I consider it the biggest privilege of my life to be born into a family who were already Swami devotees. My father was working in the railways those days and my mother was a homemaker. We were then staying in Meerut. My father was in the reservation section at the New Delhi Railway Station. One day an old gentleman had left a bunch of Swami's literature on my father's desk and never returned to claim it. After many days my father overtaken by curiosity opened and read one of the books. The book spoke about Swami's life and leelas. My father's curiosity was piqued further, and he read the other literature too. When nobody came to claim the literature for a long time, with the permission of his supervisor my father got some of the literature home to tell my mother about Swami. They also added Swami’s photo to our home’s altar.

My mother was attracted to Swami too. My mother at that time was suffering from health problems and the moment Swami's literature entered our home my mother's health problems disappeared. This reinforced their faith in Swami. 

Soon my parents were attending Bhajans in a local devotee’s house.

One of those days Swami was visiting Delhi. My parents went to Delhi and in the crowd they somehow both got pushed to the front and Swami blessed my mother and father on their respective sides. At that time my mother had the desire to have Swami’s Bhajan in our home and she expressed the same desire to Swami. Swami replied, “Wait, wait, not now, after one year.” After one year I was born and then the first Bhajan took place in our house. 

We could not involve ourselves in Sai Samithi activities as my father, being in the Railways, had a transferrable job. But we would regularly visit Puttaparthi. I still remember my first visit to Prasanthi Nilayam. That time both my parents were doing Seva and I was with another devotee’s daughter and I was missing my parents, so I was sobbing. Those were the times when we used to have Darshan on sands and the lady who was along with me took me for Darshan. Very few devotees were there, and I was in the front line still sobbing. Swami came directly to me and looking at me gestured me not to cry. I don't know how, but as a little girl, I felt that Swami was trying to tell me not to cry in my life as He was there to take care of me. And my life is a testament to the fact that in the most difficult phases of my life, it was only Swami who took care of me in ways beyond human comprehension. 

Every two or three years our family would visit Prasanthi for Seva. One delightful incident would happen with an amazing frequency every time we would visit. I narrate it now. I would be too young to join Seva so I would help my mother and other Sevadals in their duties, but not officially. At the end of the Seva those days my parents along with the other Sevadal would get Padanamaskar from Swami. I would always pine for Swami's Padanamaskar while sitting outside the Darshan area. 

To enter the Darshan area, we would require a Sevadal scarf. I would be sitting sad outside and suddenly there would come a senior sevadal with a scarf in hand asking who had lost it and looking at me she would hand it over to me and take me inside for Swami's Padanamaskar. I would be trembling with fear expecting the omniscient Swami would catch me and scold me. But Swami would come to me and bless me nicely. And this happened not once, but consecutively on three or four occasions. In fact, on one occasion, it so happened that there was a senior group leader in the line, but not looking at her Swami came to me and blessed me and went ahead. 

I finished school and then wrote the all-India competitive exam for medicine and got through with a good rank, and I opted to study medicine in my hometown of Meerut.  I graduated with MBBS from there. Then for my post-graduation, I wanted to choose the speciality of Anaesthesia. During that period my Mother had put some chits in front of Swami's photo and every time she picked up a chit it came as Obstetrics/Gynaecology (OB/GY). However, I was not comfortable taking up that course as I could not see the women in pain and suffering. But my mother insisted that I take up OB/GY only. And told me that she had asked Swami and Swami had told me to take up OB/GY. During counselling I went against my mother's wish and took up Anaesthesia and lo and behold, that counselling was cancelled as some of the students complained of malpractice. Again, I wrote the exam and again attended the counselling and this time I took up OB/GY as my mother had wished. The department was tough initially, but with Swami's grace, I adjusted well. When there was one more round of counselling for the remaining seats, I refused to change my stream. 

At the end of the three years, we had to submit a thesis, and this became one of the most testing phases of my life. I got a senior guide who would take care of his students like a father and I had finished almost the entire thesis under his guidance. Only the last portion was remaining when he suddenly passed away due to a cardiac arrest. I was then forced to depend on our Head of Department who happened to be extremely hostile towards me. She made me modify my thesis many times and eventually told me that she would not clear my thesis and that I should wait one more year and appear for the final exam the year following. I was completely devastated. I started losing weight, went into depression and also had a minor accident due to the stress. I had no idea what to do but kept praying to Swami. All my hard work had come to a nought, I felt.

During that time there was a National Obstetrics/Gynaecology Conference taking place in Kochi, Kerala and I had applied and was also selected to make a presentation. But after what my new guide had told me I lost all interest. My parents, however, pushed me to go and present. I went to Kochi along with my parents and made the presentation and received the National Award for the best presentation. As some of my batch mates and HoD also attended the same conference, this news spread like wildfire in our college. Then the Principal of the college came to me and told me that she would be my guide and not my HoD. I could not imagine how Swami arranged all this. Eventually, I passed the course and took up a job in Delhi. 

