Almost running, Baba went to where the car was parked and got in. People acclaimed him with shouts of "Avatar Meher Baba ki jai!" Baba, with a beaming face, waved goodbye to Godavri Mai as the car drove off at 4:00 P.M. to Meherazad, which was reached two hours later. Baba was happy with his Sakori visit and rested for the night in Meherazad.
The residents at the Sakori ashram continued to gaze into the distance after Baba's car had departed. "The Stealer of hearts had left after capturing theirs!" Age declared.
Sangamner, then a town of 18,000 people, is situated about 55 miles from Meherazad. Waman Subnis, R. M. Waghmare and others had come to Baba in Satara requesting darshan. Accepting their prayer, Baba fixed a day. Subnis erected a pandal to accommodate only about 4,000 to 5,000, having no idea the turnout in Sangamner would be so tumultuous.
Leaving Meherazad early in the morning of Friday, 27 January 1956 with several of the mandali, Baba reached Sangamner at 8:00 A.M. The lovers received him warmly and conducted him to a special room adjoining the pandal. Important citizens of the town garlanded him and took his darshan. Coming out of the room, Baba took his seat on the dais. There were not many in the small tent yet, and the handful of people greeted him with shouts of his Jai. Leaving his chair, Baba sat on the edge of the dais and began giving prasad. Men and women formed into separate lines and approached him. After some time 10,000 people poured in, and the place was jam-packed and overflowing. Nothing but a sea of heads could be seen. It was a sight never before witnessed in Sangamner. Suddenly, overpowered with emotion, the crowd began stampeding toward Baba. Kishan Singh described the scene as follows:
At the beginning there were only a couple of hundred gathered in the pandal. Men and women went to Baba to receive prasad in an orderly manner. But a little later, to the surprise of the Sangamner devotees, thousands of men, women and children rushed to the pandal for darshan and prasad in an unending stream. The frail bamboo cordon installed to facilitate the queue gave way to the pressure of the ever-increasing crowd that became uncontrollable. Repeated announcements from the microphone to [be] orderly had no effect. Each one was trying to approach Baba to receive the prasad earlier than the other, despite the fact that Baba was handing out the sacred prasad at a terrific speed. In the mêlée men, women and children were crushed. Something overpowering seemed to have touched the hearts of the thousands to have become irresistibly emotional.
