Mrs. Prathibha has launched a magazine on Lord Sai Baba of Shirdi. This is her inaugural magazine for which she requested me to write an article on any incident/miracle of Lord Sai Baba experienced by me.
I am not a writer, but would like to share my experience about this supernatural event when Lord Sai Baba visited our home at Indira Niwas (Kurla) in year 1954. I was merely 5yrs old and whatever memories I am going to share the events as they unfolded that night.
Keshav alias Annasaheb Gawankar, my father first met Lord Sai Baba in January 1918. Born on April 28, 1906, in Arnala fishing village of Vasai, around 40 km northwest of Mumbai, when Keshav was seven years old, he suffered from acute pain in the chest and fever. In those days, there were no medications except for surgery.
A neighbor, Yeshwantrao Galwankar, who was a devotee of Sai Baba, advised the distraught family to repose faith in Sai Baba and await his ‘Leela’. Keshav’s aunt, Thamabai, vowed that if he was cured, she would offer a packet of pedhas (sweets prepared by boiling milk) to Sai Baba. The very next day, Keshav was miraculously cured and continued with his studies in a Marathi school. Just about 100 years ago, in January 1918, he visited Shirdi with his parents and aunt to offer pedhas as fulfilment of the vow. His aunt offered the promised pedhas to Sai Baba. Sai Baba made the 12-year old Keshav sit next to him, and a divine bond seemed to develop between them. Sai Baba blessed young Keshav, he gripped the tuft of his hair and placed his head on his toes. Sai Baba then asked for Two Paise from Keshav, Here two paise signifies faith and patience. Young Keshav was confused and did not understand what was to be done. Madhavrao was still standing over there. He pulled Keshav’s hand and clutched it into Baba’s right hand. He told the boy, “Say, given”. Keshav repeated as told. it was a mock give and take, those two paise were faith (Shraddha) & patience (Saburi). He then removed his ‘Kafni ‘ and gave it to Keshav as a gift, which is still preserved in our residence in Kurla. The awe-inspiring relic is flanked by a large painting of Sai Baba and two pictures of my father on opposite walls.
Made of white cotton, the kafni has become pale yellow over a century after it was stitched. Until 1993, it was kept carefully folded in a wooden box. Later, we brought it out and kept it on a hanger inside a wood-framed glass cupboard for regular ‘darshan’. We open the glass cupboard for soft cleaning of the kafni for a couple of hours only on Dussehra Day. It has become frail over the years. We don’t allow anybody to even touch it. Very few, may be a couple of hundred devotees who knew about this gift to my father, come for ‘darshan’ annually. We keep the kafni in such a casual fashion, since nobody will try to steal or take away this treasure from us fearing Sai Baba’s wrath.
Sai Baba through dreams introduced Keshav to his Moksha Guru Dr. Trimbak Vitthal Samant (Bhau Samant). Under his guidance Keshav enriched his spiritual life and at same time discharged righteously his household duties. To him every individual was a temple of God. He was editor of Sai Leela magazine (published by Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Shirdi), it was during his tenure as President of Shirdi Sansthan Sai Baba statue was installed in main Samadhi Mandir.
My father visited Shirdi frequently and stayed at Shama’s (Madhavrao Deshpande) house. Shama used to narrate incidents regarding Sai Baba’s miracles and his teachings during His interaction with Lord Sai Baba. To note what Arjuna was to Lord Krishna, Shama was to Lord Sai Baba.
On January 18, 1954, years after his ‘Samadhi’, Sai Baba came to Indira Niwas, a two-storeyed chawl (a type of residential accommodation common in Bombay) a little over a century old, precariously standing on a busy main road in the Kurla suburb of northeast Mumbai. He spent hours speaking with my father Keshav. Like I stated previously, I was only five years old at the time, but the entire family clearly remembers the divine image of Sai Baba sitting in the verandah of Indira Niwas. He and my father engaged in a lengthy conversation. I could see them as they sat in the verandah of the Indira Niwas from 10.30 pm to 8.30 am the next morning. Around a decade later, one night when Keshav was in deep sleep, he heard a soft voice saying: “Come on…Get up and write my stories.”
Barely awake, Keshav rose, recognized the voice of Sai Baba, offered him a prayer, picked up a pen and notepad and furiously started writing. Starting at 1.30 am and ending at 10:00 am that morning, Keshav completed a majority of the chapters of the book, later published as a Marathi bestseller, “Shirdiche Sai Baba.” In 2011, I translated the book into English to address a larger group of devotees. I will introduce the content of this book in a future release of this magazine.
Keshav Gawankar died peacefully on June 29, 1985, aged 79, in the same house in Kurla, blessed by Sai Baba’s divine visit.
By: Sainath Keshav Gawankar
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