For the past three days the Indian spiritual teacher Amma has been in Granollers. A large sports centre was transformed into a place to meditate, listen to Indian sacred music, eat fantastic curry, and of course to receive darshan. Amma is known to many followers as Mother and she travels the world blessing people with an embrace. People queue for hours to kneel in front of her, lay their heads on her breast and be hugged.

 I went on the last day, cycling straight down through town.  The sports centre is at one end of the long main street and we live at the other. In the distance a mountain, rising like a massive breast with a nipple on top seemed to beckon me to meet the Mother.

On arrival I felt my usual discomfort at some of the paraphenalia of ‘spiritual’ events. The circus was in town. People dressed in white,  stalls selling over-priced jewellery, a sensation of being in a market place with pushing and jostling seemingly no different than in Granollers weekly market. One part of me expected people to be more loving and generous, not to elbow to the front of the queue or to stand chatting at the top of the stairs so you couldn’t get past. Another part of me resisted the temptation to judge and belittle. Have I come here looking for something? And if so what?

The darshan room was enormous and almost full.  People were shopping and chatting and moving about, but there was also someone else there – small and still, sitting at the front, hugging people. The queue leading up to her stretched out of the hall, every few seconds it moved forward as the hugging progressed and the flow towards Amma continued.  I watched what was happening on overhead screens where you could see Amma closeup.

Over and over again the same action. Each hug lasting about 7 seconds. She was surrounded by helpers who guided the process so that it never stopped. People queued for hours, they arrived at the front, they knelt, helpers pushed their heads down onto her chest – not always so gently it seemed and I was reminded of open-air baptisms where the face is submerged in the water.
Over and over again. I looked at books, I went and ate a wonderful masala dosa in the restaurnat, I sat and meditated in the great hall, I fell asleep for a while as I hadn’t seen the notice prohibiting sleeping in the darshan room……and each time I returned my gaze to Amma, there she was, still hugging. It was incredible how she could keep smiling and making this intense physical contact.There was something very moving about the repetition, the simplicity of the thing.
There were musicians playing, people milling around and many volunteers helping with food and tickets and guiding the long queues of people waiting for darshan. I was feeling tired and decided in the end not to go up for a hug.  It felt good to be in the room – watching the flow of people and flicking my eyes between the screen which was showing Amma as she worked, and the real Amma who was often obscured from view. The real and the virtual Amma.

I got very excited about the food and actually ate two masala dosas on the same day. It is my favourite Indian food  and I used to eat it every week in the Keralan restaurant Rasa in Stoke Newington London.  There was lassi to drink and samosas and little coconut sweets. I felt rather guilty that the food was such a highlight for me and that I didn’t queue for an embrace but after all isn’t this what mothers do? Feed you and hug you? For some reason this time I chose the food.
Final impressions
It felt good to have such an international event happening here. Granollers can feel rather conventional and stuffy so I enjoyed the exhuberance of colour and different faces, new music and spicy food. The town is a commercial centre for the region and this injection of spirituality felt important. Generally the social hub of Granollers is in the main shopping streets.  This time there were thousands of people coming together just for a hug.  And I am now thinking that next time she comes I will join the queue.