Anand Venkateswaran
2001 Prasanthi Nilayam
The woman stood at the base of the hill, looking up. Two boys, one on either side of her, were looking up too. The woman took the boys’ hands in hers and began climbing. A little way up, a brightly lit cave beckons. She enters with the two boys, her sons. Swami smiles radiantly and welcomes her in. She is overwhelmed, prostrates herself and rises, eyes shining with tears. Swami then asks her to prepare a small meal for them. The woman does so, and she serves him, deeply grateful for the opportunity. Swami then tells her go back home. She leaves, but hesitates for a second, worried what her four-year-old sons would do. When she turns around, the boys are sitting by Swami on a rustic cot, smiling. Swami says to her, “Don’t worry, I will take care of the children. I will always take care of them.” And then, my mother woke up.
Was it a dream? As far as my mother was concerned, it was a Darshan, and an assurance. As for my twin brother and I, the two boys in that dream, it was the first chapter of a lifelong embrace.
Very little of my experience of Swami was first-hand. I am not among those fortunate to have been granted close physical proximity. As a student in Parthi for two years, I naturally experienced more of him than an everyday pilgrim might, but it was nowhere near what I had naively imagined I was entitled to. I worried about this for years, often doubting my devotion, inner purity and on some childish, petulant moments, His divinity. However, I realised later that Swami had indeed given me the gift of his presence. You see, my experience of Swami was through his institutions, through my teachers, through his devotees, and through those moments of unarguable serendipity – the moments when a picture, a Bhajan, some stray reference of his travels across your circumstances and your worries, is a gift of clarity amid chaos.
It is only when I sit and think about it that I realise how much of it was, and is, divine orchestration. Swami entered my life through music. I sang Bhajans in my school in Visakhapatnam for nine years. As a child, the tunes were fun. Then the words and Bhavam began to sink in. I found him in many an electrifying moment, when the voices of a hundred people joined mine in a crescendo of devotion. The words ‘Sai Ram’ had become the most uttered words within a few years. I found him in those words, delivered with countless modulations in infinite contexts, conveying happiness, surprise, grief, empathy, even anger. I found Him in the selfless, often unbelievable generosity of my teachers at a Sai School in Vishakhapatnam, who had grown up under his wing and dedicated their lives to teaching us values. I found him in the energy, in the burning conviction of his devotees for whom Seva was second nature, a 1,000km bicycle ride a small token at His lotus feet. With each passing year, Sai had become inseparable from every aspect of my life.
Swami’s influence is DNA-deep. I have seen people treat me with kindness and respect for reasons beyond what I have done for them. I sincerely believe Swami has blessed each of us, his students, with a fragment of His persona. If there is any good in me, any gentleness, any decorum, any generosity, humility or integrity just for the sake of it, or even an effort to imbibe these qualities, I point to the source – a brilliantly lit cave in a mother’s dream.
Brother Anand Venkateswaran is based out of Chennai and works as the Social Media Manager at an IT firm. He is involved in seva activities in the Visakhapatnam Samiti and Sai school there. He is a singer and has shared Sai Bhajans on various stages across Tamil Nadu and in Madhya Pradesh.