A Tribute to Ameeta K. Shah, MSc., PhD
(November 01, 1955 – August 09, 2023)
Ameeta spent most of her childhood in Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta) and New Delhi, India. She received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Child Development from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (MSUB), India, and a PhD in Early Childhood Education (ECE) from the University of Maryland at College Park, USA. She served as a teacher and professor in ECE and Teacher Education for 25 years in MSUB, and Georgia and California State Universities in the USA.
Ameeta was spiritually influenced by Swami Chinmayananda — the founder of Chinmaya Mission since her college years - which was evident through her loving heart, intelligent mind and peaceful soul. But she was a real wonder woman who fought her last 25 years with two different cancers — one of them being sacral chordoma. She faced the recurrences, treatments and physical and medical disabilities that came along with them with an indomitable willpower: “come what may." Throughout this journey, Ameeta never lost her virtues of compassion, humility, and equanimity, all of which led her to be a renunciative person with benevolence and wisdom in the last year of her life.
Ameeta was an excellent cook and a great reader of both fiction and non-fiction novels and books. She loved coloring mandala art drawings, placing thousands of jigsaw puzzle pieces together, watching movies, listening to both eastern and western music, and talking with people of all ages and backgrounds. Ameeta had a friendly personality and a gentle, caring nature. She left behind her husband, Ketan, their son, Neel, and their granddaughter, Raina.
