Trust Circular: Selection of two Trustees for AMBT
Jai Meher Baba!
On 26th October 2024, the Board of Trustees selected Rakhi Sharma and Rajendra Meher Poduri as Trustees of the Avatar Meher Baba PPC Trust, the Avatar Meher Baba Trust (“Firstly”), the Meherazad Public Charitable Trust, and Meher Free Dispensary (Meherazad).
Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!
Rakhi Sharma was born on 20th August 1975 into a Baba family in New Delhi, India.
Her maternal grandfather’s family came into Baba’s fold in 1967. Her grandfather, R.C. Sharma, took his first darshan of Beloved Baba at Meherabad in 1969, just after Baba dropped His physical body. After this, he and his family came for the Great Darshan in the summer of 1969 at Guruprasad, Pune.
At the age of six, in 1981 Rakhi came to Meherabad for the first time for Amartithi with her mother and elder sister. Thereafter she was very fortunate to have received much love from Baba’s women & men mandali and His close ones over many years.
Since her youth, Rakhi has been a very active member of the Avatar Meher Baba Centre, Delhi, and has been serving as its President since 2015.
For a number of years Rakhi has been organising different Baba programs, including the New Delhi World Book Fairs and the God Speaks seminars (in New Delhi) to spread His message of Love and Truth. However, she is best known in the world of Meherabad and Meherazad for her service in organising the Trust’s International Meherabad Young Adult Sahavas every year.
In addition Rakhi has been volunteering during Amartithi at Baba’s Samadhi for Darshan duty, as well as running the Delhi Food Stall for pilgrims.
She has also been helping the Trust on various administrative matters.
Rakhi is a commerce graduate from Delhi University and also holds a post-graduate diploma in business management from the International Management Institute, New Delhi. Since then, she has accrued more than 25 years of corporate work experience.
Her parents are P.K. Sharma and Shashi Sharma, and her two sisters are Surbhi Amit Kalra and Priyanka Sharma. Rakhi is currently residing in Gurgaon, Haryana.
Rajendra Meher Poduri, born in 1962, hails from a family deeply devoted to Avatar Meher Baba; his parents, P. Ganapathi Rao and Jagga Lakshmi, have been in Beloved Baba’s fold since 1954.
For over four decades, Rajendra Meher has served as the Secretary of the Avatar Meher Baba Hyderabad Centre, focusing on encouraging young Baba volunteers through various residential and non-residential programmes on how to manage the Centre’s activities. These include spreading Baba’s message of Love and Truth, along with Centre maintenance, water management, gardening, and event organization.
Rajendra Meher worked closely with the late M.V.R.K. Balaji to bring out and publish Baba books and films at affordable prices to Indian Baba lovers, including the Indian edition of Lord Meher. He also worked with other Hyderabad Baba-lovers to establish an online bookstore/distribution channel for literature by and about Meher Baba, “Meher Book House” (www.meherbookhouse.com).
For most Baba-lovers in and around Meherabad, Rajendra Meher is a very familiar face, as from the late 1970s, he has seized many opportunities to actively participate in some key Meherabad projects. These include the digitization of Trust property documents, and the implementation of the Amartithi Computerized Token System (ACTS) which greatly facilitates Baba lovers visiting during Amartithi. Additionally, he worked on planning and implementing the online Trust Donation app, as well as streaming major events, including the daily streaming of the sacred interior of Beloved Baba’s Samadhi.
During many events at Meherabad, Rajendra also had the privilege of working with some of Baba’s close ones such as Pendu, Bhau Kalchuri, and Bal Natu, and as well as participating for years in the Amartithi torch run from Meherazad to Meherabad.
Professionally, Rajendra Meher is a Chartered Accountant, practicing for over 37 years with M/s Meher & Associates in Hyderabad. He also shares his expertise as a Visiting Professor in Financial Management for various institutes. Beyond his professional work, he is a qualified Acupressurist and runs two free clinics at the Avatar Meher Baba Centres in Hyderabad.
Rajendra Meher is married to Ranga Lakshmi and is the father of two children, son Meherwan and daughter Mehersri, who is married to Siddharth Yellapragada.
Gopi was born in January 1974 in Hyderabad, India, to a family of Baba lovers. His maternal great-grandfather, Shri. N.S. Prakasa Rao, met Beloved Baba for the first time at His 1958 Sahavas when he was working in Ahmednagar. On Baba’s instructions, he started the first Baba center in Hyderabad at his residence in the early 1960s. Beloved Baba blessed the whole family with His Nazar to be in His fold, which is currently in its 5th generation. Gopi’s grand-aunt Jayalakshmi (daughter of Prakasa Rao), who went to Baba in 1967, is blessed to have her name inscribed on the Memorial Tower at Meherabad.
