Blessed are those

A Sweetest Mistake (Sunanda Poddar)

- Sunanda Poddar

From a Talk to the Children of Arulvazhi School

Born in Africa, Sunandaben came to Pondicherry to meet Mother, as per the wishes of her parents to decide about the place of her medical studies.

It was her dream from her childhood to become a doctor and serve the people of India, particularly in the villages and free of money.

She was just 16 when she met Mother first. She could feel only LOVE, love in abundance and nothing else when she was sitting before Mother. When it was time for her to speak to Mother,

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she made the "Sweetest mistake" in her life by asking Mother whether she could stay at Ashram or to return to Africa, forgetting the purpose of her visit to Ashram. Mother told her to stay at Ashram, as She has already accepted her. Sunandaben was taken care of well since then.

When she was at Golconde, she was in the habit of writing in paper whatever comes to her mind and then throwing them in the waste paper basket, daily. The heaps of torn papers in the dustbin raised curiosity in the mind of the caretaker and the matter was taken to the notice of the Mother.

The Mother, who has gone through the content of the torn papers, called Sunandaben and encouraged her to put whatever comes into her mind, into writings and hand them over to Her (Mother). This practice continued for some time.

One day, after evening meditation Mother called Sunandaben and gave her a pleasant surprise by handing over a new book titled "Stories and Plays" by Sunanda. Thus Mother was the source of inspiration and encouragement to Sunandaben in the field of Story telling.

Mother has also provided her all the opportunities to enrich herself with the knowledge of a medical personnel: by allowing her to work under professional doctors like Dr.Nirodbaran. This way her childhood dream of becoming a doctor also has come true.

Sunandaben narrates certain incidents, where Mother accepts whole hearted unconditional love from all:

1.A family of doctors from a foreign country had Darshan of Mother at Ashram and presented a valuable garland of black pearls. When the family was returning to their country Mother put that garland around the neck of one of the ladies and surprised everybody. Later, when asked about this, Mother told that they were conscious of giving that garland to Mother.

2.Mother voluntarily accepted around Her neck a hand-made jasmine flower garland from a simple Bengali lady who has been

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longing and waiting patiently for a long time (number of days or even months) to put the garland around Mother's neck.

3. At the age of 95 Mother also accepted happily around Her neck a clumsily woven bead mala from a small child who accompanied her parents for darshan and insisted stubbornly that Mother should wear her self-made bead mala around Her neck. (notes taken and written by S. Muthulakshmi)

Courtesy: Sunanda Poddar

(Sunandaben has authored books and plays of fairy-tales for children, has been the caretaker of 'Srismriti', the Mother's Museum, since 1989.)

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