Sai Baba as a Professional Hazard
The perils of tracking the godman’s life, influence and miracles as a journalist
.....Of course, there are Sai Baba devotees in high places. Like Freemasons, who run a worldwide secret society complete with a special handshake and codes of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols, these people seem to know and recognise one another. They somehow manage to connect, via means both holy and otherwise. Once, a senior journalist asked me to help contact a customs officer. A neurosurgeon from the US was giving it all up and joining Baba’s super speciality hospital in Bangalore: “He is bringing some important life-saving equipment—could Customs exempt duty on it?” This was 2002, when duties were rather high. I thought it an absurd idea, but the customs officer was a Sai Baba devotee and obliged gleefully. I later gathered that the officer, a deputy commissioner, personally escorted the doctor and his family on their way to Bangalore airport. If faith can move mountains, what are a few customs’ barriers?
If membership of Sai Baba’s club can open doors, it can also slam them shut, as I learnt at the 2001 Aero India show, to report on which I needed passes from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, once seen as a place for rocket scientists. The company’s assistant general manager, in-charge of issuing media accredition, seemed affable at first. Once I introduced myself, he ushered me into a cabin, listened to my request patiently for five minutes, and then declined it. The man had this to say: “I cannot approve your application because you are from a web newspaper. I could have considered your case and accommodated you, but I am not going to do that, as you are from the India Today Group” (as I was then). The weekly had recently carried a shocking story with allegations of child abuse against the godman. This was too much for the manager. “How could your magazine discredit someone who millions including presidents and prime ministers look up to for divine salvation?” That was that.
Writing on Sai Baba apparently has its own rules of engagement. And devotion to facts is not among them......
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