But when he handed out the bundles one by one, he did so in strict privacy in a separate room which was kept vacant for this purpose. Baba sat on the floor, beckoning each villager to him for prasad. Thick curtains were tacked over the windows and hung from the doors to prevent anyone from looking inside during the contact. The program ended at one o'clock in the afternoon, and Baba returned to Ahmednagar.
Two days later, on the 18th, Baba went to the village of Parner, 25 miles west of Ahmednagar. Here the program was held in a school building. Baba washed the feet of 600 poor people and distributed prasad to 606 people. He presented one rupee to 28 people and gave two rupees to one man.
As Baba was washing the feet of one old lady from Parner, an elderly man was heard to remark in English, "Just like Jesus Christ!"
The third poor program took place on Friday, 20 February 1948, at the town of Kharda, 70 miles southeast of Ahmednagar. There, too, a school building was utilized for the work with 992 poor villagers. Again, Baba washed their feet and privately handed prasad to each. He also gave one rupee each to 98 people and two rupees to 13. The mandali assisted in their assigned tasks, with Kaikobad keeping track of the number of contacts.
The fourth and final program did not turn out as expected. It was to be held at Visapur on Sunday, 22 February. Visapur was an old army camp. After the partition of Pakistan and India, communal riots had broken out, resulting in thousands of ruined lives and hundreds of thousands of refugees spilling into the country. Visapur was turned into a refugee camp, and it was with 1,000 of these poor refugees that Baba wished to work that day.1
Baba left Ahmednagar early in the morning and was driven the 25 miles south to the Visapur Irrigation bungalow. When he arrived, he was informed that the refugees had somehow found out that a "saint" was to wash their feet. They did not like this idea and had protested: "We will wash his feet. We will never permit him to wash our feet."
Whenever Baba had done such work in the past, the recipients had not been informed who was washing their feet and giving them prasad. When Baba was told of the refugees' attitude, he unhappily decided to cancel the program and returned to Ahmednagar.
Footnotes
- 1.In 1925, Baba had taken the Meherabad schoolchildren to Visapur on a picnic.