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Posted on: Sept 22, 2015

SAI STREE SHAKTI SERIES - 07

Part 04

Annapoorna: The Divine Mother Who Nourishes our Body, Mind and Soul
Our Kitchen Aunty, Mrs. Indu Singh

Where on earth can one find a boarding school whose students long for their hostel's tasty food, even decades after graduating? But then, where on earth can we find a school that has a living Goddess working day and night, even in her late 80s to ensure that the meals prepared are cooked and garnished with purest love, and are worthy of being offered to God as prasadam!

Early in the morning, when Mrs. Indu Singh, the dearly loved Kitchen Aunty steps into the kitchen of the Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary School, she transforms meal preparations into a sacred activity. She cooks four meals for the thousand little devas that Bhagawan has entrusted her to feed. Hence every menu has to be balanced, nutritious, delicious and made with love, dedication and impeccable cleanliness.

Being methodical, organised, systematic, patient and a great manager have helped Kitchen aunty to serve the 40,000,000 or forty million (and counting) meals she has churned out over the past 33 years in her Master's service.

Her challenge is to ensure the daily nutritional requirements of growing school children are met within a pure vegetarian menu, while ensuring each dish is appetising to the students' palates. The culturally diverse student body from all parts of India and abroad requires her to walk a fine line in managing each day's menu. This she achieves by balancing food preparations from both North and South India with regional delicacies thrown in. And she pays special attention to foreign students unaccustomed to spicy Indian food. She is known to go out of her way to prepare menus for sick children, customising them according to the child's taste and health needs.

As per Bhagawan Baba's instructions to her, Kitchen Aunty picks only the highest quality grains, pulses, vegetables, fruits, spices and other ingredients which are thoroughly cleaned and washed before going into any recipe. She is a stickler for hygiene and ensures that every pot and pan and dishcloth is washed spotlessly clean after every meal in a humungous kitchen that serves several thousand meals daily.

Over the decades she has trained her team of cooks and kitchen helpers to aspire for the highest possible standards of efficiency, taste and cleanliness. She sets such an example herself that the younger staff in the kitchen emulate her dedication naturally. Her warmth and love extends not only to the food she offers her Lord through the thousand little mouths she feeds four times daily, but also to the kitchen staff who have found in her a true well-wisher. She takes a keen interest in their families' welfare and has supported them in numerous ways to acquire education and employable skills.

Originally from Rajasthan, till early 1980's Mrs. Indu Singh used to guide Sai devotees from Bangalore to Prasanthi Nilayam. That is when her interactions with Bhagawan Baba led her to joining His school and taking charge as Kitchen Aunty at His school. Ever since she has lived in the ashram and is an early riser because she is very particular about her personal time with God every morning. Like a disciplined soldier, she completes her sadhana routine and then goes to the school to start her offering of hard work, creativity, thoughtfulness in the leaping fires of the school kitchen.

Over the past three decades and more, she has fed over 33 thousand students, including 4 of her grandchildren who studied here.

Bhagawan's infinite personal interactions with her in the darshan line about each day's menu and the nutritional well-being of His children have honed her sensitivities to His expectations of her. SathyaSree Goswami remembers her as a person whose work was closest to Swami’s heart because at every darshan He would ask us the size of idli, and the number of idlis we ate. Kitchen aunty would then be given instructions humorously and the next day onwards aunty would have to ensure that we ate how much Swami told us to eat. Next day, Swami would lovingly but sternly (with a smile hidden) tell Aunty not to force us to overeat as that would make us pakodas or dunnapottus.

“Till date, that is 25 years later, most of the alumni yearn for the hostel rasam and food. When my daughter was a student there, I would sneak into school for a soul satisfying lunch. I don't know anywhere else where former boarding school children miss their hostel food but we the children of Kitchen Aunty do and always will!”

Shalini Krishnan remembers Kitchen Aunty as the person who was always on her toes for she was always answerable to Swami. She recalls how “Swami would walk in to our hostel unannounced and ask to see the breakfast/lunch of the day. Indu aunty had to rush and bring the items of the day on a plate for Swami to check and taste. Indu aunty continues to maintain the same standards to this day. She never lets us go without food on our current visits to the primary school. To be honest I look forward to eating at the Primary School whenever I visit Parthi and do so without fail.”

