The other person was the late (the Hon’ble Mr. Hari Sitaram Dixit) Kakasaheb Dixit, from whose sketch of Sai Baba in Marathi this sketch in English has been attempted. This Kakasaheb about this time i.e. 1910, began incessantly to stay in Shirdi at the feet of his Master Sai Baba. He was thus out of the public life of Mumbai and many of his friends and well-wishers, worldly as they were, published in the papers that Dixit had become a Buwa i.e. an ascetic and therefore many went to Shirdi to see who it was that caused such a change in Mr. Dixit.
When the late Nanasaheb first came to Shirdi, there was no place for the visitors to stay in it. But this want was soon removed. The late Rao Bahadur Hari Vinayak Sathe was a Deputy Collector in this District. Since many years his first wife was dead, and he had no wish, as he was over fifty years, to get re-married. But as he had no male issue his friends were after him to get remarried. At last he decided that he would go to Shirdi and do as Sai Baba would advise. He came to Shirdi and Baba advised him to get married again and said he would get a son, The Rao Bahadur selected a girl and informed her father, the late Ganesh Damodar Kelkar, that the girl should be shown to Sai Baba. Accordingly, when Kelkar brought the girl to Sai Baba, the latter put a melon in her ‘Oti’ (lap) and applied kunku to her head. Shortly after, the marriage took place. At the desire of Sai Baba, Rao Bahadur Sathe built a big Wada by purchasing lands surrounding the aforesaid nim tree. The Wada built by the late Rao Bahadur Sathe, had been purchased on 30.9.1924 by the late R. S, Navalkar, B.A., LL.B., Advocate, O. S., Mumbai. Mr. V. N. Gorakshakar, who is now one of the five life Trustees of the Sansthan, with great efforts, successfully induced the heirs of the late R. S. Navalkar to make a gift of the said Wada to the Shirdi Sansthan in 1939. On the said Wada, the Shirdi Sansthan in 1941, built a structure containing four double rooms for the use of the devotees of Sai Baba as per rules made therefore. Three years later, Sai Baba got another Wada built by Kakasaheb Dikshit, thus providing for some accommodation for the devotees staying or made to stay in Shirdi, because it was not certain when Baba would allow a devotee to leave Shirdi. A few years later, Shrimant Gopalrao Mukund alias Bapusaheb Buti of Nagpur, built at Baba’s instance, a third Wada This is a black stone mansion the line of which may not be found in the whole of the Taluka, costing over a lac of rupees. This contains Sai’s Samadhi. This Bapusaheb Buti was a permanent resident of Shirdi ever since 1910 A. D. As it is over quarter of a century since Buti’s Wada was constructed it stands in need of large repairs to preserve the same from natural deterioration. It remains to be seen, how Sai Baba is going to solve this problem of the Sansthan.
After the building of the first Wada, Shirdi began to get the appearance of a Sansthan. Sai Maharaj allowed his devotees to perform his ‘Arati’ and all the paraphernalia of stately worship gradually began to come into evidence. The Chavdi was richly decorated with mirrors, hanging lamps, pictures etc. and the procession to the Chavdi assumed a very stately appearance with a din of music, bhajan, a horse and a palanquin, Chopdars, etc., accompanying the procession. And nothing could surpass the manifest divinity in Sai Baba’s expression when he made a halt of about 5 minutes in front of the Chavdi looking towards the sky and making signs with his right hand before the procession entered the Chavdi. Indeed, a sight celestial for the worldly mortals to see! The floors of both the masjid and Chavdi were covered with mosaic tiles etc., and the entire credit of all this splendour is wholly due to the late Sundrabai Kshirsagar alias Radhakrishna Bai. She was a devout devotee of Sai Baba, to whom she had dedicated her mind and efforts. As she had no money of her own, she made all efforts to import splendour into the Sansthan through such of the several rich devotees as could be influenced by her sweating services in token of her devotion to Sai Baba. She was great organiser during her eight or nine years’ stay in Shirdi, where she died at the age of 35. In the life-time of Sai Baba, she never spared herself to add worldly grandeur to the daily curriculum of a saint who nevertheless would not be distracted or deluded from the enjoyment of his own grandeur within himself by these outward shows. But whatever Radhakrishna did in nine years in transforming the rural aspect of Shirdi into an urban one, others would not be able to achieve in a quarter of a century. She was a woman of resolute will and assertive temperament. It was she who introduced the night Shej Arati and the Kakad Arati in Chavdi. By her death the Sansthan is deprived of a splendid caretaker of the Sansthan property.
But as wonderful are the ways of Sai Baba, He has graced the Sansthan with another lady full of Vairagya and selflessness in the person of Mrs. Jankibai Tambe alias Shrimati Sai Mai (daughter of the late Purushottam Sakhararn alias Balasaheb Bhate – a devout devotee of Sai Baba) who is admiringly filling up the gap created by the demise of Radhakrishna. This Sai Mai has dedicated all her moveable and immoveable property to the Sansthan by a deed of settlement dated 2.1.1943.
Not only this, but her office in the Sansthan as ‘Bhojan Sevika’, she has been discharging with wonderful zeal, promptitude and care worthy of admiration. She has been often found to be doing her work unmindful of her own health, as she believed that the service of the Sansthan is the service of Sai Baba. So, in spite of all odds, the credit of the satisfactory management of the ‘Bhojan Griha’, which is exclusively meant for the benefit of the devotees of Sai Baba, goes to her. But for her strenuous efforts, it would not be possible for the Sansthan to maintain any ‘Bhojan Griha’ at all. The Sansthan Committee, therefore, prays to Sai Baba to see that this lady is duly assisted by all concerned in her aforesaid services of Sai Baba.
