She rushed to him, laid him on a bench and sprinkled water to revive him. After a while the boy regained consciousness and his teacher asked, "Merwan, are you all right? What happened?"
The boy muttered, "A halo ... I saw a divine halo!"
The teacher could not understand what the child meant and inquired, "Merwan, how do you feel? Would you like to go home?"
"I am all right," the boy replied, "I don't need to go home."
But when the teacher resumed her lesson, Merwan sighed with regret, for after enjoying the noor state or the light of God — an experience of divine effulgence — here was this awful arithmetic again.
"It would have been much better if I had gone home," he thought wistfully.
Once when Shireen was menstruating, she was taking rest and keeping aloof from the family, not cooking or touching anyone, according to the custom of the time. Merwan could not understand her strange behavior and would try to be near her. When he went in her room, Shireen would say, "Merog, don't bother me. Stay away from me today."
When he asked, "Why, Memo?" Shireen replied, "My tummy hurts."
"If your tummy hurts, what is wrong if I touch you?"
"It is not good to touch me when I am in pain."
"Then why do you touch me when I have a pain?"
Shireen became quiet, unsure of how to answer her precocious son. Merwan ran to her to embrace her and Shireen, taken aback and upset, angrily threw a bunch of keys at him. Merwan ran away crying.1
Sheriar saved his money and, after some time, opened a teashop in Char Bawdi.2 He, Shireen and little Merwan lived behind the shop for some months. They moved to Quarter Gate when Sheriar bought another teashop, christened Café Sheriar, where he also sold cold drinks, sandalwood and incense used by the Zoroastrians in their religious ceremonies. They lived behind this teashop, also, upstairs in a building on Irwin Road which faced Quarter Gate Square.3
One day during this period, Merwan wanted to buy some candy, so he snuck a coin from his father's pocket. At the neighborhood store, he chose what he wanted and handed the coin to the shopkeeper, but the man returned it to him, saying, "This money is no good. You have to give me back the sweets."
Footnotes
- 1.This story was narrated by Baba to the author.
- 2.The teashop was located not far from where Hazrat Babajan would establish her seat in a few years' time.
- 3.Irwin Road is now known as Pandita Ramabai Road. Café Sheriar is still located on the southwest corner of Quarter Gate Square, at the intersection of Pandita Ramabai and Laxmi roads.