The chaos of Sirsa’s market is like any other mofussil market’s. The cheerful mosaic is made up of music repair stalls, hairdressers, arms and ammunition shops and, of course, liquor outlets. But across the town and its market starts another row of shops. The mix is pretty much the same here except the liquor vends are missing.

This is where Sirsa ends and Dera Sacha Sauda begins. The territorial shift is announced by the names of the shops: each is prefixed by “Sach”. There’s Sach Engineering Works, Sach Music Centre, Sach Workshop and Sach Shoe Centre. And someone who obviously wanted to be different and break from the pack decided to call his saloon, Truth Hairdresser.

The shops are the first introduction to the headquarters of a movement that has about 2.5 crore followers all over the world. Beyond the gates and the high walls lies a self-sufficient world that has its own school, colleges, hospitals, shops, a cricket stadium and even a daily newspaper.

IT’S nearly 5.30 pm and time for the evening majlis where the Guru gives his darshan. The devotees are there well ahead of time. Discipline is on show, and there’s little of the chaos that such large numbers can create.

The stage is all set and the music rolls: it’s an instrumental rendition of the old soulful Hindi film hit, Baharon phool barsao, mera mehboob aaya hai.

Then arrives Sant Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh. He sits on his throne, a complacent smile playing on his face, surrounded by armed securitymen who constantly scan the audience. Devotees come up to sing bhajans. One quite aptly named Gulshan Kumar sings a bhajan to the tune of another old film favourite, Kajra mohabbatwala.

... contd.