They performed Baba's arti. Afterward Baba proceeded to Jangle's quarters there and also to Jamadar's — the Meherabad night watchman for many years — whose families also performed his arti. Baba also saw Walu, who was living nearby in the same compound.
At 6:00 P.M. Baba sent the Westerners back to Meherabad, and with a few of the mandali he visited the small tuberculosis sanitarium near the village. Baba had been invited there by one of his devotees, Kamlabai Pusalkar, who was a nurse. Maruti Patil's daughter Tarabai Dalvi, was also working there.1 Baba saw all the patients and then left.
After arriving back at the mandali's quarters, Baba gave the Western men, as a precaution against malaria, two tablets of Anacin and quinine, which were to be taken before going to sleep. After embracing each man, Baba departed for Meherazad at about seven o'clock.
Baba had decided to give darshan to those of Ahmednagar and vicinity who had not been able to be present at the Wadia Park function on the 12th. Using the excuse that Ben Hayman and Frank Hendrick had missed the Wadia Park program, since they had arrived later, Baba agreed that they should be shown what a darshan was like. A platform was built in Khushru Quarters and Gulmai was quite happy that the function would take place at her residence. It was called the "Small Darshan."
Baba arrived in Ahmednagar at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, 26 September 1954, for the program. Dr. P. Natarajan of Malabar, the head of an ashram, and one of his followers, John Spiers, had also come. While sitting under a tree in Adi's compound, Baba talked with Natarajan.
In the course of their conversation Baba remarked, "To be alone in the midst of many people and to be surrounded by people when alone, this is my experience. I am always alone and simultaneously among many."
The darshan started at three o'clock in the afternoon. Rustom Kaka and his wife Silla Kaku sang songs as separate rows of men, women and children formed and Baba began handing out prasad. At 3:30 the Westerners arrived. Baba embraced them and made Ben Hayman, Frank Hendrick and Charles Purdom sit beside him on the dais. Dr. Natarajan and Spiers were also beside him.
Baba commented, "No explanations or discourses could compare with this personal contact. I feel that I am in all. It is Baba bowing down to Baba."
Footnotes
- 1.Until the New Life, Tarabai had resided in the women's ashram, serving as a maid, and thereafter worked in the TB sanatorium.