SHIRDI SAI BABA IN KARNATAKA

Devotees are often in the habit of falling into the trap of disbelief and loss of faith. It is during these times that Baba manifests Himself and redeems his devotees. The following is a great example of the same during very recent times.

Rajesh was living with his wife, Mangala and two young daughters - Harshita aged 14 years and Reema aged 9 years - n Mallasandra, somewhere between Tumkur and Gubbi. He was a Kannada teacher in Aryan High School in Tumkur. Rajesh had a farm and a farm house nearly 8 kms from Mallasandra. Off late, he found out that the farm produce was being stolen by someone unknown to him. So, he decided to move into the farm house and take care of the farm. The farm house was an excuse of a house. It had bare brick walls, without any plastering and a zinc sheet for a roof. The cooking gas was absent and all the cooking had to be done by burning the firewood. Rajesh used to commute by public transport to Tumkur – his place of work. Photo above shows Rajesh's house.

Life went on uneventfully till that September morning in 2007. It was a cold winter morning, and the time was nearly 5.00 am. The farm house had a wooden compound and a wicket gate. At that time, a simple looking fakir opened the gate, entered the verandah of the house and sat there. Rajesh’s wife, who got up early everyday, saw the fakir entering through the gate and was terrified. The farm house was a lonely structure there and as far as the eye could see, there was no other house anywhere near. There was no approach road to the farm house and the house could be reached only by walking through the fields. Because of the loneliness, she was scared of any unknown attacks and woke up her husband. By the time Rajesh could come out, the fakir was sitting on a stone and mumbling something to himself. When he saw Rajesh, he asked for some rotis as he was hungry. He indicated his stomach and asked for food. As the morning was cold, Rajesh’s wife thought that it would be good to offer some hot tea and then think of food. The fakir agreed for the tea and waited. When both Rajesh and his wife went inside to prepare tea, the fakir, meanwhile went to the farm and began making some gestures with his fingers in the air. He had the tea and then asked for rotis. He took out a packet of lemon rice, which was steaming hot. By the time anyone comes from the road to the house, any hot item would have become cold. Even after lapse of so much of time, the steam was coming out. Rajesh thought that that was a miracle. The fakir told him that the lemon rice was for his lunch and he wanted something to eat immediately. Rajesh’s wife, however, was hesitating to prepare the rotis. The fakir saw this and told them that as they did not want to prepare the rotis, he was going and then got up and left. While he had gone a few steps, Rajesh’s wife felt some compassion and asked her husband to give some money to the fakir so that he could eat something at the nearby hotel. Rajesh ran, patted the fakir on the back and gave him a five rupee coin and asked him to eat something in a nearby hotel. The fakir smiled and said, “Baba will bless you”.

That night Rajesh had a dream. The fakir who came in the morning appeared in the dream and said that he was none other than the Sai Baba of Shirdi, and that Rajesh had failed to recognize him. He also told that He had made markings in his farm for the construction of a temple and asked Rajesh to build a temple for Him. Rajesh thought that it was a very crude joke as he had no money at all. He told the same to Baba. Then Baba told him, “Why do you worry when I am here!” Next morning, the first thing Rajesh did was to check his farm. There were clear white markings on the farm, indicating where the idol should be placed and the outer boundary of the temple. After a few days, an unknown gentleman gave Rajesh Rs.40, 000 for the construction of the temple. Rajesh was a typical villager and did not know anything about either Sai Baba or how to go about the process of building a temple. He was a simple man who knew only the basics of maintaining himself and his family. He was totally perplexed about what was happening to him. When he told this to Baba, He appeared once again in Rajesh’s dream and gave him the name of a mason in a neighboring town. Rajesh went there as instructed and found that no one existed by that name. Finally he asked someone about the mason. The person was surprised and asked Rajesh how he got this name. This name was the pet name of the mason, as he was called by his relatives. Rajesh then came to know that he was talking to the mason himself. The mason was happy that Baba had referred his name and told Rajesh that he would build the temple without charging anything for labour but Rajesh should give him the materials. Thus a temple was built for Baba.