Sathya Sai Baba death: Thousands throng Prashanthi Nilayam

PUTTAPARTHI: Thousands of devotees thronged the Prashanthi Nilayam ashram in Puttaparthi to pay homage to Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the godman who breathed his last in the wee hours of Sunday. By evening, the crowds swelled as Sai Baba’s mortal remains were brought to the ashram from the nearby hospital. The body of Sai Baba was kept for “darshan” for the devotees to catch a last glimpse of their spiritual guru.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Reddy, BJP President Nitin Gadkari, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and TDP president Chandrababu Naidu were among the thousands of devotees who came to Puttaparthi on Sunday. Sachin Tendulkar, a known Sai Baba devotee, is also likely to arrive on Monday to pay homage.

A four-day state mourning has been declared in Andhra Pradesh. A day’s holiday has been declared in the district of Anantpur.People from all over the country and all walks of life came down to watch Sai Baba in his resting place. Amid the crowd was middle-aged Mushtaq Ahmed, a Sai Baba devotee and a ‘refugee’ from Kashmir.

In the early nineties, when the Kashmir problem was at its peak, a group of people left the state in search of a new home. Mushtaq was one among them. “We came to know of the place through newspapers,” Mushtaq told ET.

“When we couldn’t not live in Kashmir any longer, we left. We ended up settling here after many months of searching,” he added. Mushtaq and a group of about 100 people from Kashmir run shops and small businesses in Puttaparthi. “Most of our families are here and we visit the valley more often these days,” he adds. Mushtaq strikes an honest chord when he says that the benefit for him here has been two-fold. “We grew spiritually and we could feed our families,” he says.
Twenty seven-year old M Subramanian, a barber from Bagepalli claims to have had visions of Sai Baba in his dreams about a year back when his wife Usha was pregnant.

“Baba came in my dreams for three days continuously and said he will be born again. He told me that he will take his third avatar to battle the evils in the new era,” says Subramanian.

Anant Maheshwari, a student who studied at the Sri Sathya Sai Baba higher secondary school from 1989 to 1995 and works as a finance professional in Bangalore, says, “There have been many instances where I have felt grateful to Baba. Though I don’t have any personal experiences that stand out, the trust has helped me and my family for at least three generations to get better education,” he said.

Sai Baba’s body will be at the ashram for public viewing for the next two days. The burial is likely to be held on Wednesday morning.