On 2 January 1958 Kehar Singh ji's sons were playing tennis with a walnut
at their house in Lucknow. A fast-returning walnut struck against the
glasses of one of the boys and broke the lens. His eye was bleeding and
badly injured, for many particles of glass had pierced it. The boy was
immediately taken to the Medical College in Lucknow, where Dr. Mehra
gave him treatment and then discharged him, saying that an operation
would damage the eye. Kehar Singh ji then took him to Sitapur Eye
Hospital where the doctors were of the same opinion. The glass
particles remained in his eye.
One of the boy's eyes had been
defective since birth. He could not move it from side to side and could
not see any object clearly if it was more than five feet away. Because
of this accident, his other eye also became useless. The boy was
worried about his future and became depressed. One day he asked his
sister if she would take care of him all through his life. The
conversation touched his father, who lay on his bed and wept throughout
the night. He prayed to God saying, "O God, this boy has not committed
any sin. Why have you punished him for my sins?" By reading the Bible,
he had gotten the impression that children bear the sins of their
forefathers.
At
midnight the phone rang. Kehar Singh did not want to take a call that
late, but it was Baba calling from Mehrotra's house in Bareilly. Though
Singh ji had not remembered Baba, Baba had heard him in his distress.
Pooran Chandra Joshi was at Mehrotra's house and said that Baba had
covered him with his blanket and sat quietly and seriously for some
time. Then suddenly he cried out, "Kehar Singh is
crying. His son's eye is damaged." He picked up the
phone at once and said, "Kehar Singh, what are you
doing?" Kehar Singh replied, "Nothing, Maharaj." Baba
said, "You
are telling a lie. You are crying. Your son's eye has been damaged.
Don't send him to Sitapur. Take him to Dr. Mohanlal's hospital at
Aligarh."
Kehar Singh remembered that Dr. Mohanlal was
a friend of Vinod Chandra Sharma, who was then secretary to the Medical
Department, government of Uttar Pradesh. He asked Sharma to ring up the
hospital and reserve a room. When Sharma phoned, Dr. Mohanlal said,
"What sort of a man is this Kehar Singh? The room was reserved three
days ago, and it has been vacant since. Why has he not sent the
patient?" When Sharma told him that they had not yet tried to make a
reservation, the doctor replied that a man had come in and reserved it
on Kehar Singh's behalf. Kehar Singh ji believed that Baba himself did
it.
That same day Kehar Singh sent his son, his wife, and his
nephew to Aligarh on the night train. The doctor himself met them at
the station. He called a meeting of seven specialists and asked them to
examine the boy and to submit their reports separately. Six doctors
were against an operation. Only Dr. Shukla endorsed surgery, though he
could not give assurances of any kind. Kehar Singh's wife was unable to
give permission for the operation, so Dr. Mohanla talked to Kehar Singh
on the phone. The boy's eye was already damaged, so considering Baba's
wish, he gave consent for the operation. Many glass particles were
removed during the surgery, but over twenty particles remained, which
could still be seen in his eye.
The boy was discharged from the
hospital, and the bandage was removed eight or ten days later in
Lucknow. Because of the presence of the glass particles in his eye, the
boy saw multiple images. He saw several light bulbs in the room and
many moons in the sky. He was not able to recognise anyone, even from a
distance of three feet, so he was very disturbed. Kehar Singh sent him
to see Dr. Mehra of the Medical College in Lucknow. The doctor said
that the boy's condition was to be expected, and that his problems
would remain since no further treatment was possible.
Later, In February 1958, Baba called Kehar Singh from Kanpur and said, "Come
to Devkamta Dixit's house," and gave him the address.
When Kehar Singh and his son arrived in Kanpur, they offered pranaam
at Baba's feet. Baba held his son's hand and pulled him near to him.
Pressing the palm of the boy's hand with his right finger, he said, "I
called Kehar Singh today only for you." A short while
later Baba sent them back home.
Seven
days after this meeting, the boy went to his father, happy and excited,
and told him that he was able to see clearly without glasses. Kehar
Singh asked him to read from a book, which he did. He could see
clearly. Even the scars from the operation were not visible. Baba had
restored the appearance and vision of the eye to how it had been before
the accident on the 2nd of January. Kehar Singh took his son back to
Dr. Mehra for a check-up. When the doctor examined the eye, he was
bewildered. He got all his students to examine it as well and told them
the medical history. When he learned that it was all by the grace of an
Indian saint, he took photographs of the eye with a view to publishing
an article.
Meanwhile Dr. Mohanlal phoned Vinod Chandra Sharma
to ask about the boy. When Sharma ji told him that the boy could see
everything clearly, he examined him personally and found it to be true.
However, he said that it was medically impossible for him to see as
long as glass particles remained in his eye. His recovery was purely
Maharaj ji's grace. The boy never had any further problem with his eye
and later got his M.A. degree.
One day in May 1958, when Kehar Singh was with Baba, Baba said to him, "That
night you were asking why God was punishing the boy for your sins. You
should never say so. God does not do this. Man himself suffers because
of his own karma."
|
