Sai Baba

Sai Baba was indeed at Whitefield. And something was looking after us. We arrived on little tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws) at the gate of Whitefield where David simply walked in and asked for a family room for us. In half an hour we were lying on our ashram beds, recovering from an exhausting trip.

We soon found that ashram life was not for us – well certainly not for me. Though the energy and serenity that encompassed us was wonderful, you are forbidden to smoke! So daily after darshan (blessing) we used to nip over the road to Princes Café, which was far from princely, and drink wonderful Indian coffee and I could have a cigarette – several actually.

Our room had a laundry area with a massive marble slab on which I imagined I’d perch thinking I could puff on my illicit fag and blow the forbidden smoke out over the surrounding wall, onto the street, which was directly next to the window. I never seemed to be successful in this. The first afternoon, I stashed my fags on this slab so that when we woke from our afternoon nap, I could have a quick puff. When I went to get them, they had disappeared along with my lovely Union Jack lighter. Monkeys had stolen them. So I resorted to Princes instead.

One night at two a.m, I suddenly felt a terrible urge to smoke. So I crept into the laundry and lit up. Suddenly a colossal honeybee swept in through a chink in the mosquito netting and buzzed erratically around the room. I cried out in surprise and the family came in to see what kind of Indian honeybee starts working at two in the morning.

On our last morning, having lost my lighter, I tried to light a cigarette with small, waxed paper Indian matches. One after another they went out. Eventually David helped me. We could hear Sai Baba’s voice on the loud speakers giving his morning talk. If you did not attend, you had to stay in your room. Eventually we had got to the last match, David struck it carefully and it ignited perfectly – but as he held it to my cigarette, the end simply dropped off and fell to the floor extinguishing itself.

Sai devotees had told us that Sai Baba controls his ashram and you stay or leave when he is ready. They were very surprised we had a room at all because Whitefield was full and people were staying in rooms in the village or coming in daily from lodgings in Bangalore. To be honest, we were so ignorant and naïve that not getting a room had never occurred to us.

They also told us to write requests to Sai Baba ‘ letters ‘ which if you were lucky he would take from you at darshan. If he took your letter, it meant that he would attend to your request. Well, I wasn’t so sure about how kindly Sai Baba felt towards me considering that on the first darshan, I had just whispered to my daughter sitting next to me that Baba reminded me of Jubba the Hut a character from Star Wars when he looked directly at me and smiled. I felt flustered and ashamed. And his eyes were full of love.

At our last darshan, we still had no requests, we really were simply observers, but he came over to us and I don’t know if he said it with words, or telepathically said it, but he indicated with his hands “Where are your letters? I will take your letters.”

So whenever we got into a tight spot – and there were many in India and later, – we wrote letters and had the faith that he would sort the problem out. Some solutions were truly speedy.

The huge crowds of people that collect to get a glimpse of Baba, to ask him constantly to sort out their troubles, to touch his feet, or the bottom of his robe, to receive vibhuti (Sai Baba’s materialised white ash) or other gifts from him, or simply crave to see him in a private interview, saddened me. At my very first sight of him, I was filled with an overwhelming compassion for him – he seemed imprisoned by his devotees – or so it seemed to me. I suspect the nourishment flows both ways.

I did not see the Anti Christ. I did not see Satan incarnate. I did not see a Magician and charlatan. We were unaware of the things Sai Baba has now been accused of. I did see a tiny aging man who seemed full of humour and fun, with a mop of tousled hair, dressed in the slimmest orange robe, gliding through the crowds and washing them all with the love in his eyes and the largest turquoise aura I have ever seen. His influence on me was to lift me into the feeling of inner bliss that Sheela had gone on about for the past year and which I had experienced briefly when my head exploded.