Hindu Worship in High Tech World of Whitefield

Last week I was lucky enough to accompany devotees of Sathya Sai Baba to an event described as a darshan (vision of a deity or saint) at Brindavan in Kadugodi, Whitefield, This is a suburb of Bangalore that is also known as a high tech center. It was an amazing experience, attended by thousands of people, many of them from all over the world.




As with the ISKCON Temple (see my post from Monday, May 26, 2008 “India’s Religious Tapestry: Bangalore’s Krishna Temple and Beyond”) shoes first have to be removed before entering the compound, and all bags and cameras have to be left behind. Women are expected to wear a shawl. Since I wasn’t, the lady at the bag check window loaned me one.


We women went to one side of the giant open-sided enclosure, which was decorated with tinsel and what looked like Christmas balls, and the men went to the other. Efficient women wearing yellow and red-orange saris showed us to a place on the hard marble floor. (Those unable to sit on the floor had the option of sitting in folding chairs at the back of the space.)

For a long time we sat in silence, contemplating the larger than life sized photos of the wild haired guru (wearing his signature long red robe) that decorated the stage. Then the musicians began to play and sing Hindu devotional songs (bhajan.) After they sing and play a refrain, the crowd repeats it, the pace accelerating rapidly throughout the session. I could not see the men’s side, but in my area women of all ages, most dressed in their best silk saris, adorned by gold bangles and earrings, clapped wildly to the beat of the repeated refrain.


When the music had reached a near fever pitch, several men wearing all white wheeled the octogenarian’s wheelchair onto the stage. At this point the women whose job it was to keep order had their work cut out for them due to the nearly universal attempt by the group to move forward. The music continued for some time, as Sathya Sai Baba sat looking beatifically into the hugely enthusiastic crowd.

Shortly thereafter more men in white appeared with large pots, which they handed to other volunteers. These contained individually-wrapped sweets, which were distributed to the groping hands of the women surrounding me.

The darshan take place both morning and evening in this place when Sathya Sai Baba is in attendance, during the hot summer months. The rest time he is usually in his primary residence at Prashanthi Nilayam (abode of highest peace,) Puttaparthy, Andhra Pradesh.

Originally a small village, the town now has an extensive university complex, two museums, a planetarium, a railway station, a hill-view stadium, an administrative building, an airport, and an indoor sports stadium, all due to the popularity of the spiritual leader. He is considered by his followers to be an avatar and the reincarnation of the saint Sai Baba of Shirdi.

According to the Sathya Sai Organization, (http://www.sathyasai.org/) there are an estimated 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 114 countries worldwide. The number of adherents is estimated by experts at around six million, but sometimes quoted by followers as up to 100 million. A site you can visit for more visuals of the darshan is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fs1OBY82b0