"What do you take me for?" Baba asked sternly.
"Paramatma!"
"So as Paramatma I tell you that you will not die! Have faith in me!"
Baba then advised her to catch the first bus to Poona, and ordered her to take treatment for two months from the first doctor she came across.
"Go back to Poona, reenter another hospital and do exactly as the doctors tell you," he instructed. "Take my name each time you take the medicine. I will be with you. You will get well. I tell you with divine authority, that even if anyone were to take you and literally bang you against a stone — like the dhobis [washermen] do their clothes — you will not die!"
In Poona, Subhadra had been unable even to leave her bed. She returned there, and according to Baba's behest took treatment and recovered completely.
At Meherazad, Baba began carrying out a daily regime of exercises for his leg. Meanwhile, an account of Baba's accident in America had been reported in the Times of India . As a result, a false rumor about Mehera's demise had reached the ears of Baba's bitterest opponent, Colonel M. S. Irani. Mehera was the Colonel's niece.
So, according to Baba's wish, the following telegram was sent to him: "Mehera is alive. Love blessings, Meherbaba."
The Colonel was also Padri's maternal uncle, so Baba sent Padri to Poona to assure him of Mehera's well-being. Padri arrived at his house at about three o'clock in the afternoon, but had to wait an hour to see him, as he was napping. The meeting took place at four o'clock, and Padri told him, "Uncle, Mehera is all right. The rumor about her death is not true."
"What have I to do with it?" the Colonel snapped.
"I have been sent to personally convey this news to you," Padri explained.
Becoming upset, the Colonel shouted, "I do not need your news! What does Meher Baba think of himself? What right has he to send me his 'love blessings'? He should accept my love blessings!"
"If you give him your blessings, I am sure he will be overjoyed," Padri wryly observed. "But giving a blessing will bind you, so you'd better think twice before offering it."
The Colonel was highly irritated and, writing a few choice unmentionables on the telegram received from Baba, he handed it back to Padri. "What a love blessing," Padri thought.