Ruzbeh N. Bharucha - Rabda: My Sigh . . . My Sai

B aba Sai entered the hospital room. He looked at the man lying on a bed, assorted tubes in his body slowly injecting all that could keep him alive. The Old Man smiled.

Rabda, when will you stop dying and begin to live, my boy?

The Old Man looked at Rabda, whose hair had streaks of white. As always, Rabda had long hair. His face was gaunt but he looked peaceful in his enforced sleep. A guitar was propped up on the sofa, which was a few feet away from the bed. The guitar had a Cross, the symbol of the Goddess, which resembled the Star of David, the Asho Farohar, the Zoroastrian winged symbol of accession, and Sai Baba of Shirdis face in various hues of white, saffron and green. The guitar was recognized by music lovers all over the world. It represented not only Oneness but also the music the manwho now lay on a bed, a few breaths away from passing on to the other worldstood for. He made God and the Oneness Family sound groovy. He made religion and spirituality look cool.

Baba Sai walked towards the man He called Rabda. Though the world knew Rabda as Dust, his real name was Caiz.

Baba Sai caressed Rabdas head. Then the Old Man whispered something in Rabdas ear and then stood back and smiled.

Now the fun would begin. This man had always made Baba smile and sigh. But then most of His kids made Him smile and sigh. In reality all of His creations made Him smile and sigh and sometimes they made Him want to scream but then thats another story for another time.

The man born as Caiz, who chose the name Dust, sat upright with a gasp, as though somebody had passed a goodish amount of untamed electrical current through his unmentionables.

What the... He stopped mid-sentence. Caiz looked around. He sniffed. There was something in the air, some fragrancesort of loban and uddh that fakirs burntand the smell of tobacco and hmm... the gorgeous sweetish fragrance of hashish.

He could for some reason see more clearly, as though even the night had a brighter shade of darkness.

He felt lighter. Oh yes, far lighter than he had ever feltas though for the first time he was out of prison, out of the physical cage that was called his body.

He felt good!

What the... He looked around. He wasnt supposed to feel good or free. He was supposed to feel dead. He had swallowed forty tablets, or was it forty-five? The number of vodka shots he had consumed would truly decide how many tablets he had swallowed. Was it eight shots or nine? Every time he had a shot of vodka he dunked in five tablets.

Two things he was clear about. He would never drink that brand of vodka again and, yes, for sure, he would have to think of a better way to swallow sleeping pills. Swallowing so many pills was a nasty affair.

But... I mean... what the... He still couldnt tell where he was. He couldnt be in his house, he would have heard the waves. He wasnt in anybody elses home when he went about polishing off the vodka bottle and the laughable sleeping pills.

He was going to nail Mikes family jewels to the floor for suggesting such an impotent brand of sleeping pills.

So where was he? He looked around repeatedly, like a puppy that has woken up in a different homevery curious but completely confused.

And how is my Rabda?

The Old Man materialized in front of the younger man, who was seated on the bed. A second after the younger man saw and heard Baba Sai, he literally jumped out of his body.

Dust looked at the Old Man, shut his eyes and opened them. He sighed with relief. Baba Sai wasnt there. All this was a dream. Then he heard a chuckle from behind him. Dust slowly, very slowly, turned around and exhaled. Baba Sai stood once again in front of him with a broad grin on His face.

We can play this game for eternity, bachcha. You pretending that I am not therearound you and in front of you and beside youand me making it more and more difficult for you to not acknowledge my presence.

Caiz shut his eyes.

This is all a dream. It has to be a dream. I will wake up in my own bed; obviously the freaking booze and tablets havent worked, so I am just hallucinating. Why am I seeing Baba standing in front of me with a big, fat, smug grin on His darling face!

I fathom not, but Caiz, you dehydrated yak, wake up fast.

Oh yes, Baba Sai was the last thing on my mind before I had the feast of sleeping pills with a dash of vodka, so mystery solved.

One wouldnt blame the man for thinking he was hallucinating. The last thing on his mind when he went about demolishing the vodka bottle and the many strips of sleeping pills was Baba Sai. When the vodka and sleeping pills began to assert their presence and influence him and his anatomy, the mans own music compositiona worldwide hit called Singing the Blues with Sai the Babawas, with the strange irony of nature, also called life, being aired on a music channel. So the irony was that while Caiz drifted closer to his death, his composition about Sai Baba of Shirdi was playing in the backgroundon televisionand thus Baba Sai was on his mind, heart, lips.

Yes, yes, yes, no wonder I am dreaming of the Old Man. He was on my mind, the last words on my lips and the last sigh in my heart, before I went to sleep. Theres another song to this, Caiz, but now go back to sleep and wake up and promise yourself you will not try to kill yourself for another year, or at least until you have researched what is the fastest and surest way to freaking kill yourself successfully.

So Caiz shut his eyes, took a deep breath and realized he had begun to float towards the ceiling.

Yikes! he screamed out loud. Go down boy, down, theres a very unclean fan revolving at a few knots an hour, enough to give you the cleanest shave in history. Down boy, down...