Although the entire village had come to put implicit faith in Sai Baba, still very few happened to be intimate with him. Owing to Sai Baba’s serene yet austere outlook, nobody dared take any undue liberty with him; and then very few frequented the Dwarkamai. One Madhavrao Balwant Deshpande, who had been a school teacher in a school next to the masjid (Dwarkamai) began to frequent the masjid, there prepare the chilim and smoke the same in Sai Baba’s company. This went on for sometime and Madhavrao became attached to Sai Baba, so much so, that gradually he left off everything and his only business in life was to serve the steadily growing stream of devotees that began to pour into Shirdi incessantly. All this service of Madhavrao was purely honorary. This Madhavrao was the living lexicon of Sai Baba of Shirdi, and as such, a reliable guide for many a new comer to the Shrine of Sai Baba in Shirdi. Madhavrao died in the year 1939.
As a rule Sai Baba never went out of Shirdi, but at times he went to one of his devotees by name Babasaheb Dengle in the neighbouring village of Nimgaon on the north, and at times to the village of Rahata, three miles towards the south, to the house of Chandrabhan Shet Marwadi. After the death of Chandrabhan, Khushalchand Shet looked after the business of the shop. Sai Baba off and on invited this Khushalchand and when anybody from Rahata came to Sai Baba, he would invariably ask him whether he had met Khushalchand! Nanasaheb Dengale, a brother of Babasaheb Dengale lived in Jali Nimgaon. He had no son. As he did not get a son by his first wife, he married a second, but to no effect. Then Babasaheb Dengale sent him to Sai Baba whose benediction that he would get a son proved true; and thus Nanasaheb who came into frequent contact with Government officials always sang the song of Sai Baba’s super-human powers to these officials. This induced Chidambar Keshav alias Annasaheb Gadgil, the Chitnis of the Collector, to take Sai Baba’s darshan, and he did so with some others. Annasaheb Gadgil’s faith in Sai Baba increased day by day and he became one of Baba’s staunch devotees.
The masjid (Dwarkamai) in which Sai Baba sat and slept every alternate night had been in a very dilapidated condition. There was plenty of dust on the ground, which was being added to by the help of dust falling from the dry mud roof. Nanasaheb Dengale brought for Sai Baba a wooden plank for sleeping upon. Sai Baba instead of keeping this plank on the floor and sleeping on it, tied the plank like a swing to the rafter of the masjid with old rags, and commenced to sleep on it. The rags were so worn out, that, it was a question whether they could hold the weight of the plank itself. But here again Sai Baba disclosed his ‘Leela’ by enabling the withered rags to sustain the weight of the plank with himself sleeping on it. On the four corners of this plank Sai Baba lighted a lamp (panati) at each of the four corners. It was a sight courted by many as observer to see how Sai Baba mounted this plank. But the fact is, that although many kept watching the event, nobody ever noticed, how and when Sai Baba mounted this plank. All that they could observe, was, Sai Baba about to mount the plank and Sai Baba asleep on the plank. This naturally attracted crowds of people, and careful observers were posted by relays, for a number of days without effect. But as crowds began to increase to detect this unbelievable feat. Sai Baba to get rid of the bother, one day broke the plank into pieces.
