OBITUARY - 3: MEENAMBAL, A LESSON FOR ALL

MEENAMBAL, A LESSON FOR ALL

BY P S SUNDAR

If I ask you to name five Noble laureates, Oscar titleholders or Olympic Gold winners, quite possible that you say, you don't remember them...But, if I ask you to name five persons who had shown extreme affection for you, five who have influenced your life or five with whom you would prefer to spend time, quite possible, you will name them without much of a thinking.  It is not that the celebrity winners are less important to you than the second set, but the people who really touch your lives, who teach life-lessons, who motivate you to success or blossom into your role models need not be well-known pubic figures but can be someone closer to you like mother, father, aunt, cousin or neighbour.

Smt Meenambal was such a great personality that everyone -- not just her son Nathan (Ambi), daughters Raji, Sundari, Bala and Indu all living in Bangalore -- who had occasion to know her would admit to have been influenced by her judicious juxtaposition of espousing social cause with family management.   On the occasion of her passing away at 89 years age on March 2, 2013, this article of mine published in The New Indian Express on Aug 5, 2006, itself is a humble homage.  I also give here the photo I had taken of her on June 6, 2011, at Calicut, the last day I met her as I am reminded of H W Longfellow's immortal lines:

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.