#letter 102

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3b-xewrHa4)

APPALA PATTU (THE SONG OF THE PAPADUM) 

and

MOTHER ALAGAMMA

3rd April, 1947

[...]  “There is a big story about this song,” Bhagavan said...  

 “In the early days when Mother came to stay with me in Virupaksha Cave, there was no cooking. If Echamma or anybody else brought her any food she used to eat it, clean the vessels and then go to bed. That was all. 

One day she thought I had nothing special to eat and as I was fond of the twin appalams, she thought it would be a good idea to make some for me. 

Being well experienced, she could not refrain from making them. Without my knowledge she asked the Mudaliar old lady, Echamma and some others to get everything ready and one evening she set out, saying that she was going to the village.

I wanted to see where she was really going, and so when she left, I waited silently under the tree outside. 

She thought I did not know anything. She went to several houses, collected all the required things in a big vessel and returned. I closed my eyes and pretended complete ignorance. She put them away carefully in the cave till all the visitors left. 

After nightfall, I had my usual meal and lay down pretending to sleep. Leisurely, she took out the wooden roller, wooden seat, loose flour and the balls of paste and commenced making appalams.

There were about two to three hundred to be made. She could not prepare them all single-handed. I knew the job. So she quietly began telling me, ‘My boy, please help me with it.’ 

I got the opportunity I was waiting for. If I were lenient in this, she would start something else. I wanted to put a timely stop to it. 

I said, ‘You have renounced everything and have come here, haven’t you? Why all this? You should rest content with whatever is available. I won’t help you. I won’t eat them if you prepare them. Make them all for yourself, and eat them yourself.’ 

She was silent for a while and again started saying, ‘What, my dear son, please help me a little.’ I was adamant. She continued to call me again and again. 

Feeling it was no use arguing any more, I said, ‘All right. You make these appalams; I will make another kind’, and I started singing this ‘Appalam Song’. She used to sing a rice song, soup song and other such songs, all with Vedantic meanings. 

None appears to have written an appalam song. So I felt I should compose one. She was very fond of songs. So she felt that she could learn another song. By the time the preparation of the appalams was over, my song also was finished. ‘I will eat this appalam (the song about the appalams), and you eat those that you have made,’ I told her. That happened sometime in 1914 or 1915.” 

“What a big story!”