Baba then ordered all the women, except for Mehera and Mani, to closet themselves in one room together when the bell announcing his arrival was sounded, and not to come out until the second bell was rung.
Despite being in seclusion, Baba took the Meherabad women to Sarosh Cinema to see a film on 24 December 1942. A significant event occurred there three days later.
When Japan had entered the war a year before, in 1941, Baba, during one of his discussions with the mandali, asked their opinions of what would happen if Ahmednagar were overrun by the Japanese. There was a heated argument and Sarosh emphatically maintained, "Baba, why should you worry about Ahmednagar. Japan is not going to invade or bomb us."
Baba looked at him sharply, warning, "A bomb will be thrown in Ahmednagar and it will land in your compound!"
Sarosh and every other man took the remark lightly and quickly forgot about it. But on 27 December 1942, when the Sarosh Cinema was full of British soldiers, during the intermission someone from the "Quit India" independence movement threw a grenade inside the theater compound. Sarosh was closest to the blast, but miraculously escaped injury. One boy working at the cinema was killed and several others injured. Sarosh then remembered what Baba had predicted.1
On Saturday, 26 December 1942, the out-of-town lovers began arriving at Meherabad for the meeting. From Kashmir came Daulat Singh; from Nagpur, Deshmukh and Pankhraj; from Nasik, Ramjoo; from Sholapur, Gadekar; and from Bombay, Poona and Ahmednagar many other close disciples. Ninety-nine men in all attended the program.
To make it an even 100, Baba instructed Margaret to be present, explaining to her, "You have to do my work in the West, and for that you must have some idea of it."
Minoo Kharas of Karachi had brought a close relative, Naize Dubash, to whom Baba gave a ring, telling her never to remove it. It was a special gift as that day was Naize's birthday!
On the 27th, Baba held private interviews from 8:00 to 9:00 A.M. in the Rahuri Cabin. Many were meeting Baba for the first time, although they had been waiting for his darshan for years. In 1939, Vibhuti had opened a Baba center in the village of Angewada about a mile from the town of Saoner on a piece of land given by Motiram Kohake Patil. There were thousands of Baba lovers in the area, and one particularly staunch follower was a pleader (lawyer) from Saoner named Dinkar Harbaji Pophali. His entire family was devoted to Baba. He had been doing much Baba work in the area, although he had never met Baba in person.
Footnotes
- 1.The culprits were later apprehended. They were young college students who had stolen the grenade. A Baba lover from the Damania family knew one of the boys and begged Baba to help them. Otherwise, they were sure to hang. Baba instructed that the boys wear his locket and say "Meher Baba ki jai" whenever they entered the courtroom. The result was that they were eventually released for lack of evidence.