Balasaheb Bhate

By: Ramaswamy Seshadri

Purushottam Sakharam Bhate alias Balasaheb Bhate knew Nanasaheb Chandorkar as both of them were college friends. Shri Balasaheb Bhate was a skeptic. He did not have faith in religious and spiritual matters and was an agnostic. He was a free thinker and a habitual smoker. His concept was that he should enjoy fully every day irrespective of the next day. However, he was very efficient in his duties and was liked by the Collector who was an Englishman. He visited Shirdi in 1894 in an official capacity.

He was Mamlatdar at Kopergaon for about five years from 1904 to 1909 and had several friends who were devotees of Sai Baba. His friends were living in different places, but being Baba’s devotees, whenever they used to visit Shirdi, they had to pass through Kopergaon where they would meet their friend, Bhate. Bhate used to ask them why they were visiting a poor and worthless fakir in Shirdi even though they had a good education and thus used to scoff at them.

Once when he was camping at Rahata, he had an idea of visiting Shirdi. He first visited Shirdi in 1909. Bhate camped at Shirdi and saw Sai Baba day after day. The moment he went and saw Baba, Baba’s powers gripped him, and he could not move away from Baba and thus he stayed in the masjid for more than two hours. Baba attracted him very much. As he was earlier scoffing at the visits of his friends to Baba, he started regretting his faults, and then fear gripped his mind. He had immediately erased the earlier impression about Baba from his mind. But on the fifth day, Baba threw an ochre garment on Bhate, and then onwards he got converted and became a devotee of Baba. Bhate was a transformed man. From that day onwards Bhate did not care for earnings or work, and he only wished he should continue to be in Shirdi to do Seva to Sai Baba till his death. Baba made him stay in Shirdi for six months on leave. But he did not care to join duty even on the expiry of leave.

When Dabholkar visited Shirdi for the first time, Dabholkar doubted the necessity of having a Guru and picked up an argument with Balasaheb Bhate when they were in Sathewada. But Bhate explained at length the need to have a Guru and asserted that Guru was needed as a man was a helpless creature and that man needed Guru’s guidance to tide over the worldly problems and also attain spiritual progress.

When Bhate was on a long leave he stayed in Shirdi along with his wife and his family. He read all the religious and spiritual books like Upanishad before Baba who would occasionally offer comments on what he had read. From that time onwards, he left his post of Mamlatdar. Bhate got a pension of Rs.29/- per month without any trouble on the ground of religious melancholy. Thus, a skeptic got converted as a sanyasi and became a staunch devotee of Baba.

Balasaheb Bhate and his family lived in poverty. Bhate spent his time reading religious books. Dixit respected and liked Bhate for his spiritual commitment and his services to Sai Baba. Dixit not only educated and looked after Bhate’s children but also took care of the whole family after Bhate’s death. Bhate’s only daughter Smt. Jankibai Tambe alias Smt. Sai Mai, was full of vairagya and selflessness. She donated all her movable and immovable property to Sansthan and worked in the Sansthan as Bhojan Sevika.

Though an atheist in the beginning, Bhate was blessed by Baba directly and he became a permanent resident of Shirdi and a true Sevak of Sai. He gave up all worldly desires and spent all his time reading religious scriptures.