Spiritual leader Satya Sai Baba will be on a two-day visit to Mumbai this weekend. Coming to the city after a gap of nine years, the Baba will bless the Bandra-Worli sea link at the behest of his devotees, and drop in at Varsha, the official residence of chief minister Ashok Chavan.
“Devotees want Mumbai to prosper, so they want him to travel via the sea link,” said Rajeev Nambiar, member, Sri Sathya Seva Organisation (SSSO), adding that children from Balvikas Sanstha, where
actor Aishwarya Rai had enrolled as a child, will release balloons in the air to welcome him on the stretch.
The Baba has a huge following in the city, from the common man to the celebrity. Politicians Vilasrao Deshmukh, Ashok Chavan, DY Patil and Jayant Patil, and musicians like Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hariharan and Suresh Wadkar, are ardent devotees, and will be meeting him during his visit. Cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar has informed DNA that he will pay his respects to the Baba when he comes to the city.
Sources in SSSO said Ashok Chavan has invited the spiritual leader for lunch at Varsha. Chavan had made a special trip to Pune to seek the Baba’s blessings on his birthday on October 28.
The Baba, however, is making a transit stopover in the city. He is on his way to inaugurate a temple complex called Sri Satya Sai Pandurang Kshetra and do a moorti sthapana in Hadshi via Pune in Lonavala. He will be put up at Dharmakshetra near Mahakali Caves in Andheri (E).
