Sai will recover, assert devotees

PUTTAPARTHI: A sense of surrealism pervades this small town with a population of 25,000. Medical bulletins state that Sri Satya Saibaba is in a very critical condition and not responding to the treatment and none of his vital organs is functioning. But, his devotees that include family members, trustees of the Sathya Sai Central Trust and the man on the street refuse to accept this grim reality.
"He is god. He will overcome this phase and start giving darshans. That's my belief, you may not believe this but I do," asserted trust secretary and mover and shaker K Chakravarthi to TOI. "He has divine powers to heal himself," he added emphatically.
"We know he's struggling hard inside the ICU. But he will pull through this traumatic phase. We have hundred per cent belief that it's only a matter of time before our `living god' resurrects himself," said Hanumantha Rao, a staffer in the IT wing in Prasanthi Nilayam without a trace of doubt in his voice.
Though Dr A N Safaya, director, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences (SSSIHMS), said that the medical team is making last-ditch efforts to bring Saibaba to life, his relatives are unfazed. "Doctors are doing their job. But Saibaba will come back. I am sure about that," M Shankar Raju, son of Saibaba's sister Venkamma, contended. He recalled how once Saibaba came back strong when the doctors and his followers had all given up hope when he nearly went into a coma in Brindavan ashram at Whitefield, Bangalore. "After one day, he asked me to get food and told family members that nothing had happened to him," he said. But his son Sai Kiran, who is a doctor in SSSIHMS, has refused to comment on the present health condition of Saibaba.
Some of the followers even come out with absurd rationale. "Nothing will happen to Baba. He's enduring the pain of a 106-year-old `muni' (sage) in the Himalayas, who's in his last stages. Once the sage is revived, the swami will automatically recover," another staunch disciple and Sai Seva Dal volunteer Venkat Reddy claimed.
Analysts said the fact of the matter is that those associated with the spiritual guru in one form or the other are his devotees first. "They are unable to forget this and take a rational point of view. It's shocking that even doctors and scientists are not ready to accept the harsh reality. Which is why they believe that his healing powers will make him rise from the hospital bed," a rationalist said.
Shockingly, even those in power, who are his strong disciples, refuse to acknowledge the gravity of his health. "Media is unnecessarily going overboard on his health. Lakhs of devotees are praying and doing bhajans. He often says that his devotees are his medicine," industry minister J Geeta Reddy, an ardent devotee, observed.
Issac Tigrett Burton, a staunch devotee who has donated huge sums for SSSIHMS, has the final say: "He's immortal. I perceive him as a protector of the whole world."
Little wonder then that the trust itself released a two-page letter in the late hours of Thursday that Saibaba's health would improve and that he would give discourses again.