Sai Baba the Master

October 29, 2005

Sai Baba was about five and a half feet tall, neither stout nor lean. His

complexion was golden yellow; his eyes were bluish and shone most

mysteriously even in darkness. Indeed, they were the object of the devotee’

s wonder. The portrait now available to us in shops, with him seated on the

stone, seems to show a slight squint in his left eye but indeed, there was

no such thing. His nostrils were prominent. At the time when Sri Sai

Sharananandaji had seen him, Baba had some of his teeth missing and the

rest were not pure white in colour. He never brushed them but only rinsed

his mouth with a little water every morning. He never drank either coffee

or tea but he never told anyone to abstain from the same. He never told

anyone how he contracted the habit of smoking chilim. He always used the

same clay-pipe for the purpose. Devotees used to offer him many pipes but

he never used them. He stacked them in the hollow of the musjid wall.

Baba always wore garments made of coarse whitish cloth. He never disclosed

to anyone why he wore a small piece of cloth around his head. Except when

he washed himself, Baba was never seen without this long shirt (kufni). At

bathing time he wore a langoti (a wrestler’s underwear). However, he never

took a daily bath. He used to do so as and when he had the whim. Sometimes

he did not bathe for even six weeks.

Very rarely, Baba tied a green lungi around his waist, and after washing

his kufni in water, dried it above the sacred fire and wore it. The piece

of cloth around his head too was very rarely changed and was never washed.

When he decided to change his kufni, Baba sent for a tailor and told him

“Get me a kufni”. When it was brought, he always paid the tailor more than

its worth. Usually he changed it every two or three months. When he did, he

threw the old kufni in the sacred fire and did namaskar to it. Sometimes,

when he changed his kufni he used to distribute a few more to some of his

devotees.

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