"SHIRDI DIARY' DADASAHEB KHAPARDE

"SHIRDI DIARY' DADASAHEB KHAPARDE

Third visit in December 1915: Dadasaheb Khaparde went to Thane to meet his
friend Baba Gupte and from there reached Shirdi via Manmad on 29th December.
Mrs.Khaparde and other members of his family had also arrived directly in
Shirdi. Dadasaheb obtained permission on 31.12.1915 to return to Amraoti. So
he left but Mrs. Khaparde and others remained behind. Khaparde was very
happy to have visited Shirdi as will be seen from some excerpts reproduced
in the biography in Marathi which are rendered here into English,
Entry of 29th December: "I went to Shirdi from Kopargaon by tonga and
reached there at 9 a.m. There were many dangers on the way. My wife and the
children were already in Shirdi. I went to the Musjid and saluted Sayin
Baba. His health has greatly deteriorated. I held the Morchel during the
puja. The day passes off here easily, Gopalrao alias Bapusaheb Buti is here.
Kakasaheb Dixit, Balasaheb Bhate and all other old friends too are here. I
am extremely happy."

Entry of 30 December: "Today I performed puja and offered Naivedya. About
100 persons were present for the prasad. The meal was excellent and was over
somewhat late around 4 p.m. The construction work of Buti's wada is
progressing well. There was chavdi procession to-day and I stood with the
Morchel in my hand."

Entry of 31st December
After meals I went with Madhavrao Deshpande and obtained permission to
depart without any difficulty. My wife, Manutai, Uma and the children will
be staying back.

Fourth visit on 19th May, 1917
This brief visit of half a day to Shirdi by Dadasaheb in the company of
Lokamanya Tilak was designed with a view to taking Lokamanya to Sayin Baba
and obtain his blessings, for his own leader. The account which appeared in
Shri Sai Leela is nearly complete.

Fifth visit in March 1918
No dates of this unscheduled visit of Dadasaheb to Shirdi are indicated in
the biography in Marathi. However, this visit of an unspecified number of
days was with a purpose. Dadasaheb was to proceed to England with the
Congress deputation for pressing the demand for Home Rule and had come to
Delhi in this connection. Before leaving Delhi, he called on Sir Sankaran
Nair, who had presided over the annual session of the Congress held at
Amraoti in 1897 when Dadasaheb Khaparde was the Chairman of the Reception
committee. In or about 1918 Sir Sankaran Nair had joined the Executive
Council of the Viceroy of India and he had some doubts about the prudence of
the step he had taken. So he requested Khaparde to seek the opinion and
guidance of SayinMaharaj about his own action as will be seen from the
following undated excerpt given in the biography.

"Saw Shankaran Nair.He was very glad to see me and sat talking for a long
time. He asked me to put the following questions to Sayin Maharaj of Shirdi
on his behalf. Whether it would be well for him to continue in service.
Whether he is going spiritually wrong. If so,would Sayin Maharaj put him
right. I promised to put the questions and write to him what Sayin Maharaj
says."

The biographer of Dadasaheb Khaparde adds that Dadasaheb returned to
Amraoti, via Shirdi after Sayin Baba's darshan and blessings. The biographer
further comments that there is no mention in the diary of what transpired in
the talk with Sayin Baba about Sir Sankaran Nair's* queries. Possibly ii was
decided to maintain secrecy about this and Dadsaheb must have honoured the
commit-meni. This is an example of a deliberate omission of secrets from the
diary. Now that the original diaries of Dadasaheb Khaparde are with the
National Archives, any further research into these diaries must await a
search and inspection of these diaries.

Mr. K.P.S. Menon. I.C.S. the son-in-low of Sir Sankaran Nair in the
biography of his father-in-law published by Publications Division of
Government of India in November 1967 states that Sir Sankaran was appointed
Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in the middle of 1915 (p. 55) bm
resigned in protest againsfthe massacre of Jallianwala Baug in 1919 (pp.
104-105). Sir Sankaran was a confirmed believer in Yoga (p. 133) and his
mind turned more and more to religion (p. 137). He passed away on
22-4-1934-after a car accident in which he sustained a head injury (p. 138).
(Source Shirdi Diary)
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