The fakir preferred to be alone and he made this known to anyone who invaded his solitude.
After living for some months under the neem tree, Sai moved into a small tin shed which served as the local mosque in this poor village. Sai renamed the mosque Dwarkamai (Mother of Mercy) Masjid . Here two men began serving him faithfully: the Hindu priest, Mhalsapati, who had hailed him as Sai , and another man named Tatya Kote Patil. Many of the villagers would sarcastically refer to them as "the trio of the Masjid." Later (in 1909), when the masjid started leaking during a heavy rainstorm, Sai Baba was taken to the nearby mud-walled village chavadi (a small two-room building used as a village office). From then on, he began sleeping on alternate days in the masjid and the chavadi .1
At that time, Shirdi was a quiet village with very few visitors. Some years after Sai settled there, plague swept through the area and scores of persons died. The district officials tried everything to alleviate the epidemic, but nothing helped. Eventually some people approached Sai, narrating their tales of woe and pleading with him to help before the entire population of Shirdi was wiped out.
The fakir was moved by their stories and went to a nearby house, picked up a millstone, then returned to the Dwarkamai Masjid and began grinding wheat. Collecting the flour, he gave it to a woman with instructions to sprinkle it along the boundaries of the village. The woman did as she was told, and within a short time, to everybody's relief, the epidemic began to subside. Patients recovered and Shirdi was completely free from the fatal effects of the plague.
Invalids and the diseased from the surrounding villages would come to Sai, who treated them with medicinal herbs. Afterward, he would sit with those afflicted, listening to the devotional music they would sing. Each person was attracted to the light in his eyes! The eyes of this Perfect One were so luminous, with such power and deep penetration in his gaze, that no one could look into them for long. One felt that he was reading one through and through, that nothing could be kept secret from him. After seeing his face, people could only bow to him in worship, surrendering their lives at his feet.
One devotee, G. S. Khaparde, was a prominent lawyer and associate of the Indian freedom fighter, Lokmanya Tilak.
Footnotes
- 1.After some time, the Masjid was rebuilt.