Manu said it was fried eggplant for Shireenmai.
Baba took Gaimai severely to task, "You want to kill my mother by giving her eggplant? Haven't I told you that eggplant is not good for you?"
In fact, Baba did not wish Memo to be given special food; he wanted her to eat what was cooked for all. While rebuking Gaimai, Baba was eating the fried delicacies himself, and eventually ate the entire plateful. Memo had come down by then and was silently observing the scene. At last she burst forth, "Merog, is eggplant good for you and bad for me?"
Baba replied, "You are old, Mother, and elderly people should not eat eggplant!"
But Memo knew he was only trying to thwart her once again.
Another time in Bangalore, someone presented Baba with a beautiful, costly shawl. Memo admired it and was thinking Baba would give it to her. Instead, touching the feet of a poor man with his forehead, Baba gave the shawl to him. Memo was upset. "Merog, have you any sense or not?" she asked. "Are you insane? Is that man superior to you in any way that you bow to him and give him such a valuable shawl? He looks as though he has not eaten in a week! What will he do with such an expensive wrap? He'll sell it, buy illicit liquor and get drunk!"
"None is greater or lesser to me," Baba replied, "It is only me who is in him — and in you also. In you, I did not like the shawl, and in him, I liked it. That is why I gave it to him."
Memo shouted, "Don't talk to me like that! I did not at all like seeing you keep your head on that vagabond's feet."
Baba shrugged and asked, "What can I do? I derive pleasure from such acts, because I see myself in all. Except for me, no one else exists."
Once, when Memo attired herself in Gaimai's silk sari, Baba asked her, "Whose sari is this?"
Memo said, "What is it to you?"
"Look, I am wearing an old, patched coat. See how I live, though I am the Avatar. You, being the Avatar's mother, it does not behoove you to put on silk saris when the Avatar is going about in a tattered, patched coat!"
"Who told you to dress like that? You wear what you like. I'm not going to put on torn saris. It would have been better had you not been the Avatar! As it is, you belong to everyone but me!"