K.S. Ramachandra (KSR) joined Sri Sai Santhoshi Maata Charitable Trust (SSSCT) as a cook in 2008 for making Sai Prasadam for the devotees visiting Sai temple in Shantidham temple complex at Arekere.
KSR and his wife are staying in Bengaluru for last 10 years. KSR’s wife Laxmi has been a devotee of Saibaba for last 20 years. Both of them have studied up to 10th standard. Laxmi helps KSR in making prasadam every day.
KSR has been with SSSCT for last 9 years. Before constructing Saibaba temple, there was a temporary shed created in 2008 where in Saibaba’s life size photo was kept. Those days only noon aarthi was being performed. Once the main Saibaba temple was constructed and Baba’s idol was installed in 2010, the temporary shed created earlier was destroyed after shifting life size photo of Baba to Sai Dhyan Mandir.
Devotees in more numbers started visiting Saibaba temple year after year. The management of SSSCT felt the need for installing steam cooking plant in the kitchen and doing away with any manual operation. Ever since (around 2010) steam plant for cooking was installed, it is taking just 20 minutes to cook 25 Kgs of rice. There was no problem of any kind with steam cooking plant for the first 5 years. It worked very well. On every Thursday
200-1200 devotees are provided food and on other week a about 100-200 people.
On 28-6-2015, KSR was inside the kitchen for making prasadam. Something went wrong with steam plant, and there was a sudden blast (like a bomb blast) and all the steel vessels and steam boiler got fully damaged. All glasses of windows got broken into pieces and part of the walls got collapsed. There was a huge sound when the blast occurred at 7:30 am.
Immediately after hearing the huge sound, many people assembled in front of the kitchen. Everyone was worried, whether there was a loss of life. Surprisingly nothing happened to KSR. There was no scratch or injury to any part of his body.
Though all equipment got badly damaged, KSR was completely safe. Everyone in the temple complex thought that it is a miracle of Saibaba. Baba saved his life, as he was preparing prasadam 365 days of the year and also as a part of the mid-day meal. Over one lakh people would have been served food prepared by him.
After that incident, the kitchen was relocated into a nearby area and new steam plant was installed, which is now running very smoothly.
