They arrived utterly exhausted at 8:30 P.M. The trains were very crowded due to the Diwali holidays, and Baba had to sit crammed between other passengers.
They got up early the next morning at 4:00 A.M. and left Jullundur by the seven o'clock passenger train, arriving in Lahore at 11 A.M. on the 28th. There, Adi Sr. and Kaka were sent out every day to find an "ideal" boy.
When Baba returned to Lahore, he gathered the mandali on Friday, 29 October 1943 and spoke about his recent work in Calcutta and Lucknow:
The situation in Bengal is pitiable but I am pleased that I managed to do my work there incognito with the aid of the mandali.1 Immediately after my return, the new Viceroy [Archibald] Wavell visited Calcutta. Similar crises are to follow throughout India especially in big cities like Bombay. For years, I have been repeatedly saying that India must suffer most of all. This is the beginning. Even in such awful conditions of famine never seen or heard of before — people daily dying of starvation by the thousands in the streets and on the open pavement — this is but one phase of more still to follow (such as epidemics and pestilences). Although apparently the British government is blamed as the principal responsible authority, what could poor [Leopold] Amery or Churchill do against the Divine Will?
After all that suffering, the country's condition will improve. Had it not been for my key their fate would have been worse.
Because of the wartime restrictions, Baba changed his plan of proceeding to Iran and declared his intention of moving all back to Meherabad. He dictated the following circular:
As intimated in my previous circular of August 1st regarding my traveling to Iran in November 1943, and then having the intimate group stay near me for a month from January 15th to February 15, 1944, both these now necessitate adjustment due to conditions explained below.
The government of India has just returned all passports unendorsed, expressing its inability to grant permission to anyone to go to Iran, except on business connected with the war. Even for this decision, the government took over three months. This refusal of the government seems to be on the grounds of the large number — about 20 — of the group who were to accompany me to Iran. It seems almost certain that permission may be granted for a smaller number later. The government's reply to this, however, cannot be expected before the end of the year, i.e., December 1943.
Footnotes
- 1.Leopold Amery was a British statesman and Conservative politician. During World War II, he was Secretary of State for India.