Nupur Chaturvedi

Sache Baba

Sachche Baba found dead

Monday, July 11, 2005: Mathura
Godman Satyendra Dev, also known to his followers as Sachche Baba, was found dead on Sunday morning in his room at his ashram located at the outskirts of Mathura. He was reportedly 39 years old, though no formal record of his birth could be found by the police. Initial investigation shows that he may have consumed poisoned food the previous night. The police are not ruling out foul play, though the shocked followers this reporter contacted all say that he was too gentle to provoke anyone’s ire to this degree.
Sachche Baba came into the limelight last year, with his discourses on truth. Some say he was a re-incarnation of Mahatma Gandhi, sent to the earth to finish his work. In the past year, he had gathered almost a cult following, and was seen very often on the different spiritual channels.

Sucheta Shankar

I can’t believe it! How could it be? And yet, he looks so similar to JD. But really, how could it be? How could this “God Man” (what is that anyway) be JD? JD, the guy every girl in college could kill for. The guy who couldn’t be found without a glass of premium Scotch at all parties, when the rest of us mortals would glug down beer from the bottle. The guy who, we were sure, had it made, with his father’s thriving auto parts manufacturing business silver spoon-fed to him. JD wore the best clothes, drove the best car and usually had the best girl (by some standards) at his arm. The quintessential spoilt brat. When he proposed to me in second year, I felt insulted. Here I was, developing this ‘intellectual’ image, and there he was, with his money-tinted glasses and bright red silk shirt, asking me, no, telling me that he wanted to take me out for coffee. I must have been the only girl to ever reject him. I heard later that it hit him pretty hard and he was seen moping around for a long time. I didn’t believe that for a minute.
Later, when I came to the US, I forgot all about JD and his silk shirts. When you are doing a PhD, you barely have time to remember yourself. But I did come to know that his father had finally died and left him the business and that he was even more obnoxious now than before. He had also got married a rich spoilt girl. Good, I thought. They belong together. Not that it mattered to me.
But really, Sachche Baba? I mean, the guy didn’t have a sachcha bone in his body. Re-incarnation of Gandhi? Please! But I suppose I shouldn’t think ill of the dead. Weird, to read about this.

Dhiman Mehta

Baba, why did you have to die? Did you die to save me? I have been following your Seven Paths to Truth everyday. I have even quit smoking for you? Why did you have to die? Who will I look up to now? Who will tell me in that soft, lilting voice “Dhiman, follow the truth and you will get a new life?” How will I live the rest of my life without your guidance? I wish I could bring you back. Or at least find out who killed you. It must be Chhote Mahantji. He was jealous of you, Baba. He would always stop me from going up to you. He would always pull out Joginder before me, because he would get separate chadhawa for Chhote Mahantji. Is this fair, Baba? How can someone get better darshan of you simply because they know how to do buttering? This Joginder is always troubling me, Baba. Even in my office. Just because he got promotion before me and has become Bade Babu, does not mean he can bully me. His missus has also become tip-top and looks at my missus like she is nothing. You remember I came to you with special chadhawa for promotion, but he got it. I never complained to you, Baba, because I know, you think best for me. I am your son. But they don’t let me go near your body. They don’t even let me see it. They say the police has done post mortem. I said, I am Baba’s special son, and Chhote Mahantji laughed. Laughed, Baba! You are dead one day ago and he is laughing! I am sure he has done it, Baba. I will tell the police. I will follow the truth, like you said, and police will have to follow too. But why did you have to die, Baba?

Sanjay Verma

Hah! What a laugh! My first TV appearance and the opposing view person dies. It has been six years, SIX YEARS since I became an active member of Raging Rationals, and now I get a chance to be on the TV channel, in a mock fight with Satyendra Dev on Rationals versus Faithfuls and he goes and dies. I mean, is there someone plotting up there? Ok, there is no one up there, but seriously, why did this stupid Godman have to go and die? Why couldn’t he have waited till after the program had been recorded? Now they are planning to replace that with a fight between Mahesh Bhatt and some women’s rights activist. I mean, what’s new about that? And the Raging Rationals are laughing at me. I know they are cracking jokes behind my back. What will I tell Jayanti? I asked her to tape the show. I’m not going to the RR meet till this blows off. Stupid, stupid Godman.

Sachchidanand Swami, aka, Chhote Mahant

It had to happen. I’m sure everyone thinks I did it. Can’t say I am devastated. He was getting to be a bit too overbearing. He had started to take this whole thing too seriously. I couldn’t believe it when he said, “We have a responsibility towards these people, Chhote. They are my followers.” He had actually started living this charade. We had gone into this as equal partners. It made good business sense. But this whole thing went to his head. It should have occurred to me earlier, when he set me up as Chhote Mahant. Why did I have to be Chhote? I paid half the rent for the room in Hardwar and then in Srinagar. Both of us studied those scriptures together, and we prepared the “ideology” together. We also did the first few discourses together. It wasn’t my fault that he had done a bit of theatre in college and so his discourses got louder claps than mine. I should have protested when he said, he should be the front end and I the back end, since I was so good at it. I was good at the organization, though, wasn’t I? It was fun setting up the Ashram. And convincing MLA Sharad Lal Dubey to give us prime property on the highway for free was pure genius on my part. I have literally given the Ashram my blood and sweat, and what do they call me? Chhote!! I am glad he is dead. At least I won’t be living in his shadow any more. I hope some by some quirk I don’t land up being the prime accused in the case. I mean, no one knows how I felt about him. Do they?

Kirti Dev

So, he is dead. How do I feel? Happy, because I can be free from the hatred that has been consuming my life. Relieved, because someone else did it. Sad, because I still long for the life we started together, till he decided to leave. But most of all tired. Because finally I can afford to relax and let the hurt of so many years run over me one last time, before I throw it out completely.
I was so naïve when he married me. So besotted with his looks, his mannerisms, his confidence and his popularity. He had gone around with so many, but I was the one he married. I was the prettiest, the smartest, and yes, the richest. We were so perfect together. I was much better than that chhipkali Sucheta. PK, Aman and the rest used to tell me he is still not over her, that I should be careful. But what did that wannabe social worker have that I didn’t. I was so confident that a week with me would make JD forget every girl he had ever gone out with.
Our first months together was blissful. We made love every night, and sometimes even in the day, on the couch in his office, in the meeting room, in Daddyji’s vacant office…he never seemed to get enough of me. And that’s why it was such a shock when, barely a year after we got married, he announced that he was going away to Hardwar for a few years. I tried everything to stop him from going. I even faked a pregnancy. But did that stop that son-of-a-bitch? No! He abandoned me. Me, the apple of my father’s eye! I even got Papa to track him and bring him back. But the slime-ball had his own set of goons that he set on Papa.
I laughed when I read that he had become Sachche Baba! The lying, cheating bastard! He wouldn’t know truth if it came and bit him in the face! I hope he rots in hell. How do I care, though? Aditya more than makes up for JD. So what if he looks a bit like JD? And so what if he irritates me with his syrupy Kiru darling?

Police hit dead end on Sachche Baba death

Saturday, July 16, 2005: Mathura
All roads lead to a theory of suicide in the Sachche Baba death investigation. However, even that doesn’t seem to be confirmed, since he apparently had no reason to kill himself. The source of the poison in his food has not been found. It wasn’t bought in Mathura. And the Godman used to cook his own food and shared it with his core group. Nobody in that group has reported any signs of discomfort since the incident.
“The investigations are still on,” says SP Nagendra Nath. “It is too early to jump to conclusions.” But an unnamed source in the police has said that the department has mostly given up on the murder angle.