Controversies couldn't shake faith of Sai devotees

For millions of devotees he was a God. Although his life was also marked with various controversies, the faith among his devotees was not shaken up even once.

However, the most debated of them all is the magic that Baba adopted to woo his devotees. There have been plenty of stories and the most famous one is the witnessing of ash or vibhuthi on the photographs of Baba at the homes of devotees.

Critics had also stated that producing holy ash, gold rings and other items from thin air was nothing but a magic show.

Despite critics going on and on about these aspects, the faith of devotees remained unchanged. In fact the number of devotees only increased with each passing day.

"What is the point in speaking about all this," says Sundar Raju, a devotee who has been in Puttaparthi since the past ten years.

"It is easy to criticise Bhagwan, but what none looks at the fact the he has done so much for the public, like free education and free medical healthcare of world class standards, providing drinking water to 12 lakh people only to name a few," he says.

At the super-specialty hospital in Bangalore, where 4 lakh heart surgeries have been conducted free of cost, the mood is depressing.

Baba used to visit the hospital very often and give his blessings to the patients. "You think it is easy to carry out such expensive surgeries free of cost? It is only a miracle which helped us carry out such an exercise," a staff at the hospital says.

The news of his death continues to sink in among the devotees. Most of them are inconsolable and they say they cannot believe this.

Devotees, however, now say that Baba had given enough indication that he would leave his body. They say last year at around the same time Baba had folded his hands to all his devotees as if he were saying 'good bye' and this was the first indication that he wanted to leave his body.

They say that Swami had been very vulnerable in the past few days and he often cried, which only was an indication that he wanted to leave.

The devotees are however very upset with the coverage by the media in the last days of Baba. There have been speculations and allegations which were uncalled for.

"It was a painful time for all the devotees and the media should have exercised restraint," a devotee says.