Sairam friends,
I used to do some work in Shirdi Saibaba temple in my hometown in Coimbatore. It was mostly in Dwarakamai as I love Dhuni. Later, there was no need of Dhuni to be cleaned with iron rods everyday since they re-constructed it well.
There were times when the skin in my palm will get torn off due to the heat when I clean Dhuni and wipe away Udi in the Dhuni tank. Those were beautiful days.
Gradually, as the Dhuni did not needed much work and it was taken care by my friends, I stopped doing such work.
Now a days, very rarely I sweep Dwarakamai. I used to offer garland to Saibaba statues on Top of the temple every Wednesday night. This small work was also taken over by some other men. So I realized people wanted to serve Sai and hence I should not bother them.
These days, I just go to temple, stand some time, walk around in Dhuni or in the temple. I also like to read books. One of this guy who does labor job is a good friend of mine but he doesn’t understand I like to be alone these days. I don’t want to be harsh to him. So I speak to him for a while.
He also gets my mobile to watch some videos of Tirumala hills and other temples he likes on YouTube.
During Thursdays, I never go into the main hall of temple. When Sai lived, he asks his close devotees to stay away when huge crowd of people used to come to meet him.
I am going to Saibaba temple everyday. So on Thursdays, I feel I should not occupy much space in the temple. So I go on a walk to Saibaba colony.
Last night was different though.
The priest called me and asked me to manage the crowd as there was a long que. The past few years, guys who serve in temple requires to wear some ID card. Somehow, this never works for me.
I stayed away from being an official volunteer. I don’t like it as I found many people behave rude to devotees. Only few guys really are polite and humble.
I stood in Dwarakamai in the corner and kept requesting the devotees to move quick. I kept saying “Sai move quick please”.
I like to take flower from devotees and hand it over to the priest. Just that they priest was annoyed as many devotees wanted a flower as a blessing from Sai. He felt that if he starts giving flower, people will stay back longer and it increases the crowd.
I spent 2 hours doing this work. I enjoyed it because its been years since I served Sai in Dwarakamai. I used to regularly clean the lamps tray back in 2008-2012 during Thursdays.
While I was requesting devotees to move out quick, another man wearing an ID card came and started shouting at devotees. I did not liked it and felt bad.
I also shout at devotees but only rarely when they are stubborn. But I try to make sure they are not hurt by my words. We have no authority to bother devotees and control them.
There are thousands of Saibaba temples where people serve Sai. Here’s the problem.
They think that they serve “Sai.” and that they are “Important”.
To be honest, Sai is safe without our need. We are serving “Sai devotees”.
So we should try our best to polite and kind to Sai devotees.
I am getting late for work now.
So Tata
Venkat
