Older Brother

Amma used to go directly from school to Ariyur on a Thursday evening and stay with a neighbour. On Friday morning Amma would worship the anthill and go to school from there. Amma was very devoted but the older brother did not think anything of it then. Many times the rest of the family also followed Amma to worship the anthill.

The older brother used to hear about some of the miracles from the kids in Amma's school but he dismissed them as pranks. When Amma was sixteen, the older brother was in college at Pudukottai. One day the mother phoned the older brother at the college to say that Goddess Narayani had bestowed Amma with divine powers, which have manifested and the whole town was talking about it. The older brother told his mother that it was nonsense.

Anyway, when he came back home he did not believe it and told Amma that what Amma did was a gimmick. At that time Amma was chewing a paan (beetle) leaf and told the older brother to put out his hand. The older brother refused but his mother insisted that he must take whatever is being offered to him (by the Goddess) so he put forward his palm only to receive beetle leaf spit. He was told to drink it and he did. To his astonishment, it was sweet milk and not beetle leaf spit. From that day onwards, he stopped questioning and teasing Amma.