It was 1988 in Kolkata.

I was then the Deputy Inspector of Police but a worried man for a curious reason. My eight year old daughter would get recurring skin eruptions at periodic intervals. The eruptions would start with a red colour, then turn purple, then subside and then just when we would have assumed that we would have seen the last of them, the eruptions would recur. We went to the best skin specialists who prescribed treatment. No effect. We went to the best ayurvedic specialists who felt they had a grip on the situation. No effect.

Just when we were resigned to this lingering problem, I ran into my friend Mansoorbhai. Mansoorbhai’s spiritual guru saheb was in Kolkata and Mansoorbhai needed some help with my department. We got talking. He must have casually asked ‘How is the wife and daughter?’ and I must have told him the truth.

One thing led to another. Within a day or two, Mansoorbhai was leading me to His Holiness with an explanation that my daughter had been suffering from long, a number of doctors had been consulted, none of them had been able to put their finger on the prolem and now would he – doctor of doctors – cure my daughter.

His Holiness smiled; he heard us patiently; he told us not to worry; he asked for a packet of sugar to be produced; he blessed the sugar and asked us us to administer it to my daughter once each morning. We did. In 10 days, my daughter was cured and eruptions became history. It has been more than two decades, but I remain convinced that what cured my daughter of a mysterious ailment was not medication but the blessing of a sagely man who we simply know as ‘Syedna saheb’.

Copy ends