When I was in engineering school in Chennai, southern India, an older cousin dropped in from Kolkata, her ultimate destination – the godman, Sathya Sai Baba’s Ashram at Puttaparthi, a small town that was a 9-hour bus ride to the west.

My cousin, Runadidi, was to Sathya Sai Baba, what MAGA rednecks are to Donald Trump – sold, lock stock and barrel on him. She insisted that I accompany her. My college was on a one-week spring break and since I wanted to experience the sight and sounds of the weirdo first hand, I tagged along.

Back in the early 1970s, Puttaparthi was about as remote as Novaya Zemlya is, to a Muscovite. Folks visited Puttaparthi only when they had issues that they could no longer deal with – mainly health related issues that they had given up trying to fix medically and were at their wits’ end.

Tales of the Sathya Sai Baba miraculously curing folks of life threatening ailments just by the wave of a hand, some holy ash, a cheap trinket that he magically materialized out of thin air and crappy mumbo-jumbo were legion in those days.

Little is known about Sathya Sai Baba’s past, except for the hagiography (mostly fable, making him into a superhero) that has sprung up around him over the decades. Wikipedia has this to say about him…..

“…… as a child, he was unusually intelligent and charitable, though not necessarily academically inclined, as his interests were of a more spiritual nature. He was uncommonly talented in devotional music, dance and drama. From a young age, he was alleged to have been capable of materializing objects such as food and sweets, rings and watches, out of thin air.”

When we visited Puttaparthi, it was little more than a village, albeit a neat, well-organized village. The internet tells me that today Puttaparthi boasts a shiny planetarium and a sprawling ‘super-speciality’ hospital. I saw the pics of the hospital on google images – it looks like a multi-tiered wedding cake. The hospital treats patients for free, so who am I to complain?

Besides that, there is a college, a music school and immaculate colorful schools and playgrounds, everything free and all financed by the multi-million dollar Sai Baba Organization. Luxury apartment buildings are springing up on land that was covered with ramshackle mud huts just a few decades prior. A state of the art airport caters to wealthier devotees who fly in on their business jets.

Today, 10 to 50 million people worship Sathya Sai Baba as God incarnate. They stream into Puttaparthi from six continents, finding lodgings in one of the ashram’s myriads of guesthouses and hostels – some really snazzy, with jacuzzis and air-conditioning. Those are smart infrastructural investments made by the Sathya Sai Organization, that ensure a steady inflow of hard currency donations, some running into millions.

The largest single donation is reported to be $20 million, from an American sucker, the founder of Hard Rock Café. I guess even billionaires can be schmucks. In 1975, the Sathya Sai Organization’s cash reserves were $5 billion.

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Sathya Sai Baba is raising the daisies but his brainchild, the Sathya Sai Organisation, is a multi-billion dollar financial juggernaut that has 1500 branches all over the world and millions of followers, many of them whole families who have migrated from the west, with kids in tow, after cashing in every last nickel and dime they owned and bringing it with them.

While His Holiness was alive, some of his followers (usually young boys) suddenly found themselves bestowed with extra attention from the guru. Yeah, Sathya Sai Baba had a secret, a sinister one, known only to his closest associates – a wholly human craving for the bodies of pre-teen boys. The evidence, though hearsay, is strong that Sai Baba frequently used his power to get inside their pants, fondling young penises and rendering to them what came to be his signature obsession – divine blow jobs.

I hasten to add that these are claims made by ex-devotees that have never been proven. Neither has “His Holiness” ever been charged with any sexual wrongdoing. But the body of testimony is so vast and instances in contemporary history of powerful godmen having their way with innocent followers are so many, I am convinced there was not just a lot of smoke but fire too.

The reason why Sai Baba was never investigated (let along charged) is quite obviously his political connections. What the fuck can you do if the low life you are investigating has had senior politicians (including some ex-prime ministers) as his devotees all his life? At the local level, the Sai Baba Organization has always had most of the top officials of the local state and district bureaucracy in it’s deep pockets. The SBO is their ticket to rich lifestyles that their meagre government salaries can never afford.

And then of course there is all that charity – hospitals, schools, colleges, playgrounds, libraries, bore-wells for drinking water, cisterns for water storage, public toilets – Sathya Sai Baba was untouchable, the populace loved him and anyone who attempted to even think of arresting such a guy would be signing his own death warrant.

But I digress.

