Prasanthi Update - August 25th - Tamil Nadu Youth Programme

August 27, 2008

Sent by Dear Sai Brother Shri.Vidyasagar from Prasanthi Nilayam :

More than 4000 members of the youth brigade from Tamil Nadu had arrived at Prashanti Nilayam. It has become part and parcel of the activities of each and every state in India to have atleast one pilgrimage to Puttaparthi wherein all can recharge their fatigued spiritual batteries and continue all the other activities thereafter with renewed vigour and energy.

Swami had very graciously consented for a music programme by them. An so, by 3:30pm, all of them were seated in neat rows and columns in Kulwant hall. The rest of Kulwant hall resembled an ocean as all these devotees were in deep blue scarves.

Swami arrived for darshan and took a complete round of the ladies side. He cut through between the seated rows of singers and moved towards the interview room. Coming on the stage, He sat listening to the chants. Then He wanted to go around. Taking a round around the stage area, He moved to the portico. Via the portico, He went over to the ladies side. now this was a bonus that none had dreamt about. This turned out to be the darshan round that had been cut short in its "official version"!

As He moved through the students into the gents side, the sea of humanity from Chennai experienced high tides as people bobbed up and down to glimpse the orange form. Taking letters and raising His hands in blessings many times, Swami moved back into the portico and then finally returned back on stage. Then He called all the card boys and birthday boys and blessed them. The cards were actually made for the occasion of Janmashtami and Swami seemed to make fun of the fact that He was being shown cards whose "expiry date" was gone!

He then told the Vedic chants to stop and asked for the programme to begin. The programme schedule was shown to Swami by a member of the youth - a former student of the University Swami recognised him instantly! No wonder it is said that once you become His student, you never cease to be one. The programme consisted of devotional songs that the youth had prepared. The original plan was that the girls would sing their share of songs and then the boys would present what they had prepared. But with Swami, one has to be ready for everything.

As soon as the girls finished the first song in praise of Lord Ganesha, He called one of the boys and told him that they should sing in an alternating manner. This needed some quick adjustments as all the songs had part of the music pre-recorded on CD and the tracks had to be shuffled all over so that the boys and girls could alternate. But as with the Lord always, when He asks for something, He also gives the strength and intelligence needed to achieve it. And so the necessary changes were quickly made and the song programme continued as He willed it!

There were two little kids playing the mridangam and violin respectively, and they did it like professionals. Swami seemed very impressed by them. Most of the songs were in Tamil and one or two were in Malayalam, a sister language for Tamil, too. The girls especially were wonderful in their singing as they reeled counters and chords in the songs that they sang.

As they concluded about 8 songs, Swami asked the students to sing a few bhajans. Nowadays it has become Swami's favourite bhajan-couple and so those were the bhajans sung - Ram Hare Hare Ram bolo and Sri Raghunandana.

After those two bhajans, Swami sent word for the All India president of the Sathya Sai organisation and had it announced that there would be a drama by the Tamil Nadu youth today! Then receiving Aarthi, Swami retired for the day.

Om Sai Ram