When godman Dadaji traumatised Khushwant Singh

I have no faith. I’ve never felt the need for it. Faith is denial of reason and for me reason is supreme. But I do not question the right of people to stick to their faiths because I have seen the good that it can do to some of them. I do not believe in miracles any more than I do in magic. But I do not deny that there are phenomena which still baffle scientists. I say this as a prelude to narrating my encounter with Amiya Roy Chowdhury, known to his innumerable admirers as Dadaji.

I received two books on Dadaji. They were compilations of tributes by eminent doctors, professors and businessmen, all of whom had experienced some miracle or the other. My interest was roused.

A few days later, film star Abhi Bhattacharya breezed into my office to take me to meet Dadaji. The happy glow on his handsome face made me suspect that he had already counted me among his dharma bhais.

I report the encounter without any prejudice or bias.

The reception room in Dadaji’s apartment in Bandra had no furniture except a divan which was obviously meant for Dadaji. At the time there were only half a dozen men and women, all Bengalis. Then Dadaji entered. Everyone stood up. One man prostrated himself, placing his head on Dadaji’s feet.

Dadaji is tall and light-skinned. He wears his black hair long. His youthful handsomeness belies his seventy years. His eyes have a hypnotic, spellbinding power. An aroma known in esoteric circles as the padmagandha (fragrance of the lotus) fills the room.

Dadaji seats himself on the divan and beckons to me. I shuffle up and sit near his feet. He tries to fix me in a kindly but hypnotic stare. He wants to know why I have come to see him. I tell him of my lack of faith, my disbelief in the existence of a divine power and my curiosity about him and his following.

‘What if Sri Satya Narayan wants to communicate with you?’ he asks. I look puzzled. ‘What if he sends you a memento?’ he asks again. He raises his right hand in the air, and in his palm appears a medallion with an image of an elderly man. ‘It is Sri Satya Narayan’s gift to you,’ assures Dadaji. ‘No, it is not,’ I protest. ‘You, Dadaji, have given it to me.’ He smiles. ‘I am no one, it is all the doing of Sri Satya Narayan.

‘What is your name?’ he asks. I tell him. He takes back the medallion, rubs the reverse side with his thumb. What had been a blank surface is now embossed with my name. Only my name is not correctly spelt. A minute later, and as mysteriously as before, a gold chain appears in the palm of his empty hand. ‘This is to wear the medallion around your neck,’ he says, giving it to me.

‘Come with me,’ orders Dadaji. I follow him. He leads me into his bedroom.

Once more we are on different levels; he sits on his bed, I on the floor beside him. He tells me he is a monist. Sri Satya Narayan pervades the entire universe. There are no gurus. Each man is his own guru because he is a part of Sri Satya Narayan. The way to salvation is through Mahanam (the great name). It can be in any language.

‘You ask for it in your own mother tongue.’ He hands me a blank slip of paper and asks me to bow before a picture of Sri Satya Narayan. I do so. The paper now bears two words in Gurmukhi, ‘Gopal, Govinda.’ A minute later the paper is blank again. Apparently the message has been delivered and does not need to be on paper any more. And so it continues. A touch of his hand on my beard fills my beard with the same padmagandha.

For an unbeliever, it is a traumatic kind of experience. It does not shake my disbelief in religion or miracles nor bends my reason to accept banal statements about God, Guru and the Name which pass for philosophy in our land. But let the reader make up his own mind.

Excerpts taken from Extraordinary Indians: A book of profiles by Khushwant Singh; edited by Mala Dayal with permission from Aleph Book Company