswari. She loved to celebrate all the festivals, lighting the lamps for Karthigai and decorating the Mandahasanam for Navaratri.
Chinna Ponnu Patti in her puja
A DISTINGUISHED DEBUTANTE
Towards the end of the War, Sri V N Viswanatha Rao was elevated to the post of Finance Secretary of the Madras Presidency and rewarded with the title of Dewan Bahadur. He and his family then moved to Madras.
Dewan Bahadur V N Viswanatha Rao and Smt Lakshmi Ammal
Nirmala’s formal school education can be said to have commenced only then. She was at the Church Park Convent for a few years but with a view to giving her more Indian cultural content her parents shifted her to the National High School ( Girls) at Triplicane in Madras where she studied till she went to college. She not only got an exposure to Tamil but also to Indian patriotism. She often recollected participating in a Mayflower dance in front of Pandit Nehru.
It was during those years that she learnt Carnatic music, the veena and dance. She remembered a lot of fun at their Mylapore residence ‘Krishna Vilas’ with a group of friends. They would put up special shows to which family members were invited. She recollected sitting on the terrace and chatting with her father. She also remembered special dinner treats on the terrace in the cool moonlight of the full moon. There were lots of picnics with her family and trips to Bangalore, Mysore and Nandi Hills.
She grew up observing the typical South Indian family at close quarters. Their home developed into the quintessential ‘Joint Family’ and included not only her own family but her grandparents and her father’s brothers and their families. Gradually more children came along, her own sister in 1953 and then her cousins, Lalith, Meera, Lalitha, Mahesh and Vijayalakshmi.
After school she joined the Ethiraj College for Women to pursue her BA in History. Ethiraj College was also the place where her writing abilities and dramatics and oratory got a chance to develop. Those were the years (1956-60) when she experimented with her latent abilities and discovered that she was a consummate actor and writer. Her tenure at the Ethiraj College culminated with a grand finale when she was awarded the Gold Medal in her class in 1960.
Following this grand achievement, she had to consider future options. She decided to take up two post-graduate programs of the Madras University simultaneously, the Bachelor in Teaching program at the Lady Irwin College of Teaching for Women and the Diploma in Music under the renowned Professor Sambamoorthy in the Madras University. It was a taxing time but full of new discoveries and learning. She successfully completed both courses in 1962. In that year she was invited to act in a play at the Ethiraj College and that was a culmination of her academic career in Madras.
FUTURE OPTIONS
She was a keen observer of society. She was a quintessential feminist in her own way. She was impressed by leading female figures in Madras society. Smt Rukmini Devi Arundel who had broken from orthodox tradition and founded the Kalakshetra Foundation for the Fine Arts mainly focusing on Bharata Natyam attracted her. So did the iconic Smt Mona Hensman who was the Principal of Ethiraj College. Smt D K Pattamal was a family friend and teacher of Carnatic music of her own mother, Smt Lakshmi Srinivasa Rao.
It was in this background that Nirmala stood at the crossroads of her life. She had broadly decided to take up teaching as a career when I chanced on the scene.
Her grandfather Sri V N Viswanatha Rao and my maternal grandfather Sri A V Ramanathan had been close friends and classmates in Madras Christian College. While Sri Viswanatha Rao had joined the Madras Civil Service, Sri Ramanathan had migrated to the princely state of Mysore and joined the Mysore Civil Service. They retained contact all their lives right up to the end. They were so close that they desired that there should be a marriage alliance between their families. However both were bound by the rules of Hindu Brahmin ethics which forbade marriage between families belonging to the same Gotra They had decided to wait possibly for the next generation. That is where Nirmala and I fell in place.
For Nirmala it was a tremendous answer to her prayers. She felt liberated and free to pursue her career in a new environment. Her father had been greatly attached to Oxford where he had studied and she was delighted at the prospect of going abroad and in particular to the UK.
Our marriage was at very short notice but as many cousins have often said it was a ‘fairy tale’ wedding. I was overwhelmed by the grave courtesy and love that her grandparents and parents bestowed on me. There must have been anxieties because it was during those weeks that the Cuban crisis broke out on the world scene and the Chinese attacked in the north -east of India. Still we were oblivious of it all and enjoyed the various elaborate functions. For me it was my first introduction to the Bhakti tradition of South India. Nirmala arranged for me to listen to some of the grandest compositions of the Saint Thyagaraja during our wedding. We went with our parents to Tirupathi and I listened with awe to the early morning ‘Sri Venkatesa Suprabhatham’.
LOVE AND LIFE
Sutton Parade, Sutton Coldfield, UK
She joined me in February 1963. She arrived by Air India and we stayed for a night at the Strand Palace Hotel and then left for Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield where I had secured a flat for us. She flowered in the UK and made friends easily and in no time she had been selected to teach in the Nechells Infants School. Mrs. Margaret Scotson, her Headmistress, was all praise for her and in particular she made a mark with her introduction of a class on ‘Moral Values’. We were very happy and visited Paris the first summer and the Continent the next year and Oxford, Cambridge and London plenty of times.