Gopi attended Baba meetings and gatherings from when he was a child, and many pilgrims from the East and West to Meherabad and Meherazad will easily recall Gopi’s beautiful voice and his moving performances sharing praise to his Beloved through music.
After graduating in engineering, Gopi has been working in the IT industry, and is currently employed at the Bank of America in Hyderabad. Gopi is married to Manjula, and has two daughters, Meher Nidhi and Meher Eesha. They live in Hyderabad along with Gopi’s father, Sanjeeva Rao, and plan to move to Meherabad in the near future.
Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!
Jai Baba,
I am happy to inform you that the Board of Trustees of the Avatar Meher Baba P.P.C.Trust in a meeting held on 20th March 2021 has selected S.V.Meher Prasad Raju as a Trustee.
As Prasad Raju’s family history is unknown to many in the Baba-world, and particularly stories about his father, I am relating them below.
His father, Sri. S.V.Achuta Rama Raju, popularly known as Shahapuram Raja met Beloved Baba and had His Darshan in 1955 as one of the participants of Baba’s 1955 Sahavas at Meherabad from the Telugu – Andhra group. Before Sahavas, an incident took place which made a strong impression in his mind about Baba’s greatness and divinity. As a Baba lover, he was given an offer to contribute Rs. 500/- towards the printing charges of God Speaks. He wanted to donate the entire amount needed for the printing. But was hesitant as to how he should express his wish. After some time he sent Rs. 500 but it was not accepted because by that time the necessary amount was collected. Shri Raju felt very bad for having missed a great opportunity. But Baba consoled him by saying that he would get some more chances to do so in the future. It affected him so much that he never missed an opportunity to contribute for Baba`s cause thereafter. After Baba dropped his physical body, he substantially contributed for Amartithi functions every year even though he never spent liberally for his own comforts.
Prasad Raju’s father never missed a chance to meet Baba to have His Darshan. During Baba’s stay in Guruprasad, Poona, whenever His lovers were allowed to have His Darshan, Sri Raju used to go to Poona every week. Observing this, Baba once asked him: are you coming next week also? Raju replied, “Yes, Baba, I promise”. However, back home he fell from a bullock cart and fractured his leg. His doctor advised him not to travel to Poona. However, remembering his promise to Baba, Raju insisted ongoing, and the doctor, astonished at his determination, himself went along and was fortunate to have Baba’s Darshan.
Once Baba asked Sri Raju, “Why don’t you bring your wife for Darshan?” He bluntly replied that he would not. (This was because of the custom of “purdah”, privacy, that the ladies in their families observed). Baba told him that He liked his frankness, but later Raju realized his mistake. Even though his wife did not have Baba’s physical Darshan, she loved Baba wholeheartedly and served in His cause along with her husband.
Sri Raju knew only the Telugu language and did not properly understand English. Once he paid a person to go with him to translate Baba’s words. When they were in Baba’s presence, the man began a long interpretation with lots of irrelevant matter. Baba stopped him and told Raju that that person may deceive him but not Baba. Thereafter as instructed by Baba, Raju used to sit quietly looking only at Baba, which enabled him not only to understand what Baba said but also enjoy a blissful Sahavas in His presence.
When the book God Speaks was released, Baba asked him whether he had purchased the book. He told Baba that he hadn’t, because he could not read English. However, Baba asked him to buy it and keep the book under his pillow. Because of this, he had a number of experiences of Baba’s love, divinity, and Omniscience. True to his belief, he loved and served his Beloved until the very end.
Meher Prasad Raju is the youngest child of the family. When Baba was informed of his birth, He told Prasad Raju’s father that the boy was His Prasad and instructed him to name the child “Meher Prasad”. When he was five years old, Prasad Raju’s father was in Meherabad for Beloved Baba’s first Amartithi. However, back in their village in Andhra, a large quantity of rice was being cooked in a big vessel to be distributed there as Amartithi prasad. It so happened that Prasad Raju went too near the fire and boiling rice fell on his body. He suffered severe burns, so severe that doctors said that there was little hope of his survival. But by Baba’s grace, he not only survived the burns, but his skin became very clear afterward, with no trace of burn scars at all.
How fortunate Meher Prasad Raju is to be born and raised in a family blessed by Baba, and to have the chance from childhood to love and serve the God-Man.
In His Love,
Shridhar
Amrit has lived in Ahmednagar and Meherabad since 1973 and is actively involved with Beloved Baba’s Samadhi and Baba’s pilgrims. She serves as a trustee in place of Jal Dastoor, who retired from the Board last year.
Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!
== The Chairman and Board of Trustees
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