Raghuvir B. Purandhare
S/o Bhaskar Purandhare, aged 60, Brahmin, Deshasth Shukla Yajur Vedi (Kelva Mahim, Thana Dist - originally) now at Bandra, Retired clerk of G.I.P. Rly, Sainath Ashram, 59-B, Perry Road, Bandra

Poona, 4th May 1936

5th May, 1936

Baba used to be near the Dhuni, early morning facing south, leaning on a post and doing something. I cannot say what. People were not allowed to go near, i.e., even 50 feet. The Sevakaries could carry on their usual service or work of clearing, replenishing fuel for Dhuni, etc. No others could go so near as they. He used to utter words like Yade Haq. They were seldom clear or audible to us at some distance. Allah Malik, Allah Vali Hai, i.e., God is the Master and Protector, he used to say often and at all times.

I once got leave from office at Bandra and from my mother to go. The next evening I had to start for Shirdi. But during the night, Sai Baba appeared to me in my dream and said, 'Don't come.' I wondered why. The morning after I was to have left, there was a strike in the workshop. If I had left overnight as I first proposed, my officers would have suspected me to be at the bottom of the strike and I would be in trouble. Sai Baba saved me from that.

Yeshwantrao, grandson of Raghunath Mukund, Engineer, went with me to Sai Baba in 1911 or 1912 at Ashad Guru Purnima when cholera was raging in Shirdi. He did not wish to return before I did. But Baba told him to go and gave him his Udhi. But he did not wish to start. He stayed on though I also told him to go since he had leave of Baba. That night he had an attack of cholera to which he succumbed at Shirdi the next morning. Sai Baba went to Megha, when the latter was dying, shed tears there and covered the corpse with flowers and went to the funeral ground where Megha's corpse was burnt. Megha lay ill for two or three days before death. Baba used to give him Udhi then.

Once Sai Baba prevented me from going away to Bombay even after 4.30 P.M. The last train at Kopergaon for Manmad would leave at 6.30 P.M. It was a Bazaar day (Monday). I got a bullock cart. Baba told Rege to go with me. We reached the river at 6.45 P.M. and reached the Kopergaon station at about 7.45 P.M. The train had gone away. There was a special train, however, running that night which stopped at 8.15 P.M. at Kopergaon and took us to Manmad and thence we reached our homes. There were no trains to Manmad from Kopergaon at night, i.e., after 6.30 P.M. in those days.

Source: Devotees Experiences of SRI SAI BABA by B.V.NARASIMHASWAMIJI