Visit to the Samadhi

The following week which becomes just a month since Mum died, Mary, Pakkiyam, Velan who helped look after Mum all these years and Veni (our landlord’s wife) with the kids, Sneha and Raj and I, went on a trek to see Mum’s grave, or samādhi. Like I say she told me when I was a kid to plant an apple tree over her. I realised when we took the send-off pictures, there was no scene of the of the mountains and I wanted to rectify that this time. From where we park our green Ambassador by the giant fig tree at the Maharaja’s bungalow the walk to the farm is about two kilometres. The altitude here in what is called the middle hills is around 3000 ft above sea level. Having her heart in mind I built our house here so Mum could live at a lower altitude than the 6000 ft of Kodaikanal. Due to reasons beyond anyone’s control this was not meant to be, but in any case, like I say, she now has a spectacular view here on our farmland facing west to the mountains. John, our farm manager did a fine job building up the site with Rajendran, our mason. We do have elephants, bison (gaur), deer, wild boar, porcupines and perhaps a yeti or two, so it was important to make her samādhi a sturdy one; John plans to lay down native lawn grass this week in the rains. Ultimately we will be planting some fruit trees around, as per her wish, and these terraces will become a lovely garden I hope in her memory.

The ladies laid flowers, lit candles and incense and prayed and afterwards we sat (as per custom) on the grave having the papaya juice brought from home and eating vadai (falafel). Then we walked down to the house and had a serious picnic on the front porch with our cocker spaniel Tikku who lives on the farm. The kids had fun playing starkers under the hose and you can see them inside the farm house with Grace’s roll top desk and outside having fun with the poor old branches of the kadakkai (myrobalans) tree.

On the way back we got drenched in a downpour. Listening to the laughing and joking amongst the ladies as they got soaked along the path I thanked heaven that I am living here with people I love so. Halfway back we took shelter in a neighbour’s porch front amongst the fire wood and buckets waiting for the rains to abate and spoke about Mum amongst ourselves with great affectionate memories. A good time was had by all. Thanks again Mum.