Runadi and I rested ourselves in a guesthouse upon arrival that evening and at sunrise the next morning, we presented ourselves at the vast Prasanthi Nilayam (abode of peace) mandir and lecture hall that the brochure said could easily seat 15000. This is where the “Holy Guru” would deliver another one of his divine homilies.

We spent an hour waiting in a line and another hour sitting cross-legged amid thousands of other worshipers on the marble floor of the terrace outside. The hall was already packed and we would have to watch him from the terrace. Through the large doors, we could see as many foreigners in the hall, as there were Indians. Half of all the staff were white men and women, walking around barefoot, in simple white sarees and kurta-pyjamas. Dozens of chandeliers hung from the ceiling, which was garishly decorated with gold, pink and yellow.

An aisle bisected the hall, cutting right through to the stage and that’s when I noticed that it was gender segregated, with women to the right and men to the left. Runadi and I were at the door, just outside the hall, where the rule apparently didn’t apply. Behind the stage, at the far end, I noticed a door but it was only in the late 1990s that I began reading about what went on behind that door. It was His Holiness’s private ‘sexual healing’ room, probably the place where he molested those young boys.

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Runadi and I were beginning to get bored when an electric charge ran through the crowd. Immediately necks craned to catch a glimpse of the guru.

Sathya Sai Baba appeared through the door of the back room – a stocky guy with a broad smile and that ridiculous Jimi Hendrix afro cut and his customary floor-length ochre robe. He waved as he walked down the aisle, pausing first on the women’s side and then on the men’s side and back again, taking turns, readily accepting what looked like slips of paper (probably pleas and petitions) that were being feverishly stuffed into his hands which he passed on to an aide following him.

I turned to glance at Runadi and she was lost within herself, her eyes glazed over, chest heaving as if she was short of breath, pretty face glistening with sweat.

The instant he began to speak, I felt like throwing up. He spoke in English. He was no schmuck – most of the suckers gathered there were white-skinned.

His Holiness, Sathya Sai Baba’s voice had a gravelly texture, his south Indian  accent laughably cringe-worthy. “Gaaad laoows you. He laoows yeevarybaaddy,” he proclaimed, to ecstatic cheers. The blondes in the audience didn’t care if they understood a word or they didn’t.

The lecture itself was a simple one. Aside from stressing on strict vegetarianism, Sai Baba didn’t appear to subscribe to any specific ideology. His words seemed flowery and vague, combining the symbolism of Hindu mythology with a dash of the Buddhist belief about all that transcending-worldly-desire crap. He added to that a table spoonful of charity that the Abrahamic faiths espouse and he had a winning brew.

Most of all, the Bhagwan sounded so corny. Here are some of his quotes that I’m definite he spouted that day….

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God is the Seed, The Universe is the Tree, Impulses and passions are the branches, Intelligence is the flower, Pure Consciousness is the fruit, Love is the sweetness in the fruit. 

Man’s many desires are like the small metal coins he carries about in his pocket. The more he has the more they weight him down. 

Love all. Serve all. Help ever. Hurt never. 

Every experience is a lesson. Every loss is a gain. 

Without God, life is like a school without a teacher. It is a wire with no current passing through it; it is a body with no soul.

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No kidding. That is supposed to be profound? Frankly, His Holiness needed a better quote writer.

In fact, a brochure we had been handed confirmed my impressions of the lack of an ideology. It stated that, ‘there is no new path that His Holiness is preaching, no new order that He has created. There is no new religion that He has come to add or a particular philosophy that He recommends. His message is unique and simple – that of love and compassion’. (Love – in very broad terms, I presume).

I admit that I found the vagueness of his message rather refreshing. His chatty tone seemed like he didn’t aspire to be anything but being like just one of us, warts and all. Judging by the prosperity that the Sathya Sai Organization has seen, that style has obviously worked. Today, followers of the Bhagwan are one of the most fanatical anywhere. They see his hidden hand in everything that happens on earth.

Behind me, a woman wailed and I turned – she was white, maybe around 30. Her eyes had a maniacal shine and her whole torso rocked back and forth ecstatically. Spittle dribbled from the corner of her lips. She was pretty but she looked as if she had stopped taking care of her physical appearance. Man, the woman really was out of it. Disgusted, I tuned out and waited gamely by Runadi’s side while she stared at the charlatan, mesmerized. She didn’t look much different from that woman, except for the rocking and the spittle dribble part. Ugh, I couldn’t wait to be some place else.

