The fisher of men

knew Vallikavu. In fact, they presumed that any foreigner getting down there was bound for Vallikavu. In the little time we spent together he told me about the Mother and how she transformed his life. Ten years ago, this was my first introduction to Maa.

When I reached home, my father had a message for me the manager of his bank wanted to meet me. As it turned out, he was a disciple of Maa and had kept a book on her for me. He wanted some help from me inorganising her next visit to Delhi. Later, he resigned from the bank and today he stays at Vallikavu, serving the Mother.

There have been umpteen occasions when I bumped into the disciples of Maa. While strolling in a park at Heidelberg, I accosted a local man who sported a pendant bearing Maa’s picture. He was immensely pleased to meet me, Maa’s “fellow villager”, as he humorously put it. The last time I heard about her was again from a foreigner whom I met, again, on a train. A vegetarian cook from Australia, he had already visited Vallikavu several times and knew the area like the back of his hand. He coordinates the Mother’s programmes in Australia.

In the ten years that have passed, there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of her disciples. Thousands of people throng her meetings when she makes her annual visits to the national capital. What is it that brings people to her from all over the world? Her profile is simple but stunning.

Born in a poor fisherman’s family in picturesqueVallikavu 45 years ago, Sudhamani, as she was christened, was not lucky enough to have any formal education worth the name. Yet today she effortlessly communicates in several languages and addresses vast congregations. Small wonder that she and her disciples are, to use a Biblical expression, “fishers of men.”

She is an unusual personality in that even people old enough to be her grandparents don’t hesitate to call her Mother. She welcomes everyone with an embrace. Love one another as one loves his Creator, the mother of all exhorts her followers. Hers is no hollow love.

Her fame and followers worldwide are to Maa instruments to serve the needy and the poor. She does not confine herself to preaching and sermonising, as she is busy setting up institution after institution to serve the deserving.

They range from computer institutes to orphanages. The most prestigious of all is the super-speciality hospital she has set up for the treatment of the poor at Kochi, which Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayeeinaugurated in May. When completed, it will be the largest of its kind in the state. Few people realise that she has also brought about a silent revolution in Hindu society by appointing women priests in some of the temples she has set up. Little surprise that she commands the respect of a large section of the people, which was reflected in the outcry a Kerala minister’s puerile remark caused this week.

Those who have doubts about how she finances her projects need only to visit Vallikavu to find highly qualified people doing sundry jobs, in the belief that by serving her, they serve God. How truly it is said that faith can move even mountains!