A Godman yields to old age
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: April 27 2011 -

SATHYA SAI Baba, a spiritual guru famed all over India died on April 24, 2011 at 7.40 am. He was around 85 years old and he died of multiple organ failure. He had been hospitalised at Prashantigram at Puttaparthi for nearly a month before the good Lord decided it was time for him to take the Long Journey.

Sai Baba was born as Sathyanarayana Raju the child of Eswaramma and Peddarenkamma Raju Ratnakaram in the village of Puttaparthi in the then Madras Presidency of British India on November 23, 1926.

In May 1940 he calmly announced to his family 'I am Sai Baba', referring to the Sai Baba of Shirdi, a famous saint in the late 19th and early 20th century and who had died eight years before Sathya was born.

Sathya's father was strongly inclined to cane him, for reasons best known to himself. Sathya Sai Baba had declared that he would die at the age of 96, he narrowly failed to make the mark by a mere 11 years. Nobody is perfect.

Sathya Sai Baba's reputation as an avatar, god man and miracle worker started on modest lines of realising from thin air vibhuti (holy ash) and small objects like rings, necklaces and watches. His devotees promptly defined them as signs of dignity, while sceptics with alacrity termed it as conjuring tricks.

What Sathya did and cannot be denied of, is that he attracted the predominantly upper middle class and the urban section of Indian society who had the most wealth, education, and exposure to western ideas. Good thing that, and it was a wise father who ultimately stayed his hand from flogging Sathya.

The versatile Sathya Raju then successfully persuaded enormously rich devotees to empty their fat wallets to establish schools, colleges, hospitals and other charitable institutions. To the common person he had become a god.

And this phenomenon is not confined just to India, there is an estimated 1200 Sathya Sai Baba Centres spread over in 114 countries. This god man actually moved the hearts of millions and millions of Indians.

He was nothing like that spiritual guru from India in the United States, who in an apocryphal story, had quarrelled with a Korean reverend over the proprietary of gurudom, and in a tacit agreement with the reverend had agreed to seek the judgement of a Texas court to decide over their claims to divinity.

In the story, one is made to believe that the loser promptly dash over to Mexico where such issues are tolerated as long as they do not interrupt the nation wide fascination for siestas.

In Manipur hundreds, if not thousands of devotees will condole Sathya Raju's death. He was literally worshipped by many. Our commiserations to them.

But then, even gods realise the time when to take the Long Rest. Or as in the Dennis the Menace cartoons, George Wilson explains to a sobbing Dennis bereaving a pet insect or worm, one is not sure, 'Man or worm, your time is up, when your time is up'.

So we say don't worry, be happy, India is a land of Sai Babas. They come and go.