Mudaliar Patti

Mudaliar Patti was one of the earliest devotees of Bhagavan, and she is affectionately remembered among devotees for the many years of service which she gave to Bhagavan. She considered it her duty to bring food daily to Bhagavan, and despite her own relative poverty and lack of resources she considered that feeding Bhagavan was a holy obligation and no one could persuade her to give it up.

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Her family came from Karaikal near Pondicherry and they were all deeply devoted to Siva and His devotees. They manifested their devotion by utilising a large portion of their income to feed devotees of Siva and itinerant sadhus. They were particularly fond of one sadhu, and when his death was approaching, they felt that his passing away would be a great blow to them. Shortly before his death, they approached him and asked : "Revered sir, where can w e find another like you after your passing away ?" The sadhu told them not to worry and he consoled them by saying that they would soon be fortunate to serve a great jnani. When they asked for further details, the sadhu advised them to go to Tiruvannamalai and serve a Swami called Brahmana Swami, which was the name by which Bhagavan was known during the first years of his stay at Arunachala. A few days later the sadhu passed away.

Two months later in 1909, Mudaliar Patti came to Tiruvannamalai with her son Subbaya Mudaliar and her daughter-in-law Kamakshi and they settled down together in Tiruvannamalai. The whole family was filled with joy when they finally had the darshan of Brahmana Swami and they had no hesitation in deciding to serve him food.

Every day Mudaliar Patti and her daughter-in-law took food to Bhagavan, first at Virupaksha Cave, and then later at Skandashram. In addition to their commitment to Bhagavan, they were also feeding a number of sadhus in their own house. Mudaliar Patti wished to extend her service by worshipping Bhagavan with flowers also, but when she found that Bhagavan disapproved of this practice, she installed a picture of Bhagavan in her own house and garlanded him there instead.

After few years the revenue which Mudaliar Patti received from her lands in Karaikal diminished and she soon found herself unable to live on it. However, her lack of income from this source in no way diminished her committment to feed Bhagavan. She procured gingili seed (sesame seed) from the local market and laboured by hand to extract the oil from it. She supplemented the money she earned from selling the oil by preparing and selling poppadam and all the profits she earned from these enterprises were channelled into feeding Bhagavan. She occasionally had to work day and night to ensure that the supply of food to the Ashram was maintained, but no matter how little she earned, she always managed to bring an offering to the Ashram. On special occasions she would redouble her efforts, and on these days she would prepare special sweets, vadai and poppadam and when she brought them to the Ashram she would personally serve them to Bhagavan and his devotees.

Around 1938, Mudaliar Patti's daughter-in-law passed away and her son lost interest in worldly life and joined a Mutt as a sadhu. Although she was now alone she bore the difficulties of life with equanimity. Because she had no money and no one to help her with the domestic work in her house, the Ashram Manager and several devotees approached her and offered her a place in the Ashram. They even offered to send food to her house if she did not wish to reside in the Ashram. Mudaliar Patti was not interested in the offer and she replied : "Whatever the difficulties, I shall not give up this holy task. If I do not have money, I shall go to ten houses, feeling my way with my stick, beg food, offer it to Bhagavan, and only then will I eat. I cannot keep quiet." She finally accepted an offer by one of the devotees to live in a vacant house which he owned, and several devotees, impressed by her devotion, gave her small donations so that she was able to continue her daily offerings.

Bhagavan himself would always wait for her food to arrive, and he could never be persuaded to eat before her offering had arrived. If Bhagavan went round the hill, or even to the top of it, Mudaliar Patti would follow to ensure that her offering was accepted. Bhagavan had his regular stopping places around the hill, and Mudaliar Patti soon learned them; frequently Bhagavan would find her waiting for him with a basket full of food in some remote place on the far side of the hill. Once, when she was approaching old age, she climbed the mountain alone with two large carriers and a basket full of food because she had heard that Bhagavan was climbing the mountain with several devotees. She eventually tracked him down at Seven Springs which was at least two thirds of the way to the summit. It seemed that nothing would persuade her to stop her daily offering, and even when the whole town was evacuated because of a plague epidemic, Mudaliar Patti took shelter on the hill and still managed to find food to take to Bhagavan.

In the last years of her life Mudaliar Patti's eyesight became very poor, and on one of her visits to the dining hall to feed Bhagavan she accidentally stepped on a leaf plate. The ashram Manager took her aside and said : "Patti, what is the use of taking all the trouble to come when you cannot even see Bhagavan ?" Mudaliar Patti immediately replied : "What does it matter whether I see Bhagavan or not ? Is it not enough that Bhagavan's gracious look falls on me?" Bhagavan smiled at this reply and said to the manager: "What answer could you give her?"^[1]

Because of her long familiarity, she often took great liberties with Bhagavan. On one occasion when she was serving him she put a handful of rice and curry on his plate and Bhagavan reprimanded her by saying : "If you serve so much, how can I eat it?" Everyone knew how touchy Bhagavan was about receiving large servings, and had the remark been made to one of the regular servers, the portion would have been hastily removed. However, Mudaliar Patti was unperturbed and she insisted that Bhagavan eat it all. "There are several other things to eat," replied Bhagavan, "How can my stomach contain them all?" Mudaliar Patti just smiled at him and said : "It is all a matter of the mind, Swami," and after saying this she served Bhagavan the full portion and left. Bhagavan laughed at the incident and commented to the people who were near him : "Do you see ? She is paying me back with my own teachings."

Finally her health gave way, and for the last two or three years of her life, she had to be content to send the food through somebody else, and as a consequence she had to give up her hard earned privilege of personally serving Bhagavan his food. During this period, someone told her that Bhagavan's body had become very emaciated, and she thought that this was all due to the fact that she was no longer able to serve him personally. She immediately came to the Ashram and voiced her fears to Bhagavan. Bhagavan laughed at her fears and told her that they were groundless. Taking advantage of her lack of sight, he stood near her when he was leaving the hall and said with a laugh : "Granny, have I become reduced? See how well I am. It is a pity that your sight is so poor that you qre not able to see for yourself."

By the time she finally died in September, 1949 she was completely blind, but neither old age, blindness nor lack of money prevented her serving Bhagavan till the end. She breathed her last only after hearing that her last daily offering had been served to Bhagavan in the Ashram. It had been over forty years since she had served her first meal to Bhagavan, and in all that period not a day had passed without Bhagavan eating her food offering. When Bhagavan heard about her death, he enquired about the place of her burial, and when he was told that it was planned to bury her in the Hindu general burial ground, he intervened and insisted that she be buried in the compound where she had died. So, in obedience to Bhagavan's will, her body was made to sit cross-legged, garlanded with flowers, sprinkled with sacred ash and camphor (the standard procedure for burying a sannyasi), and she was finally laid to rest in the compound where she had spent the last vears of her life.

– The Mountain Path January 1982, pp.46-48