The Safety Pin
The year 1966 was a very special and auspicious for us. It was the year that brought us to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Since then, we have learned to leave all our burdens with Him. Our lives have thereby become enriched and secure; the future does not hold any fear or insecurity for us!
He comes to our aid immediately when we encounter difficulties. There are many instances of these outpourings of grace, but I would like to share with you one wonderful experience of ours, where Baba came to our help as soon as we called on Him.
We were returning from His presence on the 18th day of January 1968, from Puttaparthi to Madurai. We started our journey after morning darshan [Swami’s public appearances]. My husband, our three children, and myself were in the car. Our youngest was three years old then.
We were about 30 miles from Salem, where we proposed to halt for the night. We were already late, since we spent sometime in Bangalore. Darkness had fallen upon the earth. Our car started giving trouble; the driver’s skill and resources of intuition failed to solve the trouble. There were no houses or shops anywhere near us. Evidently, we were stranded in a patch of deserted land. The car had come to a stop. None of the gears could be worked, in spite of the frantic efforts of my husband and the driver.
We tried to halt some passing trucks, but the drivers shouted back that they did not know much about Fiats! Others turned their noses at us and drove past! We were resigning ourselves to a night spent in the dark with hunger and fear as companions. No. We had Baba as our guardian. We told ourselves that all will be well.
Suddenly, a white Fiat car drove up and stopped just by the side of our vehicle. Our driver hurried out to open the bonnet [hood of the car] and plead for help, after explaining to the occupants what the trouble was. The car had two persons in it, one whom we took to be the owner. The owner was the first to speak. He did not wait to be told what the matter was with the car. He asked my husband rather sternly for a safety pin and, when that was handed over to him, he instructed the driver—we could hear him quite clearly, as his voice was sharp and penetrating—to get under the car and fix the pin to the nipple!
The driver did what he was told; it took him only a few seconds, as he was an intrepid young man. Then, we were asked to proceed to Salem and take the car to any workshop there. The car started without any difficulty and we drove smoothly on. The other Fiat came behind us for some minutes, and then shot forward at great speed, and soon vanished from view.
We reached Salem and took the car to a workshop. There we found that the gear rod was broken in two!
Yes! Broken in two! They wondered how we could come all that distance with a broken gear rod! They took three hours to get the thing welded!
They found no safety pin, and nobody could say where the nipple was! But Baba knew our distress and He saved us.
Now, please proclaim with us how compassionate our Baba is.
~Jayasri Balakrishnan
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Nov. 1971