Then we discovered she was pregnant. Those three years were the most beautiful and happy years of our life together as it must be with all couples who are in love. Sheela came in the spring and brought me a job opportunity in India with a British manufacturing company.
Some time in 1964 when I was actually doing very well and got a promotion to lead a team of young engineers, I got the ‘Go to India ‘ bug. Nirmala was a realist and I was the idealist. Nirmala had offers to travel to the US and opportunities would surely have come her way as she was highly qualified. She gently tried to dissuade me from my nationalism. I was somehow obsessed with returning to India and took the offer from a Bombay company seriously. I, in turn, tried to convince Nirmala that it would be preferable to return to India even at a cost but be a First Class Citizen.
She was too much in love to resist my arguments and we finally returned to India. Those were the days when there was every possible shortage you could think of. We landed right into the Kutch War with Pakistan and had a job getting accommodation in Bombay apart from Baby Milk because all supplies had been commandeered for the armed forces.
In 1968, Nirmala took up a teaching assignment at Petit School at Bandra where we lived. Mrs. Bharucha was a strict but charming Principal. That was where Sheela started her own schooling. And Nirmala met some inspiring ladies, Smt Rukmini (Patta) Krishnaswami who went on to establish the Spastics Society, Smt Vimala Jagannath, the culinary connoisseur, Smt Thangam Philip who set up the Hotel Management School at Prabhadevi and Smt Shakuntala Jagannathan, a cousin who headed the Government Tourism Department . I took up a part-time post graduate program in Bombay University in Management.
Rajabhai Clock Tower- Bombay University
In 1969 we found that we were expecting our second child who came along on my birthday in 1970 in the form of Chitra and revolutionized our life. We moved to a new smaller flat but near a better school for Sheela. Nirmala took up the MA course in History in Bombay University and under an enlightened Head of Department, Dr Sardesai, she wrote a charming thesis on ‘The Rise of Indian Nationalism in Western India’. For this we scoured Bombay’s libraries and spent many a happy hour in the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan at Chowpatty when Nirmala was working in the library and I was playing with the kids.
Life was tough but there were small compensations. We became members of the Otters Club and that was something the whole family loved. We finally decided to invest in an apartment of our own in Bandra and moved in 1973.
‘Colombia’- the second floor rightmost flat
HER INNATE CREATIVITY
Nirmala was inherently creative. Some of the little sketches and paintings she did as a young adult are available and reveal a keen sense of beauty, form and color Her choice of colors was full of new ideas and she was easily attracted to anything unusual and novel. She was elegance personified. The most touching thing was how very much she valued what she had patiently collected over the years. She had an innate respect for heritage material, whether it was furniture or clothes or books or notes and letters. She conserved and looked after her things most carefully
She was the quintessential culinary artist. She loved cooking. She has left behind copious notes, cuttings, books and lots and lots of recipes. She loved to experiment and all types of food from every part of the world interested her. She was a vegetarian by choice.
She enjoyed good music of all genres. She was extremely proficient in Carnatic music. But in Delhi in the early seventies and in Bangalore during the last decade of her life she became very interested in North Indian classical styles and loved the concerts in Bangalore. She was a keen critic and was an unsparing judge of good music. She appreciated both instrumental and vocal styles. She played the veena and inducted her grandchildren into the mysteries of the Tanpura. She appreciated rhythm and tala vadya. In recent years she liked to support women artistes on percussion instruments. She liked Western music although we did not have too much opportunity to enjoy it in India. We had attended several concerts in Birmingham and in the Royal Albert Hall in London. In recent years she enjoyed the music shows on TV of all genres. She applied her informed criticism to the lighter music.
She loved dance particularly of the Bharata Natyam style. She enjoyed the modern dance forms in Indian cinema. She would often call me over to join her to watch some of the music and dance competitions. A lasting memory is of us sitting in a park behind the New York Public Library and listening to lovely music.
She believed in purity of sound (she called it Shuddha swarA). She liked an artist to express the essence of a Raga or an Abhinaya (in dance) with clarity and purity. I recollect how very much she enjoyed Smt Balasaraswathi’s dance recital in 1967 in Bombay. She held the Kalakshetra style of dance developed by Smt Rukmini Devi Arundel in high regard. One of the last such engagements was in November 2010, just a week before she shed her body, when we attended a performance at the ISKCON temple in Bangalore to see the Kalakshetra group perform ‘Chudamani Pradanam’ from the Ramayana.
RELIGION SPIRITUALITY AND GOD
Nirmala considered her grandmother as her preceptor in religion and her father as her preceptor in spirituality. Chinna Ponnu Patti was a remarkable person.
