How Akka Mahadevi’s Vachana freed me

Six years ago, as I was approaching my 40s, I bought a house. My first house.

Until 2019, I had never lived in a house owned by my family. It had became a lost luxury for three generations. Even on the day of registration and after I moved in, it hadn’t truly sunk in that I owned a house, until a thunder struck. Literally.

One evening, a fierce thunderstorm struck. The sky darkened, the wind howled, and heavy rain lashed against the window. I couldn’t see anything outside. I sat reading something on my phone, when suddenly my wife and mother-in-law shouted for me to come to the bedroom immediately. Panicked, I ran in to find the water gushing through the window like a flood. I live on the third floor of the building, so my brain couldn’t comprehend the sight of a flood at that height. Heavy wind forced the water through gaps in the sliding window, and it poured in through the rails.

Realising that the window was not closed properly, I tried to close it, but it didn’t budge. The aluminium frame of the window hadn’t been serviced in a decade, and the rolling wheels were stuck. I had to use all my strength to force it shut. In the chaos, I asked my father to turn on another light. The moment he touched the switch, the entire switch board cover fell off. It had been broken for years, barely hanging on. When I went to the bathroom, I found that the brand-new LED bulb had stopped working. That was my breaking point.

Everything that I had ignored about the house since I moved in went wrong in that one fateful night. I got stuck in a whirlpool of self pity. I was cursing myself. Why had I bought a secondhand house? Why had I spent my life savings on this broken house? I felt conned. I felt stupid. I felt I had made a mistake. That I wasted money by buying this worthless house… and on and on it went.

The next day, I went to see an electrician and asked him to come and fix a few things at home. On the way, as I was drowning in stress and feeling depressed, I rode my scooter with a throbbing headache. Suddenly, a miracle happened. I heard Sanjay singing in my head, the Akka Mahadevi’s Kannada vachana:

“Bettada mellondu maneya maadi, mrugangalige anjidode entayya?”

(After building a house on the mountain, how can you be afraid of wild animals around it?)

At that moment, I was instantly relieved from all my stress, pain, anger and self-pity. I was in tears. It felt like an utterance from the heavens. I pulled my scooter to a stop. Every single cell in my body felt weightless, I was floating. I was freed from the burden of possession. I felt as though I don’t possess my own body, as if I was free from all the pain. I can’t fully explain the physical, transcendental experience. The right Tamil word is ‘Mathuram’, a sweetness beyond words.

My favourite author, Jeyamohan once spoke about ‘Aaptha Vakya’ — wisdom from the great ones that arrives when you need it most and stays with you for life. “Bettada mellondu” became my Aaptha Vakhya that day. While the essence of the original song is slightly different, for me it meant differently.

Why should one brood about the decision made in the past? Why should one lament when the ‘now’ unfolds in front of us? All the thoughts i had the previous night of “I made a mistake, I wasted money, I this, I that…”, it all completely vanished. Ego was at the centre of every single emotion I had suffered through.

This song momentarily suspended that thought and made me free of ego, and the illusion of possession.

That line has returned to me many times since, pulling me back, every time I was about to slip into that same bottomless pit.

Before you jump to conclusions, no I am not an enlightened one nor a yogi. I am still a flawed human being and I’m not going to give away this house to anyone for free. But I am no longer the same person who suffered under the weight of my own ego.

Like Akka Mahadevi says in her poem, I remind myself, “samAdhAniyAgirabEku”. After all, I built a house on a mountain, why should I be scared of animals?

Vachana by Akka Mahadevi –

“Bettada mellondu maneya maadi, mrugangalige anjidode entayya? (After building a house on the mountain, how can you be afraid of wild animals around it?)

Samudrada tadiyalondu maneya maadi, noreteregalige anjidode entayya? (After building a house on the seashore, how can you be afraid of the roaring waves?)

Santeyolagondu maneya maadi, shabdakke nacidode entayya? (After building a house in a marketplace, how can you be troubled by the noise?)

Chennamallikajunadeva kelayya (Oh! Lord Chenna Mallikarjuna, listen!)

Lokadolage huttida balika, stuti-nindegalu bandare (Once born into this world, if praise and criticism come your way,)

Manadalli kopava talade samadhaniyagirabeku. (Face them without anger, and remain at peace.

Akka Mahadevi was a poet from the early 12th century. She belonged to the Lingayat tradition, a social reformist movement within the Bhakti tradition that considered all human beings equal.

P.S. Thanks to my friend Bhavani Rao for editing this.