35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘NO LIKE A-FEESH?’
was surprised to learn. He didn’t want it to become a shrine. You
can’t stop Indians building shrines, though.
With a bicycle and a ledger, Baba’s brother appeared. He looked
older, but was as pleasant as he’d always been.
I remarked how the place had changed.
‘It is amazing what he has done,’ was the reply.
Did he get to see his brother the god much these days?
‘It is not possible now,’ he answered. ‘Swami is too busy with
important matters. Very few see him now.’
I asked if it was strange having such a . . . successful sibling.
‘Swami is not my brother,’ he said patiently. ‘Long ago he ceased
to be tied to these worldly bonds. He has come for everyone. I am
no more important than . . . you.’
Bad analogy, I thought. So he believed in Baba the way any other
devotee did. The brother he’d grown up with was like someone
who’d died – not someone who’d become too famous to speak to
relatives who were no longer on his social level.
What an odd fate. I said goodbye to God’s brother, walking back
toward the main ashram gate. There, the little strip of lean-tos and
stalls and mud-brick eateries had transformed itself into a thriving
commercial street of covered bazaars, air-conditioned coffee shops,
bookshops and even travel agents. There were banks, Kashmiri
carpet vendors, and even a photographic supply shop that specialised
in blowing up your favourite Baba snap to life-size posters or prints
of any dimension.
I hated this ugly face of spiritualism. In the coffee shops and
bookshops I heard Westerners engaged in the same conversations
that had begun to sicken me by the time I finally left Puttaparthi,
twenty years before:
‘Did you see the expression on his face as he touched that old
man?’
‘Wow!’
‘Remember how he took the jasmine mala and gave it to Raja
Reddy?’
‘He’s so beautiful!’
‘Sai Ram!’
‘Sai Ram, Sai Ram!’
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