Eruch replied, "Because Pappa sent me a telegram to come, saying it was your order!"
Later, when Pappa returned to Dehra Dun, Baba asked him why he had cabled his family without Baba's permission. Pappa explained, "Bombs are falling on Chittagaong.1 Who knows when they will start falling on India? I was frightened, so I sent them the telegram."
"But you should have asked me!" Baba chided.
"You were not there and to delay in times of danger is not good. Times of war are times of worry and trouble. For safety's sake, steps must be taken immediately."
Baba teased, "Everyone thinks you are so brave; now, even you are afraid!"
"How can one be courageous when bombs are raining down?" Pappa replied.
On their way to Dehra Dun, the family's household items had been lost when the baggage car of their train got connected to a different train. They had to make do without their belongings (though everything was eventually recovered months later). Because he had so few clothes, young Meherwan would wear Mani's blouses. In the words of Pappa Jessawala: "Though their clothes were lost, their lives were saved!"
Meanwhile strong winds and violent dust storms were raging in Meherabad, blowing off the tin-sheet roofs on many of the structures there. Pendu wrote Baba about it, and Baba sent him the following reply, in Gujarati, dictated to Savak Kotwal:
April 20, 1942
4 Chander Road
Dehra Dun
Dear brother Pendu,
As instructed by Baba, I write to tell you that the whirlwinds have been a constant feature in Meherabad for years together and they will continue to remain so, because Meherabad is Karbala.2 Even if the whole mandali are crushed and perish underneath the flying tin sheets, they will realize God. Then Baba too will be free from the bother of looking after all, and you all will be free of your bindings. But Baba adds that it is not in his luck!
In Meherabad you all should live like pallbearers and undertakers. If anyone from the mandali in Dehra Dun passes away at any time, his body will be sent to Meherabad, which you should bury after the proper ceremony. The women mandali and dogs should be buried on the hill, and the men in lower Meherabad. It will be your job to build their tombs. Thus you all should be like the Parsi carriers of corpses to the Tower of Silence in Bombay who, though they dispose of so many bodies, themselves carry on merrily.
Footnotes
- 1.Chittagaong is a city, now in Bangladesh.
- 2.[Karbala was the famous battleground in Iraq (681 A. D.), where Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussain (Ali's son), and Muhammad's great grandsons, Ali Akbar and Ali Asghar (Hussain's sons) and other Shi'ahs were killed, and where Hussain is buried.