Geethanjali Gokarn remembers Kitchen Aunty working away behind the scenes to ensure that the dining hall was always ready on time, four times daily, to receive Bhagawan's children with rumbling, hungry stomachs. “She always was busy and seemed to have so little time for anything else. When Swami came to school and sometimes had a morsel from the plate that she offered, I remember her coaxing Swami gently to eat a few more morsels and try the other items from the plate served to Him. And Swami would say that He couldn’t eat in front of the children and this went on for a while. It is a pure delight even to remember those days! Her dedication towards her work and the pleasure it gave her to serve Swami is what is sustaining her enthusiasm to keep doing what she does with such joy” she says.

Kitchen Aunty is a true example of how to make others feel loved and cared for. For Bhavani Munshi, “Kitchen Aunty has always been a beacon of love, ensuring that every student is well taken care of. I still dream of school sambhar, tamarind rasam, rajma, and so much more. Her love is evident in the way she manages the kitchen and still invites alumni in for a quick meal, to which I can never say no.”

Always dressed in immaculate white saree, with her stylish haircut, she is the quintessential modern day Annapoorna, the Goddess of food for her students as she handles the hostel kitchen as a mother does at home. For Mallika Chandrashekhar, that is what made the difference and “hostel felt more like home than a place away from home.”

Kitchen Aunty taught her student Richa Churamani, now a mother of two boys, several important lessons - “that cooking or running the kitchen is a thankless but the most important job in a family; how to be a 'smiling Annapoorna' of the house and that the kitchen should be open for all.”

Like an approachable and indulgent grandmother, students find in Kitchen Aunty a person who they can share their food issues very comfortably. One year, when Sai Amrita Kaul suffered from considerable loss of appetite due to illness, the matter did not go unnoticed by Kitchen Aunty. Amrita remembers vividly how “Kitchen Aunty noticed this and called me over to find out what was going on. I explained that I really loved the food, but I just did not feel like eating even though I wanted to. Kitchen Aunty listened carefully and asked me if I had any preferences, but I wasn’t really being very helpful. Seeing that I was clearly unwell, Aunty decided to have a special serving of papaya and coconut water for me every day so that my body could heal and also tolerate the medication that I was taking at the time. And so, each day during our morning break, I would meet with Kitchen Aunty to have my special snack and sweet little conversation about silly pleasantries that always made me smile. Every single time I said thank you, Aunty would promptly reply “don’t thank me. Swami has given this for you”. This daily affirmation turned the simple food into prasadam that healed my body and also gave me the immense blessing of getting to know and appreciate Kitchen Aunty for her immense love and dedication towards us, the students, and in turn, Swami blessed each morsel of food in our school to not only feed our bodies, but also our souls.”

Suvarna has a special memory etched in her mind. “I remember once on the day of Prize distribution, when Swami had come to school and was distributing prizes and delivering His Divine Discourse, Kitchen aunty was still in the kitchen making sure our special lunch that day was not overlooked! We were not even aware of this till Swami, so pleased with the three aunties, wanted to shower His special blessings on them by materializing three gold chains, one for each of them. That was when we all realized that Kitchen aunty was busy downstairs. Swami was so moved and praised aunty's dedication to her duty! Needless to say, Swami patiently waited till Kitchen aunty came up to the Prayer Hall and received the gold chain from Swami” she says.

Most importantly, Kitchen Aunty and her staff cook the food with the name of the Lord on their lips and His form in their hearts. Every morsel of such blessed food, when partaken, blesses the mind, body and soul of the young students as prasadam from Bhagawan.

Today, Mrs. Indu Singh, our Kitchen Aunty sets the gold standard in nourishing the bodies, minds and soul of Bhagawan's most priceless property – His darling students.

Alumni, Sai School, Ooty & Prasanthi Nilayam

Radio Sai Team

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