Such zombie-like followers in that ashram were in plenty that day. Stories of brainwashed believers of Sathya Sai Baba are legion if you care to check the internet – an American schmuck named Leland says that His Holiness came to him in the guise of a Tijuana (Mexico) traffic cop and then later on as a Japanese airline stewardess. An Argentinian woman gave up her Buenos Aires apartment and her medical practice after ‘Baba’ summoned her in her dreams.

A wheelchair-bound cancer patient from Amsterdam – abandoned by her husband and living with friends who were Sai Baba devotees – saw a vision of the guru beckoning her. One day her friends surprised her with a ticket to India and she took off and remained in Puttaparthi till she ultimately succumbed to her illness. They say she died with a smile on her face.

Ultimately they all (barring a few hundred disgruntled, sexually molested ex-devotees) got what they were looking for. Maybe I am the sucker here, but if I wanted a blow job, a pot-bellied guy in an afro-cut and an atrocious accent is the last person on earth I’d go to.

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I don’t remember exactly how long the lecture went but when I came to, Runadidi was shaking me. Our muscles creaking, we rose from the cramped cross-legged position by the door. Folks were crowding around the main aisle that led down from the podium, watching rapt, as His Holiness slowly made his way toward the exit. Runadi and I just happened to be standing right by it. Great!

Then as the Sathya Sai Baba neared us, something amazing happened.  He came to a halt right in front of Runadidi and waved his arm around to signal to everyone to pipe down. He brought his gaze down and gestured toward Runadi’s tummy and told her, “Don’t worry, it’ll all go away in a few weeks and you will feel like new once again….”

Funny, even I found the voice strangely clear and reassuring, like he knew what he was talking about. The words were carefully vague – you could look at anyone who obviously looked stressed out and say those words, but Runadidi was clearly moved. There she stood, shaking, tears streaming down her face. I didn’t know in what context he was saying she would be fine. Fine from what?

I didn’t know anything was wrong with Runadidi, but that’s because I came to know of it only later that evening –

Runadidi, though just 27 then, had very severe ulcers that had all but eaten away at her innards, thanks to years of eating very spicy food laced with hot chillies. I mean, she wouldn’t eat unless you put a bowl filled with those lethal red chillies right next to her thali. She said she had given it up and sought treatment but the damage to her stomach wall had been too extensive. This trip was a desperate last ditch effort to try and seek help from the supernatural.

A month after that visit to Puttaparthi, I got a postcard from Runadidi and in it she was ecstatic. After nearly a decade of pain and suffering and blood oozing out of her bowels, her tests now showed perfectly healthy tissue, instead of bleeding ulcers. Her doc was amazed that recovery had been so complete and swift.

I am a man of science and I dismiss anything that cannot be explained by science. Runadidi’s recovery however was nothing short of a miracle and I am convinced that Sathya Sai Baba had something to do with it, though I have no idea how.

So, there you go – child molester to some and savior to others. Take your pick. But if he could heel just by a glance, isn’t building a superspeciality hospital an oxymoron?

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Runadi’s ulcers had undergone what medical science calls remission, a phenomenon that is described as the spontaneous disappearance of the symptoms of an ailment that is not fully understood by medical science. Through history, medically documented cases of remission are legion. Cancers have been known to set in and then mysteriously disappear.

The first known cases of remission were recorded by the disciples of a certain carpenter named Jesus H. Christ. Of course, in Greek and Hindu mythology almost nothing can be explained through science. Gods and Goddesses routinely went a step further than just making ailments disappear – they made their surrogates immortal. But I am done with all that nonsensical mumbo jumbo.

Today, there is even a branch of science known as neurotheology (a.k.a spiritual neuroscience) – the study into the possibility of a neurological basis for not only the role of spirituality in health, but any subjective experience that cannot be explained by objective scientific observation afforded by pure science. It says that if a disease afflicted person believes strongly enough that he’ll get better, he actually will.

In Runadidi’s case, I am certain that the meeting with Sathya Sai Baba convinced her that he had appeared before her for a purpose and that she could heal and that was entirely sufficient to completely cure her.

I am thinking of doing a PhD in neurotheology. That way I can convert a date with Scarlett Johanssen from being a merely subjective fantasy to an objective negligée clad reality.