Evening Standard - Thursday, June 17, 1971
SWATHED
IN FLOWERS
13-year-old Guru Balyogeshwar
Srï Sant Ji Maharaj
is welcomed at Heathrow Airport today.
Hallelujah!
The
mini Guru, aged 13,
cometh
"THEY
ARE not," said a stern Heathrow Airport official, "playing
their bells, conches, flutes or horns in the arrival
building."
And he added : " We do not intend to have clarinets,
tambourines, cymbals or anything else that jangles. They may
say he's the Lord, but as far as we are concerned he's just
an ordinary passenger."
All of which was a bit of a dampener for the biggest crowd
of Guru worshippers ever seen at Heathrow.
Nearly 200 of them descended on the airport with garlands,
bags filled with petals and babies in push chairs - all to
meet 13-year-old Balyogeshwar Srisant Ji Maharaj.
Garlanded
When
the mini Guru, hardly 5ft. tall and wearing a plain white
robe, came through Customs his devotees fell at his feet and
garlanded him with carnations.
Then out came a massive sack of petals and he was smothered
with them as he made his way through the milling throng
helped by police.
The followers of the Guru, nearly all of them English said
they had known about him for two years. He had come to save
them from themselves.
One of them, questioned about the Guru, said: "I think you
had better speak to Charles. He's got the gift of the gab
and everything."
13-day
visit
But
Charles passed the questions on to a white-robed Indian who
said that the young Guru came from Heaven. But if you were
talking about his body that, in fact, came from the
Himalayas.
The devotees said that they all belonged to the Divine Light
Mission.
Their master is here on a 13-day visit and will appear in
London, Leicester, Exeter, and at the Glastonbury Festival
on Mid-Summer's Day.
In the end there was no live music until the Guru left the
terminal building.
Inside he made his regal way to the background of piped
airport music which happened to be a selection from The
Pyjama Game.
|