Young elegant Chinna Ponnu Patti
Chinna Ponnu Patti was a sensitive and intellectual person. However in the midst of the orthodoxy and conservatism of those days and with the itinerant life of the young Civil service officer, she decided to carve out a religious identity for herself. She became a Devi Bhakta and was probably initiated by her own mother-in-law. For her daily puja Sri Rajarajeswari was very important to her. She loved nature and plants, flowers and animals all formed part of her environment. It was such a person who initiated little Nirmala into religion. She encouraged Nirmala to play with her puja materials, pick flowers for her puja and decorate the Mandahasanam. She herself initiated Nirmala into the Sri Varamahalakshmi Vratam, an annual worship of the benficient aspect of Devi and the Navaratri Puja when all three aspects of Devi are worshipped.
She was an open-minded person and allowed and even encouraged Nirmala to understand the Vishnu Sahasranama which was normally reserved for males. Her interpretation of orthodox concepts was refreshing in its robust applicability to day to day living and she was a practical housewife who liked to look at life in a commonsense way.
Nirmala inherited a love of nature. She loved gardens and flowers and plants of all types. She loved birds and the cow.
She felt fulfilled in her last years in Bangalore. She has left behind a vast collection of literature on the Devi aspect, on the Tantra, the Sri Chakra concept and the music of Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar and Sri Shyama Sastri on the Devi Principle.
She had immense respect and love for my mother. My mother was herself beloved to Chinna Ponnu Patti. It is said that during the visits of Sri Visvanatha Rao and Patti to Bangalore, it was my mother who used to look after Patti’s needs. Patti used to often say ‘Chachu (a short and affectionate form of Saraswati her name) is like a daughter to me!’ My mother in turn cherished and loved Nirmala and inducted her into the Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam. It was while learning the Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam at Delhi from Smt Parvathi Sundaresan that Nirmala had her first contact with Sri Sathya Sai Baba and saw the materialization of vibhuti from pictures in Parvathi Mami’s house. She would perform puja with Sri Lalitha Sahasranamam every Navaratri and the grand puja at Ambika in Bangalore in 1992 is still fresh in our memories.
Her father inducted her into the intellectual aspect of spirituality. He was not only a keen student of history but also of the Jnana Marga. He had met Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi as a young man and he was a critical student of philosophy, both Western and Eastern. He introduced Nirmala to the Gayatri Mantra and to the concept of the Sun as symbolizing Brahman. She studied Shakespeare as much from the point of view of literature as from philosophy. He introduced her to serious classical works and she was always more comfortable with classics than with the modern writings and novels. There was an underlying sympathy for the feminine gender and she loved Jane Austen’s writings. One of the roles she enjoyed acting in college was D’Arcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Her English language was elegant and simple.
She was deeply interested in Tamil literature and had read the classics and studied the ancient writings in depth. She has left behind a vast collection of Tamil literature. She used to say that she was a child of the Bhakti tradition. She mastered the ‘Tiruppavai’ and would render it with grace. She very much enjoyed the rendition of the life of Andal by the Kalakshetra group, enjoying the music and songs as much as the dance. We have already seen how she loved Sri Thyagaraja and his compositions in praise of Sri Rama and other forms of God. She was deeply interested in the Ashtapati of Jayadeva and the Radha-Krishna concept. She would ask many of my senior Bengali friends about this and discuss their ideas at length.
During her last years, she was devoted to listen to Sri Nellikudi Krishnan Swami and enjoyed every bit of his interpretation of the Bhagavat Gita, the Bhagavatam and the Mahabharata. She accordingly loved the Radha-Krishna Mandir of the ISKCON at Bangalore and the pictures and books there.
Sri Radha Krishna at the ISKCON, Bangalore
The Radha-Krishna picture she loved
During the last weeks of her life, she was deeply immersed in the Jeevatma and Paramatma concept. She was often in deep meditation while listening to talks by Sri Nellukudi Krishnan or the Brahmakumaris on TV. She was extremely keen on visiting the Tirupati Devasthanam at Vyalikaval on our wedding anniversary. And similarly she very much enjoyed the Kalakshetra presentation of the ‘Chudamani Pradanam’ at the ISKCON temple the same week.
We watched the birthday celebrations of Sri Sathya Sai Baba on TV. She ordered for copies of the Vishnu Sahasranamam and the associated calendars for the New Year. She got the chance to meet with all her children and grandchildren in 2010. We spent six months in the US and during the summer we jointly conducted a special course for Shobhita and Sarvesh wherein she concentrated on Tamil, Carnatic music, English and History while I focused on mathematics and science and technology. She was thrilled when Divya secured admission to IIM Ahmedabad following a grand completion of her Law Degree at the National Law School University. She was moved when Dipika secured admission for Computer Technology at the Singapore University. She spent a lot of time with Chitra in the US and with Sheela at Bangalore and enjoyed hanging out at the new Mall at Malleswaram. When we were at the Mall again on the Saturday prior to her passing on, she observed the youngsters there and remarked, ‘Mohan, this is the time to be born in India!’
We have reason to believe that in her new formlessness, she has reached God. May she bless all who knew her and indeed everyone in the world. May she enjoy the bliss of the proximity to the Divine that was dear to her.
