After three years of my first visit to Shirdi, I had the chance to go on another shirdi visit, this time with my parents. It was shortly after I finished my Shirdi Satcharitra parayana and I vividly remember the planning and everything done by me, but I don’t recollect on whether I daily prayed to baba or not. But, still it was a great trip, where we could all visit Shirdi. We also visited other places like trayambak, Aurangabad, Ellora caves and the infamous Daulatabad, the short lived capital of a Delhi Sultan. I was more curious at this point than devotional.
My most vivid memories of visiting saibaba temple were in my second year of intermediate. During this time, a friend of mine, invited me to a saibaba temple in nizamabad at a place called “Madhav nagar”. During this time, I was again at the temple listening to aarthi’s with a confounded look. I had a feeling that perhaps I’m not an avid devotee of baba as I don’t like bhajan’s and singing and perhaps I’m well suited to the vedantic approach taken by the ramakrishna matt. My poorly conceived notions were shattered when I later attended ramakrishna Aarthi’s, which were again a combination of bengali and sanskrit and this time I didn’t have a confounded look, but I have stared to enjoy the music that accompanies the vocals in the bhajans. Back to Madhavnagar, those were the days. The temple was at least 5 kms from my place and we had to ride a bicycle to get there. MadhavNagar was my place for a long time and by the grace of baba, I visited the temple many a times during my stay. I visited the temple in Scotty, in an auto, in a car and if I had the means, even in a helicopter. Hmm, jokes apart, I don’t think I ever walked to the temple from my place as it would have been quite a walk.
During this time, I realized that Baba was actually listening to my prayers and I could get angry with him and I could like a spoiled child, throw my tantrums and get things done. I remember asking for some high marks in subjects, getting things done etc and in general praying for things that would give you comfort and convenience. I recall an incident when we were coming back from tirupathy and we were waiting at the bus station. I became cranky and I started saying to baba that if the bus doesn't; come in ten minutes, I will stop worshipping him. And behold! within the prescribed time, there was a bus standing in front of us and that too a deluxe bus to our destination.
Before I joined engineering, I had the good fortune of meeting a baba devotee called, “mallanna sai”. He used to visit the dilsukhnagar saibaba temple every thursday and my cousin had the habit of visiting the madhyana aarthi. Thats how the aarthi’s got demystified for me. As we visited the temple every thursday, during a period of three months, I got familiarized with the tune, the lyrics and I could slowly memorize the aarthis. This great devotee used to dress in saffron robe and was a devotee of baba and guru dattatreya. I had the fortune of sitting by his side and he blessed me. He gave me a picture, a calendar that by his grace, is still in my pooja room in US after 25 years! He once put a garland upon my neck as a blessing. My ego and my vanity made me feel special and he never repeated that again as he could see that my soul wasn’t ready to handle such special favors, I guess. His blessings and the blessings of baba have definitely cut the glacial ego of mine to size, but there are still traces and I don’t know whether they are remnants of once gigantic mountains or the tip of the iceberg with a huge mountain submerged in my consiciousness and waiting to show up.
Ah, mother be glorious! I can recall another great devotee whose darshan I received on my trip to chennai before engineering. She was an old woman who was a devotee of baba and my aunt took me to their place to get her blessings. I was writing my TCET exam (after EAMCET and before KCET and IIT) and she blessed me. I didn’t score great marks in that exam but I was lucky to get her blessings. Ah, I must have asked baba very adamantly that I should somehow get into some CET and so that my life could get SET, but not a day goes by where I don’t repent about taking such a short sighted approach to career. There were so many other possibilities and yet I had to set my sight on this CET nonsense and become a computer engineer. Ah!
I must have read satcharitra several times during this time because in one of my trips I was just chanting the “Sadanimba vrikshasya” sloka in my mind. It was again related to buying some books for that god forbidden EAMCET exams. We decided to go on a train and that train took a total of 8 hours to cover 160 kms! During this time, I chanted the sloka umpteen times and it helped me avoid the mental torture of sitting in a crowded, slow moving train! Again, on the night before my EAMCET exam, I was engrossed in a book about baba’s devotees and left the worries about mathematical equations and organic chemistry to the omnipotent baba. That was a wise move, but then again, the shortsightedness overtook me when I was fervently praying to baba to give me a good score in my EAMCET exam while waiting for my aunt at a railway station, just before her US trip.
But, still these days were full of being pampered by baba and getting all the things, nah most of the things I wanted. Truth to be told, I miss those days of being pampered by baba. Imagine, the creator of the worlds, the supreme and advanced soul, whose power is seen across galaxies, running hurriedly to satisfy the whimsical wishes of this tiny human! I don’t think it has got anything to do with me than with the small devotion of mine that was actually stirred by him. Ah, like a cute little infant, whose cry makes the mother scamper towards her.
To be continued.
