Mother Mangalam’s benevolent presence will remain

IT has been more than a fortnight since the passing away of Datin Paduka A. Mangalam, affectionately known as Mother by all, at the age of 97.

If at all tears were shed, it was by the many whose personal lives she had touched in her compassionate ways.

All of them, including myself, have so many varied memories of our association with her over the years.

I was encouraged by her selfless service to serve Pure Life Society as a volunteer in a variety of capacities. And through the years, I was blessed for the many lessons I learnt by merely following her example.

To many of the children in the Pure Life Society home, she was the only mother they ever knew. I remember an English lesson on family tree when a pupil looked at Renu, one of the teachers, and cruelly shouted, ‘’Teacher Renu doesn’t have a mother.”

Renu shook her body indignantly and retorted, “What? My mother is Mangalam.” And she said it as if she’d got the best mother in the world!

In Mother Mangalam’s younger days, she would send the children off to school every morning with a homage prayer to the founder of Pure Life Society, Swami Satyananda.

She was meticulous and a perfectionist, looking into every aspect of the home – from cleanliness of the toilets and dorms to the preparation of all their vegetarian meals.

Bread was baked in the home’s own kitchen, and Padma, the store supervisor, kept a stringent record of all donations, making it impossible under her watchful eye to pilfer even the tiniest of a Milo tin.

In the later years when she was too frail to do her daily rounds, the spirit of “cleanliness is Godliness” had been firmly implanted in the minds of the children, be it in the boys’ wing or the main home where the girls and children were housed.

She also had the capacity to see only the good among her wards, one of whom was Ruban. Though he often challenged the patience of the lesser of us, Mother promoted his artistic creativity and even sponsored his arangetram (Bharathanatyam debut).

It was him and his team of old boys and girls who decorated the podium, did the floral arrangements, and gave her a splendid send-off during her funeral.

Padma, the home’s oldest resident and the only one who has seen Swami Satyananda in person, vows that Swamiji is often seen in the depth of the night striding up and down the stairways, making sure that all is fine.

Now, in addition, there will be Mother Mangalam’s benevolent presence overseeing the home!

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

GANA JEGADEVA

Kuala Lumpur