Gobind Sadan
Daughter of Harry Grewal, liquor distributor.
My daughter was born on September 28, 1990, in Mool Chand Hospital in Delhi. On September 29 the doctors came and told us, “She has problems with her heartbeat. The normal count is going over 200 beats. In a crying or agitated baby you might find this, but a normal count of 200 is bad. So we are keeping her under observation.” We had seen her for a few seconds when they brought her out of the delivery room, and then they took her to neonatal care.
Then on the 29th evening they came and told us, “We think she has jaundice also, and we’d like to keep her for another day or two.” Next day they told us that her systems were not functioning properly. On October 1st they came and told us that she had internal bleeding, internal hemorrhage, that the blood had gone to her brain, etc. They said, “There’s nothing we can do for your child. Best to just let her go. Medical science can’t save her, the blood has gone to her brain, and we don’t know what other systems are damaged.”
We had been coming to Maharaj, but I did not go. I had told my mother and father and sister, Sunny uncle and Asha and everybody, “You all go. I am sitting here with the child. If Maharaj says to let her go I will face it. You all go; I am here.” They came to Maharaj, and he said, “She is blessed.” He kept saying “Blessed, blessed,” while on the other side the doctors were saying, “There is no hope at all.” I was told that Asha said at one point, “Maharaj, you keep saying, ‘Blessed, blessed.’ Suppose something happens. Then what?” Maharaj said, “Biba, what else can I say? The Lord is so great He will put life back into a dead body. Why are you worried?”
Maharaj said to my mother, “Have Giani ji say Ardas (prayer) for her. Pray at the haven and make a pledge.” So she went to Giani ji (a great visionary blessed by Maharaj) and Giani ji did Ardas. What he saw in Ardas was that God was holding my baby in His arms, saying’ ‘This one is dear to me and I’m not giving her back to you. In the future you will have three or four sons, but they also will not be well, so their mother should do Jaap Sahib if she wants those sons to be okay. But this one you won’t get back.” So my mother told Giani ji, “Maharaj has said ‘Blessed,’ so how can you say this? Do Ardas again.” Go Giani ji did Ardas again and then he said, “It’s very difficult, but God —— this child. You can take her, but it’s going to be very difficult to save her. If Maharaj saves her, then Maharaj saves her.” That’s what Giani ji said. My mother gave prasad (blessed food offering) at the haven and they came back to the hospital and said, “This is what has happened: Maharaj says it’s going to be okay.”
On Tuesday, which was the fourth or fifth day, the doctors said, ‘We have decided that we will change all the blood in her system, because the blood seems to be infected and it is not helping in any way. In normal cases, if we change the blood there is a 1 or 2% chance of things going bad. But in your daughter’s case, we’ll tell you at the outset that there is 1 or 2% chance of survival. There is 98 or 99% chance that she will collapse on the table itself. But as it is, we are not giving her any hopes of survival. So let us try anyway.” So we said, “Fine.”
In the meantime they had asked my wife to go out of the hospital. They said, “You are unnecessarily occupying the room, because there is no way this child is going to come back to you.” She was sent home.
That day I had sent my mother and father to Gobind Sadan again. I said, “I will stay back.” The excuse I used was that they would require me to sign the forms before the operation. I remember I was sitting there with two of my friends from the company where I used to work. They had come to talk to me, to divert my attention for some time. They were sitting there, and my sisters-in-law were sitting there, and we were waiting for the operation to start. Then, as I was talking to my friends, facing the white wall in the hospital_suddenly, as if I were sitting and watching a movie, for a few seconds I saw Maharaj sitting on a chair, the big cane chair that he has. He was looking at me. Then he got up and walked into an operation room, and there was the child on the table. They had two doctors around the child, and Maharaj went and stood at the head of the baby. He was standing with his arms on his hips, looking at the baby. Then after some time, with his right hand, he ran his hand over the forehead of the baby a few times. Then he came back, sat on the chair looked at me, smiled, and that scene vanished. That was it.
My friends asked me, “What happened? What are you looking at?” I said, “Oh, nothing. Just carry on.”
After two or three minutes, my sister-in-law came and told me that the operation had already started, that it had been going on for 15 or 20 minutes. I was surprised because they hadn’t got any forms signed by me yet.
Anyway, I wasn’t the least bit worried. I kept on talking with my friends. I was very calm and composed after seeing this. I don’t know why. I didn’t know if it was true or my imagination. But then the doctor came out after about 15 minutes, Dr. Gandar. I remember very clearly what she said. She said, “At one point we thought it was all over. But then we decided to give it another shot. And she seems to have come out of it okay. But we can only let you know tomorrow or the day after. We’d like to watch her for at least 48 hours.”
The first thing I caught onto was I said, “Doctor, you said ‘We’ at one point. How many of you were there?” She said, “We were two. Me and Dr. Karthak.” And that’s what I saw: two doctors. When she said, “At one point we thought that…” that was the point when Maharaj put his hand on her forehead. And that’s when I thin the recovery started. [The child is still fine. Her story continues in another episode, to be added later to this website.]