In the first week of August 1951, Eruch, Pendu and Baidul found a hill known as Khojaguda , eight miles from Hyderabad. On top of the hill was a cave adjoining the tomb of Hazrat Baba Fakruddin, a Muslim saint.1 Below this cave was another naturally carved beautiful cave with a ledge inside. And below it was a Hindu temple.
Baba liked the place very much. He chose the second cave for his work, keeping the upper one as a place for rest and for sleep.
He commented, "At the top, a Mohammedan tomb; at the foot, a Hindu temple; and in between, my cave for my great work which will end in either utter failure or great victory!"
Pendu put up a door of bamboo matting at the entrance to the cave, and made the cave above into a bathing room. The man hired to make the bamboo matting was overcome with love for Baba. It was he who had originally shown them the spot.2
Adi Sr., Adi Jr. and Meherjee arrived in Hyderabad on 8 August 1951 to meet with Baba. With Meherjee came a colleague of Gabriel Pascal, another Hungarian screenwriter named Geza Herczeg, 63.3 At first, the man seemed unimpressed with Baba and went on about working with Pascal and their film about Gandhi. But after Baba's explanation about divinity, interspersed with bits of humor, Herczeg suddenly remembered to take off his shoes. He later told Don that he "felt something within" and that his heart was touched. Adi Sr. presented him with a copy of The Wayfarers , and Herczeg returned to Bombay by plane with Meherjee.
On Monday morning 9 August 1951, Adi Sr., Adi Jr. and the companions were called to discuss certain arrangements with Baba in connection with the four months of Manonash from 16 October to 16 February 1952.
At the outset, Baba again emphatically made it clear:
"To achieve the result I desire, I will be absolutely free to do as I like, and as I think fit and proper. I will also be at perfect liberty to change my plans at any moment, depending upon my mental state and mood at that particular moment."
These four months were divided into four stages: the first, lasting 30 to 40 days, was to be spent on Khojaguda Hill; the second, of a further 30 to 40 days, was to be a foot journey from Hyderabad to Aurangabad; the third was to be at Khuldabad contacting masts.
Footnotes
- 1.Hazrat Baba Fakruddin lived in the 14th century. Even to this day, although his tomb has become a place of yearly pilgrimage, strangely, it has no roof. In centuries past, quite a few times, the saint's admirers contributed to build a roof over the tomb, but every time, within a few days, it was blown off by the winds. This led people to conclude that the saint preferred exposure to the heavens for all time.
- 2.Many years after Baba left Hyderabad, Pendu met this man once again, in Poona. The person informed Pendu that he had been seriously ill and had lost his eyesight. The doctors gave him no hope of recovery, so stopping their treatment, the man kept a Baba-photo locket in a glass of water and then drank it. His eyesight, he informed Pendu, was restored as a result of his faith in Baba.
- 3.In 1937, Baba had seen one of Herczeg's films, The Life of Émile Zola.