When Baba Calls: Stories from Puttaparthi

I got off the train in Puttaparthi, where I had arranged to be picked up by a tuk-tuk and taken to my Airbnb. The host, S, seemed like a nice guy over message.

I was immediately struck by how clean the town was, cleaner than Australia, even.

And this was India? I had no idea at the time that one of Baba’s famous lines was “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

When I arrived, S and his wife greeted me warmly.

S was South African, his wife, Indian.

They gave me a quick tour of the Airbnb.

I noticed a photo of Sathya Sai Baba in the room.

When the tour ended, they asked if I had any questions.

“Yeah, actually,” I said.

“I came here all the way from Melbourne, Australia, because I had a dream of Baba last year. What’s the go?”

They looked at each other, then back at me.

“Would you like to go for a coffee?” they asked.

“Sure,” I said. “I don’t have any plans.”

We went to a nearby café, it was peaceful, full of birdsong and calm energy.

They sat across from me, smiling.

I asked where they were from.

S told me about life in South Africa and how dangerous it was.

“I used to sit at the front door with a shotgun, just in case someone broke in,” he said.

“Yeah, fuck that,” I replied.

He told me he worked in IT and loved surfing,

but they weren’t sure if India was their long-term home either.

I said, “Why not Victoria? There’s surf, plenty of work, you’d fit right in.”

They exchanged a glance.

“Never thought about that,” he said, smiling.

Then they asked if I had any more questions.

I laughed.

“What’s the go with this dream?”

They laughed too.

“Many people have dreams. It’s considered an invitation,” they said. “A blessing.”

They offered to share their own stories and what followed blew me away.

S’s wife began.

She said her parents had been atheists who worked at a bank.

They had a colleague who was a Baba devotee, someone they ridiculed for his beliefs and for being vegetarian.

Then one night, her mother had a dream of Baba.

They were talking.

“Come on,” Baba said. “You know you want to follow me.”

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “I’m not interested.”

Then he said, “You’d better pick up the phone. It’s ringing.”

She woke up. The phone rang. She answered, it was the Baba devotee from work.

“Baba told me to call you,” he said.

At the same time, her husband (S’s wife’s father) had a dream too.

Baba appeared to him and said, “Bring your family to Puttaparthi.”

The man said, “No, I won’t come. Unless you pay for it.”

Not long after, an envelope appeared in the post with just enough money for the entire family to make the journey.

S's wife said she still remembers clearly the family standing at the kitchen table discussing what to do next.

They went.

And once there, they became devotees for life.

She told me another story, this one about her eyesight.

As a child, her vision was deteriorating badly.

Her parents took her to the best specialists they could afford.

Nothing helped.

One day in Puttaparthi, Baba told her mother, “Take your daughter back to the same doctor.”

“But Baba,” her mother said, “they already said nothing can be done.”

“Go,” he insisted.

So they went back.

The same doctor examined her and was stunned.

Her eyesight had returned to 20/20.

She never had an issue again.

Then S shared his stories.

He’d seen portraits of Baba with ash materializing from the frames or honey dripping from the eyes so often it had become “normal.”

He told me about a friend who once got called into an interview with Baba.

When it was his turn to speak, he opened his mouth but nothing came out.

He literally couldn’t talk.

Baba asked again, “Do you have a question?” 

The man tried, but still no voice. Baba smiled and ended the meeting.

Sometime later, the same man got called for another interview.

Again, he was asked if he had a question.

Again, no voice.

Baba laughed.

Whatever the man had wanted to ask, the experience itself was the answer.

Then S’s wife told me she’d been at Prasanthi Nilayam one day when a man in a wheelchair was wheeled to the front of the crowd.

Baba motioned for him to stand.

The man raised his arms as if to say, “I can’t.” 

But then, movement.

First in the feet, then the legs. With help, the man stood and walked.

Tens of thousands of people witnessed it.

By this point, I was sitting there stunned.

Story after story, mystical, impossible, but true. These weren’t exaggerations.

These were real people telling me what they had lived through.

I thanked them for their honesty.

“If you need anything,” they said, “we’re here.”

I walked back to the Airbnb with my head spinning.

I had come because of a dream.

Now I was ready to see what else this place had in store.