My mother K S Chandra is a retired administrative officer from a veterinary university in Chennai. She was the fifth child to my grandparents, born in the year 1948. When she finished her primary education, poverty threatened her to stop from studying further. She was good in academics and was also persistently determined to continue with her education at any cost. So her father found a distant relative who was broad-minded and financially sound enough to take care of her.

It was the toughest decision, to make for her father and herself, but rationality won on that occasion. So she sacrificed living with her parents with the single agenda of getting herself educated. She managed to finish her SSLC successfully and found a suitable job as a typist in a government organization. Though she secured a fixed income for the rest of her life, she spent part of it on books to promote herself to higher positions through exams and to broaden her mind on several subjects. In due course of time, she managed to fix up a good life for her siblings.

She was the philosopher in our neighborhood, such that during my school days, lot of ladies would come to her on weekends to get rational advice on various topics. One thing I still remember is that a young woman from my neighbouring house, who worked as an RJ, would visit my house regularly to get tips on topics like women's freedom and education for women to broadcast in her radio station. Neighborhood parents would bring their children to receive guidance with their essays on various topics, for them to participate in written and oral competitions. In reality, these events persuaded me to be a rational thinker, a regular participant in competitions and a voracious reader.

So it would be apt to say that her positive energy was reflected in my neighborhood. She raised the conscious positive thinking pattern of those known to her. She grew and made her community grow along with her.

She sacrificed her dependability, fear and negative thoughts, which not only brought to her own life absolute felicity, but also to her generation and the generations to come.

Amma, I BOW to you!