Then, my father developed gastrointestinal malignancy. The hospital I was working at had an extremely good cancer department and my father responded well to the treatment and his quality of life did not reduce. We all have to go through tough phases in our lives, but with Swami on our side, we sail through them. I feel it was Swami's grace that I got a job where there was a good oncology unit and he also responded well before he finally passed away many years later. 

One day while working in Delhi I got a call from the HR department of Swami's General Hospital. The person who called said 'Sai Ram' I was taken aback and replied 'Sai Ram'. So the person asked me whether I was a Swami devotee. I said yes, since my birth. They were so happy and asked me whether I would like to join Swami's hospital, in Prasanthi Nilayam. I did not say yes or no but told them that I needed time to think. This was in 2015. That night I had a dream.

Swami came into my dream and said, “I saved your life when you were little, and also got your post-graduation done. You know that. Otherwise, your HoD would have never passed you for 8 years.”

I had completely forgotten about the first incident. But after Swami mentioned it, I remembered that when I was in kindergarten, I was travelling in a cycle rickshaw and had fallen on the ground and the back wheel of the rickshaw was about to crush me, but somehow it went high above me without touching me. I had forgotten the incident and even my mother had forgotten about it. But Swami remembered. 

The second incident I have already narrated. I knew it was with Swami's grace that I could finish my course, but here Swami told me clearly that it was Him who got it done for me. 

I told my mother that Swami came in a dream and told me those two things. So I was clear that Swami wanted me to work in His hospital. So I joined the Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital in 2015. I joined in 2015 and worked till 2017 when I had to leave due to some issues back home. Both my homes in Meerut and Delhi were being encroached upon and Swami sent me back at the right time to save the situation. 

When Covid struck I was working in Varanasi. First, we tided over the Covid pandemic with great difficulty and soon after that, there was a Dengue epidemic. I was not able to manage as many of my colleagues had gone on leave and I was left alone. Somewhere inside me, I felt as if Swami was telling me that my time in Varanasi was over and I had to leave. At that very moment Dr. Narasimhan, the Director of SSSGH called and asked me to return. It was a fait accompli. 

I went ahead and tendered my resignation to the authorities. It was a private hospital, which was taken over by the Uttar Pradesh Govt. and therefore I was working directly under the Health Department of the UP Govt. My superiors were not willing to relieve me. They told me to take a month's leave think over it etc. But when a call came from Swami I had to go.  My Chief Medical Officer was not willing to relieve me, but the HR head understood my situation and finally, they decided that I would have to pay the three months’ salary to be relieved. In the HR dept. there was a clerk who was from Andhra and whose parents had settled down in Varanasi long ago. When he came to know that I was going to Puttaparthi, he felt delighted and told me to write a letter to the State Govt. asking for them to waive at least two months’ salary and the State Govt. agreed. So I had to pay only one month's salary to get relieved. I joined back at SSSGH on November 22, 2022. 

This incident I am about to mention is a testimony to how Swami takes care of all of us. I came to Puttaparthi and after a few months, I got a call from a court in Chhattisgarh that I was supposed to appear as a witness in a case, which I had treated in 2018 in Varanasi. It was my first time to be called as a witness in a case and I had never seen a court earlier, so I was very scared. Moreover, my memory of the patient and the case was also not very clear. With trepidation, I went first to my previous hospital in Varanasi to understand what the case was about. It was a holiday, and I could not access the documents. So from there, I went to Chhattisgarh where the case was going on. I gathered details about the case from the court and happened to meet the defence lawyer before the case came up for hearing. Defence lawyers are the ones who are tough on witnesses, but with Swami's abundant grace, he ended up being a Swami devotee himself. The moment he came to know that I was working at Swami's hospital in Puttaparthi he immediately softened. As if that was not enough, even the judge in the case was a Swami devotee in that court in Chhattisgarh. I gave my statement without any fear and was soon back in Puttaparthi. 

Working in the Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital is a dream, and in fact working in any Swami's institution be it Puttaparthi or outside is a great good fortune. While working in Swami's hospital I feel that Swami is our Supervisor. He is watching over each and everything we are doing and is taking care so that we do the right thing always. There have been so many instances where even the most difficult cases have recovered without any complications. There was one particular case where the lady was in labour but was not able to deliver. Then we started getting worried that something may happen to the mother and the child. I was silently praying to Swami and suddenly I felt a nice smell of jasmine fill the room and the lady delivered easily. Till then I did not know that the fragrance of jasmine was a sign of Swami's visit. Later one of the senior sisters, whom I call Suguna Aunty, mentioned that to answer my prayers Swami must have visited and taken care of the mother and the child. 

To sum up, the only thing I can say is that it is our great good fortune to have been born in the age of Swami and even greater fortune to be a part of Swami’s mission. May all of us avail of this golden opportunity.

Jai Sai Ram.