On the way, he was waylaid by the owner of the fruit stall, who started berating him. "You men have taken advantage of my boy before I was open for business. You looted the boy!"
"What is the matter?" Eruch asked. "We paid for the fruit."
"Yes, at one anna less! Pay me one anna; my prices are fixed," the shopkeeper insisted.
"We bargained, that's true, but your boy agreed."
"He had no right to agree; he is only employed to sweep the place. You'll have to pay the amount or return the fruit."
Eruch returned to the compartment, and Baba instructed him to tell the man, "Once a bargain is struck and the transaction takes place, it is your duty not to go back on the deal."
But the man would not listen and insisted they either pay the extra one anna or give the oranges back. Eruch vainly tried to convince him, "This is not a good attitude. It's only one anna. And that too, the first sale of the day [considered auspicious]."
Because the man had been worshiping Baba's photograph, Baba was taking pains to point out that his attitude was wrong. It was not a question of paying the extra money. But the man was stubborn and eventually took back the oranges.
Eruch asked, "Shall I tell him it is you, Baba?" Baba had covered his face with a shawl to avoid being recognized, which he always did while on tour.
Baba replied, "If he knows that, he will bring his whole stall here! How will he gain by that? He has benefited by praying to my photograph in my presence. Only that much is in his lot."
Baba and his companions arrived at Bombay's Victoria terminus on the morning of 11 February 1948 and were met by Nariman and Meherjee. Even before going to wash off the dirt of the journey, Baba went to commune with four masts. The most important one among them was the mast-saint Umar Baba , who was the present spiritual chargeman of Bombay.1 He was on the sixth plane and lived in a graveyard, and that is where Baba contacted him early in the morning.
Afterward, Baba worked with a good mast in Bhendi Bazaar, and two other masts elsewhere in Bombay. Baba promptly left for Pimpalgaon, breaking his journey in Poona, where he visited the Jessawala family and Beheram's family. He returned to Pimpalgaon the same afternoon.
Footnotes
- 1.Umar Baba had taken over Tipu Baba's duties after Tipu died in 1944.