Baidul and Mehrabanpur, with six of the boys from the Meher Ashram, had been sent to Persia five months before.
As Baba and the group were nearing the town of Jafrabad, Baidul's native place, Baba unexpectedly asked, "Where should we go, to Jafrabad or Yezd?"
Baba then sent Raosaheb to Baidul's house in Jafrabad. Baidul, Mehrabanpur, and the boys came to meet them and had a joyous reunion with the Master.
After two days of travel through a vast desert, Baba and the group arrived in Yezd at night and put up in a serai (inn). The next day, they were invited to stay at the house of a merchant named Arbab Rustom Khushrav and Baba accepted the offer.1
Meanwhile, Chanji and Karim were still ill, and Sidhu was given the duty of looking after them. One of the primary reasons the men were falling sick was due to the unsanitary conditions prevalent in Persia at the time. The sewage and water systems were not hygienically managed, and obtaining fresh water was a problem during the entire journey. Sidhu was given this duty and water was only available at a few small ponds outside residences. People carried the water in leather bags, but even this water was polluted. When Sidhu went to collect water, he usually found fecal matter lying near the banks of the pond, and once he saw a man urinate into the pond. When he told Baba about it, Baba directed him to boil and reboil the water until it was purified.
In Yezd, many Zoroastrians and Muslims came for Baba's darshan, being drawn to him as their hearts ached with an unexplainable pain. Four large darshan programs were held there. Arbab Rustom was a highly influential person, so the local townspeople, as well as persons of high rank in both the military and government departments, came to meet Baba and were eager to have his photo-locket (which were being distributed as a keepsake). Some Persians requested that he visit their homes, which he did.
One especially memorable contact in Yezd was the head of the Bahai faith who had come especially to Yezd from Shiraz by airplane to challenge Meher Baba with questions.2 He came with the express purpose of "exposing" Baba as a charlatan. But no sooner had his gaze fallen on Baba than he forgot everything he planned to ask, and with tears in his eyes declared, "You are God Himself!"
Footnotes
- 1.Arbab is a respectful term in Persian for Mister or Sir.
- 2.Bahai is a mystical religion founded in Persia during 1863, by Bahaullah (1817–1892), who emphasized the spiritual unity of all mankind. Bahaullah was a follower of Bab, the title of Ali Mohammed of Shiraz (1819–1850), who was a Qutub.