Have you wondered how the more than 100,000 devotees will find sanitary facilities during Amritavarsham50? Read on.
Each night after bhajans, 150 or so devotees crowd around the stairway to Amma’s room to delight in Her feeding of Ram, the ashram elephant. Tonight Amma showed Her design skills as well, with strict attention to detail. After feeding Ram, Amma sat on the floor and was invisible to all but the persons nearest to Her. Those few who could see Her reported back to those who craned their necks to find out what in the world was going on. Finally, the words trickled back. Our beloved Amma was designing and making the prototype privacy curtain for the 1,000 pit toilets that will be provided to the 100,000 plus devotees who attend the Celebrations in Cochin.
For about an hour, Amma hand-stitched plastic cement bags together, instructing workers that they must sew the seams together facing the same way so that one side of the privacy curtain will lay flat. In this way, Amma said that the curtains will be “beautiful” for the devotees. She also kept measuring the height of the sewn bags, making sure that the final curtain would be high enough to provide privacy for the tallest person. The final design will lead to eight-foot-high, smoothly surfaced walls.
More than 3,000 bags have been collected for this purpose, but this is not enough. More must be found. As bhajans were sung tonight, a team of workers washed the bags. When Amma was told that the bags were too wet to sew, She just declared that this was not a problem and that it could be done.
Beginning at 10:30 tonight, volunteers will be doing sewing seva for our Amma and for the attendees of Amritavarsham50.
Who could possibly say that Amma does not provide for our every need?
—Triguna Besse