Baba's Help

Baba's Help



When people struggling to run the family with their meager income, how can they dream for own house? For many such people, their ambition will just remain as a day dream for ever. But for Saidevotees, R.B. Purandhare's experience of having own house is very interesting and informative; one can realize Baba's Love towards their devotees' welfare.

Purandhare was a poor clerk and had no worldly financial ambitions. He was living as a tenant in some house and had to face a lot of trouble in consequence. Now we will take the first remarkable benefit Baba conferred on him. When we love a child we love to adorn it's body with fine clothes and ornaments etc., When Baba, with His wonderful powers loved Purandhare, He could not endure the idea of this good fellow being ill-treated by all those whom he had to contact in occupying a rented house. So, the first thing that struck Baba was that He should make this poor clerk own a bungalow of his own. The idea that a clerk on Rs. 35 monthly salary could purchase a plot of land and build a bungalow on it was so queer that Purandhare could not think of it. Yet, very early in his contact with Baba, Baba told him definitely, `Bhav, you had better buy a plot of land and build a bungalow on it'.

Purandhere naturally thought it was beyond practical politics, and he could not act upon it. Baba was impatient. When Purandhare went to Him again and again without building the house. Baba got provoked and even threw stones at him. Baba told others, for instance, Bade Baba, to go and tell this R.B. Purandhere, whom He called `Ram Bhav', `Ask that man whether he thinks me to be a man or a beast? Why does he not act on my words?' When Bade Baba came and asked Purandhare and found out what Baba's advice was, he also thought that it was not a question of practical politics for this Rs.35 clerk to buy land and build a bungalow on it.

Similarly, Baba complained to Nana Chandorkar and Kaka Dixit about this instransigent devotee and told Nana to ask that fellow whether he thought that Baba was a man or a beast. When Nana Chandorkar went to Purandhare and asked him what Baba referred to, Purandhare frankly told him the situation. Then Nana went back at once to Baba's feet and said, `This matter is beyond his means; if you so desire, we will build a house for him and give it to him'. Baba's reply was most remarkable, he said, `I do not want anybody else to pay for it'. There is a lot of money of this Ram Bhav in My Sirkar and I alone will enable him to build. Nana could not understand how this Sirkar was going to work, and there the matter seemed to end. But Baba kept on digging into Purandhare.

At last it occurred to Purandhare that he might get at least a site. There were plenty of sites available at Bandra. A site in a place far away from popular quarters would be fairly cheap. Anyhow even that price was unavailable. At once that friend instead of saying anything else came and placed the money before him so that he could at once take the plot. Purandhare asked whether he should execute a document for the money and what interest he should pay. That friend declined to have any document or any terms. He simply said, `Go on; build, Let every other thing wait'. Purandhare then bought the land and secured the title deed for the land. So he had taken one step in the direction in which Baba wanted him to move. But it is one thing to have a site and a totally different thing to have a bungalow built on it.

Those who have built bungalows know to their cost that actual building far exceeds the original estimate. Purandhare was faced with further difficulties. He did not build. But when he went up to Baba without building it, Baba got angry with him and found fault with him for everything and for nothing. The conduct of Baba seemed to be to others most unaccountable. For instance, on the Ram Navami celebration of Baba's day, Purandhare and a friend of his were commissioned to regulate the huge crowds that were flowing towards Baba to take darshan. Purandhare did his best to reduce the force on the confluence towards Baba. But Baba got angry and said, `You fellow, you did not give Me peace whether I am in Mosque or elsewhere. You allow these people to rush at Me and give Me no peace'. This was obviously an unreasonable remark, for Purandhare had done his very best. The crowds in those days were so huge that procession of the darshan seekers would extend for many furlongs from the mosque where Baba sat. It is not possible for one or two fellows to control such a huge crowd; Still Baba got angry and severelythreatened him with punishment of all sorts.

Baba said that He would even bury him in the Mosque at His own feet with His own hands. The way in which Purandhare put up with this apparently unreasonable treatment is evidence of the strong love that was growing in His heart. Love endureth all things.

Love does not blame. Love does not find fault. So he quietly endured without offering a word of explanation for all this treatment. Then Baba treated him in a different way. Having exhausted the threats and abuses, Baba inflicted on him, by His own mysterious means, a severe neuralgic headache, which Purandhare went on enduring, nights and days.

Once Bade Baba came and asked Baba to give Purandhare some palliative, Baba simply said, `That fellow would not listen to me'. Then Bade Baba said, `He is working heart and soul in your service. So kindly give him some treatment'. No treatment given to Purandhare would give him relief. It was not Baba's idea to give him relief till he finished his building. So all the time he stayed at Shirdi, he suffered intense pain. He was asked to go back his home and carry on his work. Purandhare went home fully convinced that this headache inflicted by Baba would only cease, as Baba said, after he built the house.

How is he to get the money? It occurred to him that the office lent to the establishment some sums for building purposes for building a tenement. So he applied and got from his office a sum of Rs. 500 and got ready some materials like bricks, etc., for building the bungalow. He was too unwell to look to the building. So his brother went up and looked after the building work. Quick building is jerry building and is bound to have serous defects. The wada or bungalow that was put up in the course of a month by Purandhare's brother was built so hastily that in a short time, in a year or so, there were cracks on the walls. It must be remembered that the building was built on agricultural land without any settu or hard foundation. Evidently the hasty foundations laid for this wada were insufficient to keep the walls together and in perpendicular position. So cracks developed. Anyhow it was built rapidly in a month, and Purandhare with his orthodox ideas wanted to do Vastupuja himself on the building before occupying it. So he went up and did Vastupuja and strangely enough, only after he went and occupies this bungalow, his neuralgic headache ceased.

Here is a strange instance of Baba's Love forcing a man to get a bungalow when he could hardly afford it. There were other defects besides this jerry building. The site was a lonely site in the midst of a waste. There were no neighboring houses to give one safety of company. Purandhare was simply afraid of that, with young wife and child at home, things were not safe, especially when he went away to his office. Baba told him however, `Don't you be afraid. I am thereguarding your wife all the time'. This was found to be true, because, though Baba's form was not always seen, no danger befell this family living a solitary life in the midst of a waste.



(Courtesy: Life of Sai Baba, His Highness Poojyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji, All India Sai Samaj (Regd), Chennai-4)