“We have helped in building 450 Sai temples in India.” When I visit Shirdi, I feel very active.” Sumitra lost her mother recently. “Sai Baba came into my life when I was very young,” said a middle-aged woman called Sumitra, who had come from Lucknow with her friends. A god who, as a human, ate from the same plate as stray dogs, smoked chillum, wrestled with pahalwans, wrested money from devotees, threw tantrums and stones at them, but healed their broken minds and bodies. The devotees had come from far and near to seek the blessing of their god, who had lived here for years like an eccentric mendicant under a neem tree and in an abandoned mosque. 'I see my mother in Baba,' said Sumitra, who was bereaved recently (extreme right) | Janak Bhat 'We believe Baba cancelled my husband’s transfer orders, so that I can come to Shirdi every week,” said Deshpande (extreme left, above). Passing the stage, we joined the tail of a long queue that snaked towards one of the six gates of the temple, the line moving and stopping in time with the chime of puja bells emanating from the temple.įorever grateful: Reshmi Deshpande's husband received three transfer orders. The centenary programmes, inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind a year ago, will conclude on October 19. Up a narrow path to the Sai Baba temple called Samadhi Mandir, a girl was singing a devotional song on a massive stage erected for the centenary of the samadhi. Hopping onto the pavement, I nearly collided with three stray dogs that were drinking milk from pots kept by an old woman who sat begging alms in front of a large photograph of Sai Baba. The rustic in a hurry was leading a camel carrying two foreign tourists on its back. In the scrum of the street, someone roughly tapped me on the back, saying “Bajula vha ” in Marathi. At rows of shops along the road, people stood absorbed in selecting photographs and statuettes of the saint-fakir who attained samadhi in 1918. The streets leading to the shrine of Sai Baba were teeming with devotees, some of them chanting a simple mantra-Om Sai Namo Nama, Jai Jai Sai Namo Nama-with every breath they inhaled. Asudden gust greeted us as we arrived in Shirdi, the perennially busy pilgrim town in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.

Sai baba shirdi original mandir