Ratnamma of Sai baba's Puttaparthi: her faith mattters

She may be Ratnamma or Muniyamma or Neelamma ... 

Her name hardly matters. I met her during my four-day escape from mundane life in Bangalore to Puttaparthi. As a matter of fact Putaparthi was not in plan as I had been planning to visit Thiruvannamalai.   But unfortunately I could not manage a place for stay owing to the long weekend. I am told  that all accommodations were fully sold out even though my friend and colleague Roshan gave me the number of a place in Thiruvannamalai. The next place came to my mind was Puttaparthi: The Land of Saibaba.

The journey is part of my next level of artistic enquiry on human utopia, the epitome of human faith:  God.  For the last thirty-eight and odd years, ever since I saw Theyyam for the first time, where my friend’s father turned into a God for day,  has been an intriguing question in my life.  Otherwise lookdown upon as a cast dalit and poor, my friend’s father became a subject of worship on that day for all: the high and mighty.  

Over the years after many experiences and explorations I realised in my limited understanding that every faith on earth has been an effort in that direction: the social elevation of the deprived.  It insists the compassion and love: the social equity, order and justice; the human utopia for that men formed groups, communities, religions, nations and structure then fought and killed !.

From Socrates’s insistence on inherent social order from early Greek period to St. Augustine, the monotheistic journey was wound up temporarily with my MA thesis dissertation on pieta, where the idea of gender and God was explored. Now it is the turn of polytheism from Kapila’s  Prakriti  and purusha  through  Pathanjali’s yogasutra concept  of salvation to Godhood to Ratnamma at Puttaparthi, the enquiry is on.

From the day I reached Puttaparthi, I saw her on the pavement leading to Prashanthi Nilayam, where Sai baba used to give his everyday audience to his disciples.  The old lady had wrinkled marks of years of turbulent living embedded all over her body.  What I found interesting about her was in the evening while I was returning after the arathi at Prashanti nilayam, I saw this lady giving away all her leftover fruits to street kids. Thereafter she slowly walked up to temple gate to pray before vanishing into the dark.  Although tired with my long drive and atmospheric heat, still I waited and watched  her act silently. The next day morning on my way back to the hall I saw her at the same spot again, trying her hard bargain with customers. I bought couple of oranges from her, although I knew she was charging me excess, I did not bargain her much.

But in the evening while I was coming back to hotel,  I saw her sitting at the same place and she had two oranges in her hand and called me in Hindi “ Babu ye lelo…subai mein jyaada liya  aapse” ( babu take this, in the morning I took excess from you) she thought I am a north Indian.

All I could do was with a courtesy smile refuse her oranges. But she also refused to give up, pointing at Prashanti nilayam and said “nai babu, bhagvan maaf nahin karega”, she laid out in front of me the fundamental value of money: the ethical profit.  Thus began our conversation.

Ratnamma was not as old as I believed; she was only in her early sixties.  She is coming from the Naxal belt of Andhra Pradesh.  Her husband was a naxalite  killed in police encounter.  She had three sons and two daughters.  Eldest one also continued his father’s path, one became alcoholic and died with  liver cirrhosis, and the third one ran away without any trace. With two daughters to look after, with nothing to piggybank, she migrated to Vijayawada and became a sex worker.  The elder one ran away with a pimp and the younger one married and settled in Vijayawada.  After her daughter’s marriage a pimp brought her here at Puttaparthi for trade and since then she is settled here. But according to her, with her first chanced audience with Sai baba, she stopped her sex work forever and became a fruit seller instead.

Her story may not be different from millions others floating around every city roads in this country.  I did not take those oranges from her and asked her to give them to those children she regularly feeds.  She smiled with her wrinkled frail face. 

On my way back to hotel her story haunted my mind. 
Who is Ratnamma after all? 
During the last sixty years of her life, this country has transformed from Gandhian idealism to Nehruvian socialism to a Narasimha rao’s capitalism (and since then everybody’s including the present government’s) with much fanfare and propaganda and in the end, in Ratnamma’s family of seven, only one person could  secure and settle a life with little dignity.  She may be Ratnamma or Muniyamma or Neelamma and  it hardly matters.  The story of vast majority in this country is not different. All those political utopias have failed to deliver its intended objective: the social elevation of the deprived.  They always reminded these poor that they had to sacrifice for a better tomorrow, they had to tighten their belts for a better tomorrow, they had to overthrow power for a better tomorrow or they had to give away their homes and land for a better tomorrow.  But after more than sixty years of  independence,  with all their sufferings, India still produces millions of Ratnammas everywhere in this country. Ratnamma’s  are kept on losing their dignity and family for politics, economics and survival.

Suddenly the three-line vibhoothi and the vermilion spot on her forehead became prominent in front of my eyes.  So was the Sai baba and many other saints and Sufis.  When the rationality of politics, its economics nitty-gritties and its pragmatic administrations failed to deliver the much-needed human dignity to these millions of Ratnammas, these Sai babas, Ramana Maharshis and Amruthanandamayies reassures them it in abundance. For our rational intellectuals it may sound foolish, but one cannot overlook the fact they they give Ratnammas the dignity and reassurance to carry on their life with  the right for an ethics of their belief.

If we look at her life’s story, she is a martyr’s wife, the communists have forgotten and she is a women business entrepreneur,  the capitalists in this  country will ever   bother worth considering as a business  and she is a citizen of this democratic country, where her fellow citizens have chosen to abuse  her body and take away her dignity.  
It is people like Sai baba gives her that personal solace.  
I went to puttaparthi looking for a person and came back knowing a God through Ratnamma.  For me his magic of creating Vibhuthi or garland hardly matters anymore as it matter for the rational minds. For my irrational mind, the intent of his deed is all that matters.  
The 2500-kilo meter water distribution system he created for water deprived rural Andhra Pradesh matters.  
His hospital for free heart surgeries for poor matters. 
The free educational institutions created across India and Africa matters.
The township come-up around his activity alone, where thousands of Kashmiri youth’s found job opportunity in handicraft sales and people like Ratnamma who finally finds a dignified existence in life matters.  

As an artist I always prefer image over sentence for its ability to engage multilaterally as against the linearly structured grammatically ordered sentences.

Ratnamma slowly emerges as one of those artistic images in front of my eyes : the Faith of  polytheistic God.

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