Baba and the mandali left Mahabaleshwar by car on the morning of Tuesday, 1 April 1947. They went to Poona, where they boarded the Madras Express train at 5:30 P.M. With Baba were Gulmai and fifteen men: Adi Sr., Baidul, Don, Eruch, Ghani, Gustadji, Jalbhai, Kaka Baria, Khak Saheb, Meherjee Karkaria, Nariman Dadachanji, Pappa, Pendu, Ramjoo and Sidhu. Bal Natu joined them at Kurduwadi; Gadekar and Limkar boarded the train at Sholapur
Baba and the group arrived in Madras on the night of the 2nd. They were taken to the Aiyangar family's house, Meher Bhavan , in Saidapet, where they were to stay. A large pandal had been erected opposite the house for the darshan programs.
The first day was spent with the Aiyangar family and other close lovers, such as Mudaliar Vadivelu, who had helped with arrangements. Others included Manek Mehta of Bombay, who had come with about 40 (mostly female) members of his Jap Mandal, and Meherbai Merchant, her daughter Homai, Tehmina Umrigar and Dina Talati. From Nagpur, Dr. Deshmukh, Jal Kerawalla, Pankhraj, B. B. Kapse and Nana Kher had come. Daulat Singh had come from Kashmir. Minoo Kharas had brought his cousin from Karachi, Adi P. Dubash, 27, who was meeting Baba for the first time.
Baba gave this message to the gathering:
From all types of bondage — physical, mental, spiritual, social, political and moral — emancipation of man is possible sooner or later. But the redemption of mankind from its self-imposed shackles of intellectual self-sufficiency and idealistic or religious inheritance is very different indeed, and the task, if ever attempted, is almost superhuman.
The institution of slavery in the Middle Ages was already bad enough, but the irresponsible slavery of this industrial age of ours is worse. Emancipation of mankind from such types of physical and economic slavery is comparatively an easy affair. But the most cruel and destructive form of slavery is an intellectual bigotry of possessing the monopoly on Truth, exclusive of others. It is such types of people, when they happen to wield temporal power on Earth, who hasten the downfall of a laboriously built civilization or the disintegration of a living religion.
Intellect is, so to say, reserved by nature for man. One has to be a man to have intellect, but however keen and quick it may be, it will always be just one of the stepping stones to wisdom, inspiration, illumination, knowledge and realization of Truth, which is above all these.