Simultaneously in Poona, Babajan was observed to be behaving quite strangely. She began pacing back and forth restlessly. Quite excited, she angrily shouted, "Fire! Fire! The doors are locked and people are going to burn. You damn fire! Extinguish!" The people around her could not understand what was happening. But in Talegaon, as the people there later related, suddenly the doors of the theater flew open and the crowd rushed out, averting a horrible tragedy.
The Perfect Masters' ways are unique as well as curious. The boundlessness of their spiritual work is outside the limits of rational human understanding. One example of this is the following incident. Although Babajan had an aversion to presents of jewelry, she kept tight, gaudy rings on her fingers which she would never remove. One ring was so tight that her finger began to swell and a deep wound developed. Maggots crawled in and out of the wound. When the worms would fall off, Babajan would pick them up. Placing them back on the wound, she would utter, "My children, feed and be at ease." Naturally, people tried to take her to a doctor, but she always refused, not even allowing the wound to be bandaged. Consequently, gangrene set in and the finger wasted away and fell off. The wound healed, but seeing her condition, the Master's devotees shed tears. "Why do you weep?" she scolded them. "I enjoy the suffering."
Babajan was generous toward the ailing and destitute. If a hungry man came to her, she would hand him her own food. In winter, if a shivering man approached her, she would give him her shawl. But once there seemed to be an exception to her usual generosity. It was bitterly cold one night and an old man, shaking pitiably, came to her. He had a severe cold and a high fever. He prayed to Babajan to cure him by her nazar (gaze, grace). Babajan, however, became furious and angrily snatched away the thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders which was his sole scanty protection against the cold. After this, Babajan ignored him, and the old man quietly sat down to spend the bitter night beside her. By morning, he was feeling unusually strong and looked healthy, and he left happily, fully recovered.
Babajan would usually speak in Pashtu or Persian and frequently utter the names of the Persian poets Hafiz and Amir Khushrow.1 She would often quote these couplets:
Footnotes
- 1.Amir Khushrow (1253–1325) is revered as one of the greatest Sufi poet-musicians of Delhi.