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 Source/Author: Vishal Arora |  Posted on: June 13th, 2010
A journey into Sai Baba’s smalltown fiefdom, where decades-old allegations of sex abuse, murder and deception continue to linger.
ABOUT THREE-AND-A-HALF HOURS from Bangalore, past farmers’ fields and some hills, a small village came into view. The rural area gradually gave way to an airstrip, where a private jet was parked, and then to uptown buildings—resorts, hotels and a huge, pink building, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram, a ‘super specialty hospital’ designed by English architect Dr Keith Critchlow, close to the Sri Sathya Sai Hill View Stadium, inaugurated in November 2006 by then President of India APJ Abdul Kalam, who also happens to be a well-regarded nuclear scientist.
This is Puttaparthi, a small town in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh spread over approximately ten square kilometres. The names of almost all hotels and shops start with ‘Sai.’ Pictures of Sathya Sai Baba are everywhere—on all shop hoardings, on the backs of auto-rickshaws, in lifts and telephone booths and even inside the Puttaparthi police station and the post office. The pictures also carry prominent Sai Baba-isms: ‘Help Ever, Hurt Never,’ ‘Love is God, Live in Love,’ ‘Unity, Purity and Divinity,’ ‘Love All, Serve All,’ and so on. With his benevolent teachings, his emphasis on communal harmony, and his numerous social work projects, Sai Baba seems like Puttaparthi’s own deity.
Everything in the village appears in line with Sai Baba’s worldview. There are many massage parlours—Sai Baba himself claims to be a “masseur healer.” Given his aversion to alcohol and tobacco, cigarettes and liquor are sold only secretly. But you can find several paan shops—Sai Baba is a paan (betel leaf and nut) eater, as his stained teeth also suggest. Almost all restaurants are vegetarian, mirroring Sai Baba’s philosophy that “meat eating fosters animal qualities in man making him descend to the demoniac level.” Puttaparthi often seems like Sai Baba’s personal kingdom.
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Source/Author: | Posted on: May 20th, 2009
It was a Sunday lunch invitation from one of my office colleagues as he had become a father of a baby boy a month ago. So I went there, with a feeling that I am going to get bored as I won’t know anyone there. But met another colleague and felt a little relieved. As soon as I reached there, I knew it was going to be a tough time as I had to participate in the ongoing Pooja as well which was being done for the welfare of the newborn.
While it totally went tangentially off my brain as to how a Pooja can ensure the well being of the newborn for whom, for the first year, every day is a new day, I think it went off tangentially my friend and his wife as well but due to elder’s present in home they were probably doing it is what I could read from the ambiance there.
My friend has done a masters in IT and his wife is a masters in arts and so seeing them believing in this made me wonder, how much can education do to salvage the intellectual rampage done by blind faith, superstition and intellectual black holes created by vested interests who intend to rule the society and people’s lives.
Normally I can envisage a scenario wherein the educated lot may have protested against such practices but the orthodox lot must have suppressed it saying that just because they had got the children educated does not mean the children have outsmarted them and can have a say in everything. Or may be worse, may be these people got degrees but forgot to get educated and so even being the so called white-collared educated intellectuals believe in these rituals which have near zero relevance in today’s age.
As these thoughts transcended the horizon of the gray matter of my brain, the Pooja proceedings continued. The Pundit was blabbering some mantras, best deciphered to him (I can only guess so), my friend pretending to understand them to the extent of decoding them and throwing flowers at the deity setup at the instructions of the Pundit. I was watching all this; meanwhile my other colleague took me out for some time as aunty requested us to get some tomatoes for salad. So we two went, and got them from the nearby market.
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Source/Author: | Posted on: January 6th, 2009
Rationalists Offer Scientific Explanation, Say Oil Wasn’t Boiling, It Was An Illusion
Bangalore/ Hubli: Was it hot or not?
That’s the burning question after recent incidents of babies being dunked in boiling water and bubbling oil. While God-fearing people call it a miracle, rationalists give a scientific explanation.
In Hubli on Sunday, Mohan Guru Swami, head priest of Lord Ayyappa Temple, boiled nearly 10 kg of oil and then dipped a year-old baby into the pan for a split second. Prof. Narendra Nayak, a post-graduate in medical biochemistry and national president, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations told TOI that these are incidents of the bubbling oil effect.
“When two viscous liquids of different specific gravities are mixed and slightly heated, the heavier one creates an impression being brought to boil. Bubbles rise to the top and the froth-like formation coupled with fumes make people believe that it is boiling,’’ Nayak said. This is the Leidenfrost effect, in which a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than its boiling point, produces an insulating vapour layer which keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly.
Miracle & Reality
- Nobody has checked temperature of boiling oil in Hubli
- A few lemons are squeezed and juice put in a frying pan
- Oil or water is added to it before heating
- As pan is heated, oil or water starts to bubble Onlookers get a feeling oil is boiling
- But it is only bubble effect
- Temperature of oil or water will not be more than room temperature
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