Hari Sitaram Dixit alias Kakasaheb Dixit was one of the Ankita child of Sai Baba. He was a perfect devotee of Sai Baba. The less written it is better about Dixit. Dixit was instrumental in many things. To mention a few, he was one of the devotees who was adamant to bury Sai Baba’s mortal remains in the Samadhi Mandir. He was also instrumental in setting up the Shirdi Sansthan Trust. We are giving a brief introduction about Kaka as Sai Baba lovingly called him.
Mr. Hari Sitaram alias Kakasaheb Dixit was born in 1864 A.D., in a Vadnagara Nagar – Brahmin-family, at Khandwa (C.P). His primary education was done at Khandwa, Hinganghat, and secondary education at Nagpur. He came to Bombay for higher education and studied first in the Wilson College and then in the Elphinstone College. Before 1909 A.D., Sai Baba’s name was not familiar to Kakasaheb, but after that he soon became a great devotee of Sai Baba.. While he was staying at Lonavla, he happened to see his old friend. Mr. Nanasaheb Chandorkar. Both spent some time, in talking about many things. Kakasaheb described to him, how when he was boarding a train in London, he met with an accident, in which his foot slipped and was injured. Hundreds of remedies gave him no relief. Nanasaheb then told him that if he wished to get rid of the pain and lameness of his leg, he should go to his Sadguru-Sai Baba. He also gave him all the particulars of Sai Baba and mentioned to him Sai Baba’s dictum “I draw to Me My man from far off, or even across the seven seas, like a sparrow with a string fastened to its feet.” He also made it clear to him that if he be not Baba’s man, he would not be attracted to Him and given a darshan. Kakasaheb was pleased to hear all this, and said to Nanasaheb that he would go to Baba, see Him and pray to Him to cure not so much his lame leg, but bring round his lame, fickle mind and give him eternal Bliss.
Kaka constructed his own wada in Shirdi which is called the Dixit Wada which is opposite to Gurusthan and at present a Medical dispensary is being run in Dixit Wada. Kakasaheb Dixit started the Saileela Masik or Sai Leela Magazine in 1923.
Shri. Dixit maintained a diary in Marathi and recorded therein the incidents that he heard about or saw when he was at Shirdi. This diary is the first great source of information that we have for Baba’s life at Shirdi. He is another person who kept a diary apart from Dada Saheb Khaparde which proves to be a good source of history. An attempt is made to translate the Dixit Diary from Marathi to English.
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