I had just returned to my native place of Madanapalli, India for holidays from Saudi Arabia where I was working as an in-charge of a section at the  AL- Mouwasat hospital at Dammam, when my father showed me a newspaper cutting about a super speciality hospital coming up at Puttaparthi in 1991. My father told me that it would be nice if I would work at that hospital as it would be much closer home, and definitely much closer than Saudi Arabia. 

I did not bother much about the news story. To be very frank I did not even bother to read it even though my father had insisted that I should. 

A year later I had resigned my job at dammam, got married and settled down at Hyderabad with my husband. I was looking for a job, and my husband was insisting that I should apply to Swami’s hospital which had brought out an advertisement seeking to recruit nurses. One day I was called by my neighbour for a little help. Entering her house I realised that she was a Sri Sathya Sai Baba devotee and she requested that I help her in making a garland for Swami as she did not know how to do it. While I set about the job, she started talking about how she had tried to get her daughter admission in Swami’s school but it did not happen. It was then that I casually mentioned that my husband was insisting that I attend the interview at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram for a nursing position. She shrieked in delight. “Rathna never let go of an opportunity like this, it is not ordinary hospital, it is a hospital built by Bhagawan Himself. It would be a great good fortune if you get selected,” she said. 

I decided to attend the interview, with frankly not much interest in joining the hospital. My husband and me took a room outside the Ashram and visited the ashram during the evening Darshan. Swami has his own methods of guiding people to Him. During that time there were Tamil Nadu Sevadal on duty in the Ashram. While entering the Darshan area (those days the Darshan would take place on the sands), I met one lady sevadal and as I was fluent in Tamil, asked her about Baba, Ashram and other institutions of Bhagawan and told her that I had come for the interview for a nursing post at the SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram. The sevadal went to great lengths to convince me that it was a great good fortune to work in Swami’s hospital. It was the second time that somebody was telling that to me. Going back to the hotel room I slept peacefully and for the first time in my life Swami appeared in my dream and granted me Abhaya. 

Being my first time of seeing Swami in my dream, I did not understand what it meant. Next day during Darshan time I sought out the same sevadal whom I had met the previous day. She heard my story and said finally, “ Amma I feel  not only will you get this job, but you will stay in Puttaparthi only.” I was not sure. But much later as I would realise her words would echo in my life. 

 I joined the SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, in 1993 and I soon realised that it was my great good fortune to work at Swami’s institution. I have continued to work at Bhagawan’s hospital till date. 

In the past 25 years I am a witness to so many leelas of Swami, some of which I would like to share here. 

For the first 9 years of my stay at the hospital, I was the In-charge of the Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery ICU and in the initial years, Swami would visit the hospital and specifically the ICU pretty frequently, I would be with Swami while he went around the ICU.  On one such day, incidentally all patients who were in the ICU came from different states of India and therefore spoke different languages. As I watched astonished, Swami went to each patient and spoke to him or her in their own language and as if He had known each one of them for a long time and some of the languages Swami spoke I had not even heard in my whole life. That is Swami, a loving mother who knows us better than we ourselves do. On another occasion there was little boy who was constantly crying while in the ICU. We had exhausted all our means to make to the boy smile, but nothing worked. Swami arrived just at that time saw the boy created vibhuti and applied it to his forehead and that moment onwards the boy stopped crying and was joy incarnate, while we stared in disbelief. Well now when I look back I realise that there was no need for anyone of us to feel surprised. Swami is God, the Universal Master and more importantly the Universal Mother and a mother knows how best to take care of Her children. 

Apart from the direct intervention that Swami had done on many occasions, I also wish to mention that it was Swami who inculcated the dictum of Paropakaaraartham Idam Shareeram (the reason of existence is selfless service) among the nurses. Swami had told us time and again that we should take care of the patients like our own kith and kin and the nurses of the hospital put their heart and soul into that dictum. There have been umpteen occasions where our nurses during Swami’s Darshan, forgetting their personal trials and tribulations, would ask Swami to take care of patient who had undergone a complex surgery or a small kid who was having some complications. On those occasions Swami would give His Abhaya hasta or sometimes materialise Vibhuti for the patient and needless to say the patients would recover perfectly afterwards. In these days of commercialisation of medicine, these things will sound unbelievable anywhere else, but definitely not in Swami’s hospital. 

During one of Swami’s visits I was told to report to Urology ward. After going around talking to the patients, Swami looked at me and spoke to me at length. Though I had been with Swami during His earlier visits, it was the first time Swami had enquired about my personal life. After speaking to me for , what seemed a long time, he finally asked me what I wanted, I had so many things in my mind, but I blurted out, Swami my family and me should stay forever in Puttaparthi. For which Swami smiled and blessed me with his Abhaya Hasta. I bowed to Him and He left. Later the Abhaya of Swami came back to me as a flash. It was exactly as I had seen in my dream before I joined the hospital many years earlier. And that Abhaya hasta of Swami was interpreted by my Sevadal friend then as an indication that I would stay in Puttaparthi!  

Many people ask us how is it after Swami’s passing away. We say He has not passed away and He is taking care of His children just as He had always been.  I will narrate an incident which happened earlier this year. My younger sister had developed pain in her abdomen and basic tests showed that there was some growth in her uterus. The tests on the biopsy sample performed by the Head of Department of Pathology showed a case of uterus cancer. Our worlds collapsed. She, a woman of great dynamism, was the spirit of her family. She would conduct free tuition classes for the underprivileged at her home and would not miss any seva opportunity anywhere. I wondered why she had to undergo all this suffering. The doctors at the Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital, Puttaparthi referred her to a private cancer centre in Hyderabad for treatment. I told her to take Swami’s vibhuti mixed with water once in the morning and once in the evening. She scrupulously followed and  went after a few days for surgery. After the tests she was told that her cancer had disappeared. Cancer cancelled, as Swami would simply say.   

Swami has not passed away nor will His work will ever fade away. This is reflected in the work ethic of the hospital staff. All the staff of the hospital have kept up the same standard of care, a testimony to this fact is that when patients at our hospital are told that they are getting discharged, they actually ask us,” could we not stay a bit longer, we really like it here, actually we feel better here than our homes.” which patient anywhere in the world would ever say something like that.      

  Jai Sai Ram