Think beyond sex. Think beyond love... at least human love. Love, much misunderstood and over exposed though it is, exists.

Love is a connection, a bond that transcends the sexual, the materialistic and the calculations of practical logic to translate into relationships that defy conventional norms. This Valentine's Day, Femina celebrates these unusual passions of the mind

"MEETING HER WAS LIKE FALLING IN LOVE FOREVER."
I have never met The Mother. She died long before I was born. However, the first time I 'really' got a glimpse, both of her character and of an abstract vision we call 'love', was during a windy evening on the promenade at Pondicherry.

At dusk, we were sitting against the backdrop of the Bay of Bengal as the sun entertained us with a spectacular display of defiant colours before it reluctantly beat a retreat.

As the burnt caramels and purples merged with the horizon, I asked Veenapani Chawla what The Mother was like; what made her decide to stay on in Pondicherry?

And she said, "Meeting her was like falling in love forever."

The simplicity of this answer contrasted with the cascade of emotions that ran through her face in that single moment - from passion, to devotion, to delight, to affection, to caring, to infatuation, and finally, to a sense of the sublime. That evening, she spoke into the night about this 'love' affair that has rooted her in Pondicherry ever since. It is still so pure and real in her mind... none of the passions that arise today from commerce, political issues, rights being fought or religion. This love she spoke about had no agenda.

The Mother has both humbled and intrigued me since that evening. It is rare to find people who are still so loved long after they have died, and who continue to be so deeply unique that they cannot be replaced or duplicated. I can only suppose it's because their 'love' lives on timelessly as their real legacy and in the spirit and human examples of people who are all in some way similarly unique and special because of this love they have 'seen' with or through The Mother.

And the greatest tribute to her memory is that people like Veenapani, and Jhumurdi, (a teacher at the Pondicherry Ashram School who was brought up as a young girl by The Mother), are able to reflect the soul of The Mother and pass this extraordinary sense of love to complete strangers who may never have known or cared otherwise... like me.
By Meenakshi Doctor

THE SNAKE CHARMER
Many people ask me what started my fascination for snakes. My mother tells me that I have been chasing them ever since I could crawl on my knees. The start may have been even further back, when a snake dancing on my cradle cast a spell on me while I slept peacefully in it.

"My actual work with snakes though started only when I took a year off from school to travel around India, learning snake handling at the Pune snake park, spider rearing at Madras, and croc handling under Romulus Whitaker at the croc bank in Mammallapuran.

"When I returned to Goa in 1996, I wrote my first book, 'Free From School'. I also started snake catching in my village. Within a couple of years, I started getting calls from many villages in Bardez. I would attend a snake call armed with my boots, a stick with a big hook at the end and a gym bag. The caught snake would then be released back into the wild. This would usually mean my own backyard! "Though I have caught over 400 snakes in the last eight years, my excitement over every snake call still remains as fresh as it was in the beginning.

Every call for me is like a surprise present unopened! And if it turns out to be a poisonous snake, then it's even better!

"My interest in snakes also took me to Thailand where I went specially to handle the king cobra - the largest venomous snake in the world. The experience was quite scary though, as the king cobra I was handling was well over 14 feet!

"I continue to write in Goa on snakes since my subject makes it easy as most people know next to nothing about snakes and any information I have to share with readers is interesting for them.
As told to Ethel Da Costa