Nostalgic memories

Nostalgia

Matriarch of verse
(Balamani Amma,graceful poetess ,also has a persona worthy of emulation.Within her lives a Rishi and philosopher ,says her niece Suvarna Nalapat,of her illustrious aunt.)
The Hindu.Metroplus.Monday ,January 8th ,2001.

The month of Karkidakam is sacred to the Goddess Lakshmi.The asterism of Ayilyam(Aslesha)is the divine day of the naagaas.On that day,a girl was born in Punnayurkulam,a small village in Kerala,amidst the chantings of verses from the Raamaayana.That was the elder of the two nieces of the philosopher-poet Nalapat Narayanamenon.Born on the auspicious day of the Devi,she was called Lakshmi by the elders,a name soon to be forgotten and replaced by another.Narayanamenon called her Baala ,the name of his upaasanaamoorthy,Baalaparameswari.Her sister,born in the same month,after two years,on a visakham star was named Padmavathy ,a synonym of Lakshmi ,sacred to Budhists,Jains and Hindu alikebut soon came to be known as Ammini.The two sisters always went together everywhere and people in the neighbouring houses used to say Baalammini(Bala and Ammini)is coming.Later this twin name was transformed to Balamani and it stuck to the elder sister ,the qualities of Lakshmi ,Saraswathi and Balaparameswari rolled in one.That was the beginning of the mother of Malayalam literature ,the philosopher-poet Balamani Amma.
As a child Balamani was very intelligent and wanted to know many things.She had a very good Guru and mentor in her uncle,Narayanamenon.Even as a child ,she wrote poetry and she was given J.Krishnamurthy’s “At the feet of Thy master”to read .She later wrote about it.She read it sitting on a natural swing made of a sturdy creeper on a mango tree ,immersed in imagination and ecstacy ,slowly enjoying the sweetness of Krishnamurthy’s philosophy .Her love and regard for her uncle,grandmothers,sister and parents and to the household aides and children are legendary.

In her live a rishi and a philosopher par excellance who studied the scriptures,atheosophist ,and a Gandhian and a human being who always stood for justice and nonviolence.She wrote that a single teardrop of compassion is any day better than a thousand gold coins.
The dominant emotion in her poetry is considered to be the celebration of motherhood by many a critic.But this is not always true.The thread which one can find in all her poems,from 1957 onwards ,is the line of positive thoughts.She always knew that she had the potential to break free and spread her wings at any time.She wrote well before any feminist movement began in literature,that a woman’s eyes will not be blinded to the subtle truths of swadharma,the duties of a world citizen,by the presence of fumes emanating from a narrow kitchen.A woman can do both duties efficiently.
She told us plainly that lack of high ideals,replacements of values by wealth and worldly things will only make us more economically backward.When human beings sleep on the road and children quarrel with each other for a morsel of food,and women are traded for money,we say that it is the will of God.This shows our deviation from swadharma and it is this insult which we have to remove from our records.This is the ideology she imbibed directly from Les Miserables ,of Victor Hugo,translated by her uncle.

I had the good fortune to grow up under her tender love and high ideals and to see the simple life sheled amidst riches .My earliest memories of her were when she came to live with us at Nalapat house ,when my grandmother was very ill.She and my mother(her sister) used to sit in my grandmother’s sickroom and I as a child was always in that room because I did not want to part with my grandmother .
I used to being pampered by my grandmother and always cried when it was time for my bath because I insisted that my grandmother alone should bathe me.It was then Valiyamma who offered that she will take grandmothers place.She took me to the bathroom gave me a nice bath,chanting soft manthraas ,which I later came to know was the Lalithasahasranaama,her favourite.She was cleansing my body and soul by the soft loving hands and the soft manthra.
Before putting me to sleep,she told me nice lenghthy stories from Anderson’s fairy tales.We always wrote to each other.In her last letter she had enclosed a poem “Maravi”(forgetfulness/Loss of memory)for me to read.When I read it,I knew that she was about to severe all ties with this mundane world and its ways of life.We,medical scientists,call it Alzheimer’s disease.
Later on,When I read out a verse from her own poem,Nivedhyam,she told me that it was beautiful,and being beautiful ,must have been written by Vallathol.It was she who taught me to be silent when someone abuses or tries to shock you by words or deeds ,because silence is more powerful than words.It was she who taught me that truth will win ultimately.