A story of young boy Part -1

A very beautiful story from 'Swami Samartha Ramdas Vijayam' of a young boy, who was saved from the jaws of death.

  Once it so happened that, parents of a child leave him forever  in the ashram of Swami Samartha Ramdas as they wanted the child to do Guru Seva .Swami assigns him a job to get alms from 4 houses (biksha) daily for Swami and himself.Swami also used to accompany the child.But, one day Swami does not accompany him and asked him to go alone.

The child leaves for biksha. After asking for biksha in few houses, he sees a house nearby and he stands in front of a house and shouts aloud "Bavathi Biksham Dehi" reciting a beautiful sloka with a very sweet and powerful voice.The owner of the house, is well versed in astrology and a pious man.He listens to the child and gets amazed at his voice and perfect pronunciation at this tender age.He rushes out immediately  asks the boy to recite the sloka again and feels very happy.He calls the boy inside and offers him biksha. He informs the boy that he is well versed in astrology and he predicts that the boy's life is nearing to death by tomorrow .The boy then very confidently says  he has his Guru's blessings on him and  his Guru will take care of him.The pandit says to the boy his predictions never failed and if again the boy comes back to take biksha at the same time tomorrow then he will agree that his Guru Samartha Ramdas is a very great saint and his astrology knowledge is of no use.

The boy leaves to the ashram crying.Swami Ramdas asks the boy the reason for his sorrow.He does't reply but keeps crying the whole day.Finally, during the dinner time he tells Swami what the astrologer predicted about his death and also says to swami with a very heavy heart that he can no more see his parents and take care of them.He also says to Swami that the astrologer challenged him that his predication will never go wrong and his Guru also can not help him .Listening to all this Swami says to the boy,"Oh! Okay, let's see what will happen, for now let's have food".The boy says to Swami  there is no point in taking food as he would die anyhow, by the next day.Swami tries to convince him  to take some food. As the boy does not agree Swami himself cooks and feeds the crying little boy.The whole night the boy weeps and falls sick, during dawn finally the he falls asleep.