"Amma"
A personal project that is a documentation of my mother's everyday rituals
1. Filter Coffee
Of all the ways my mother tells me that she loves me, this has to be one of my favourites. Her love always has about half a spoon extra sugar but it somehow tastes just right.
2. Murukku
Diwali (a Hindu festival) breakfast includes exactly three idlis (with ghee on top), coconut chutney, milagai podi, vadas, murukku and chakra pongal (also with ghee on top) and watching Pattimandram (a Tamil debate show) in the living room. Of course you had to offer the first helping to the Gods and wait till they were done eating first. Because that's how you start your day. By offering thanks to whoever put food on your plate.
3. Braids
Weekday mornings always started with a tape recording of Sashti Kavasam by Sulamangalam Sisters. My hair needed to be oiled and put in place before the third verse and I had to be out with my lunch dabba in hand by the fourth or I'd be late to school. To this day, I don't know how it ends and everytime I listen to it, I get slightly anxious and can almost hear my school bell in the back of my head. Thank you Sulamangalam Sisters. For making sure I made it to school on time (more or less).
4. Kolam
Fun fact: Back in the day they drew kolam (a geometric line drawing made from a grid of dots on the floor) made out of rice flour as an offering to the ants and other little ones outside. It's drawn again every morning (usually a different pattern each time) because it gets swept away throughout the day. Drawing kolam is also a meditative process because it's made at once without getting up. You help yourself as you help others and help others as you help yourself. Same goes for non-kolam things in life.
Fun fact: Back in the day they drew kolam (a geometric line drawing made from a grid of dots on the floor) made out of rice flour as an offering to the ants and other little ones outside. It's drawn again every morning (usually a different pattern each time) because it gets swept away throughout the day. Drawing kolam is also a meditative process because it's made at once without getting up. You help yourself as you help others and help others as you help yourself. Same goes for non-kolam things in life.
5. Velakku
The only way we learn how to do anything right is by getting it wrong at least once. No harm no foul. But resentment is corrosive. So just do 11 thopukaranams (a yogic squat with a specific hand position usually done alongside worship), learn your lessons and move on.
The only way we learn how to do anything right is by getting it wrong at least once. No harm no foul. But resentment is corrosive. So just do 11 thopukaranams (a yogic squat with a specific hand position usually done alongside worship), learn your lessons and move on.
6. Crochet
My mother is a magician with crochet needles. Her party trick however, is looking for her reading glasses that is on her head.
My mother is a magician with crochet needles. Her party trick however, is looking for her reading glasses that is on her head.
