Witnessing for Sri Sathya Sai Baba

One of the engineers at work is married to a woman whose father is a member of the upper house in the Karnataka state legislature.  His name is Veda.  He asked us if we would like to tour the capital building.  It sounded like an interesting afternoon.  He invited me and my colleague, Dan, who I have discussed in an earlier post.  The tour happened on a Saturday,  started at 11:30 and included lunch after the tour.  In the states we have the old joke, "let's do lunch and I'll have my people call your people." 

Here in India the conversation goes like this:

"Not to worry, I'll call your driver when you leave your flat and tell him where to take you."  This is an Indian correlary to "my people will call your people."  It works great since I have no idea where anything is and directions are given according to landmarks I have never heard of.  I got in the car,  Veda called Nagaraj and away we went; directly to the appointed place.

The tour was fascinating.  The building is beautiful inside.  It is designed in a charming way for the Bangalore climate.  All the corridors are external and open.  They are wide and grand.  Appointed with lots of native stone.  All of the woodwork is done in either rosewood or teak.  There are two buildings.  One tends more white and the other is more yellow.  The stone for both buildings was quarried locally but obvisously different veins of rock.  The yellower one is the oldest and is the one we toured.  A former state governor took on the project when he was in office.  The labor used was convict labor.  The building was completed in some very short period of time.  Four years I seem to remember being told.  

Veda's father-in-law, the big guy, was not there.  He was indisposed.  We were accompanied by a personal secretary or assistant to the legislature.  There were various people in and out of our entourage and each had something interesting to tell us.  Dan knows a lot about the details of British government and pointed out the the upper and lower houses were decorated in the British tradition; red carpet for the upper house and green carpets for the lower house.  Each of the chambers had an elaborate  chairman's chair down front carved out of rosewood and complete with it own private entrance.  Each chamber had a gallery of course and lounges for both the majority and minority parties were provided just outside each chamber.  The lounges were complete with kitchens and comfortable furnishings.  The tour of the lower house ended in the lower house Chairman's outer office where we served tea and more interesting conversation describing various details.  Here we were joined by the lower house chairman's personal secretary.  An interesting fellow.  Very personable.  We adjourned to his ofice where we started the tour of the lower house.  The visit with him in his office was fascinating.  He witnessed to us about a holy man, a Baba, one notch above a guru, whom he followed. 

In the states when I have been witnessed to it has usually centered around some notion of Christ, a doctrine is articulated that I am supposed to affirm and the conversation is usually about why I need Christ in my life.  This was very different.  It was not about a doctrine.  It was about social justice and working for the poor.  The Baba's authenticity was established through miracles he was alledged to have performed.  He is shown here on the left. The description of this man reminded me more of a Shaman with tablespoon or two of "trickster" woven in; woven in the traditional "Joesph Campbell" sense. It was explained that this Baba was very old.  It wasn't clear how old but he had apparently inhabited several bodies as he was periodically reincarnated into a new one.  Our host had witnessed what he believed was a miracle performed by this holy man and was a devout follower as a result.  He asked me if I believed his account of the miracle.  I responded that my beliving was not the point.  I believed that he had been personally touched and that was all that mattered.  He seemed to accept my answer and that was the end of the conversation.

The other thing I have noticed about India and Asia in general is that folks seem to hold firm beliefs about the effects of cetain food items.  For example there is a widely held belief that drinking cold water will cause you to catch cold.  Eating ginger in warm weather makes you hotter.  Drinking buttermilk will cool you off.  You guessed it.  Our visit with the personal secretary ended with big glasses of room temperature buttermilk laced with salt and pepper.  I drank all of mine.  It wasn't bad.  For a brief moment I did feel refreshed.

We ended the tour with lunch at my favorite south Indian restaurant, Nagarajuna.  One of the secretaries who had been with us on the entire two and a half hour tour accompanied us.  It was the secretary, Dan, myself and Veda.  When we got to Nagarajuna it was packed.  There was a very long queue.  The secretary stood for a moment, said something to the maitre'd and motioned to us to follow him.  He marched right past the queue to a table of diners completing their meal.  We stood there until they were done and sat down.  So that's how you do it in India.  Lunch was great as always. 

What I will remember about this afternoon is the way in which I was witnessed to.  It was so very different than anything I had experienced before and certainly an unexpected result from a tour of a government building.