Simplest of Circumstances

by Sreeranjini and Keerthika
Thursday, September 1, 2016

Sometimes life’s most beautiful experiences occur in the simplest of circumstances. This is what happened when we were in the village of Komalikudi, Kerala and the grandmothers of the tribal community surprised us.

We travelled there in our jobs as Amrita SeRVe staff. We were with a team of seven Amrita University students who were participating in our student internship programme.

We were hosted in the home of Thathi, a village elder, and she helped us a lot in terms of food, lodging and motherly care. Then Thathi told us that her friends from the village would also like to meet us.

After two days they all came at night, but were very shy to interact. We did our best to show them due respect and make them feel comfortable with us. We made tea for them because it was cold in the evening and they were even shivering. After some time, they seemed to relax and suddenly the beautiful event happened.

Thathi and her friends started telling us about their culture and traditions, values that are generations old. Then upon encountering our open ears,  they decided to sing and dance one of their traditional songs. The dance is called Kummiyadi and is performed at functions like marriage.

For us, the most amazing aspect was that the villagers took us that closely into their hearts and community.