Baba flew into Australia through Mascot Airport in Sydney that same afternoon at 3:45 P.M. Australian customs and safety regulations forbade anyone except passengers and crew from being present on the tarmacs, so as Baba and the mandali disembarked, no one was there to meet them.
Baba acted surprised and gestured to Eruch, "Where are they?"
Then — despite the considerable distance — Baba spotted his Australian lovers peering from the windows of the nearby terminal building. He enthusiastically waved and smiled at them as he gracefully strode across the tarmac.
Once inside the terminal, Baba was welcomed by Francis, Bill Le Page, the Bruford family and a few others. Although there were many from the general public amongst them observing, Baba individually greeted each of "his" group. One person said how impressed they were at how "Baba just knew who was in his group!" People were getting lost and separated in the large crowd and Robert Rouse recalled straining to try to glimpse Baba. Suddenly, he felt a soft caress on his cheek. It was Baba, who had somehow managed to reach through the bustling crowd to touch him, even though Baba had never seen or met him before.
From the airport, Baba was driven by Bill in Baron von Frankenberg's black Triumph to Meher House.1 The rest of the Sydney group, a few from Melbourne and one each from Canberra, Newcastle and Armidale were waiting there to receive him. Baba embraced each and everyone, and then retired in the house to wash and have his supper. Not knowing what Baba might like to eat, and having tasted Lorna Rouse's Indian curries, Francis asked Lorna to prepare a curry and have it ready when Baba arrived at Beacon Hill. Baba asked for supper not long after his arrival, and Lorna served the curry with rice, and mangoes that she had preserved in syrup the previous summer. Baba was very pleased with Lorna's curry, and asked for more for his mandali. (He also asked her to send the recipe to the women mandali.)2
Baba's room was 30 by 20 feet. It had four walls of sandstone hand-cut by Francis, with a large window opening out over bushland, with views around Sydney and its harbors. Francis erected a temporary panel of Masonite, covering most of the East wall and got Frances Lee, who lived just over the hill from Francis, to paint a mural on it depicting Baba as the Creator of the universe. Baba admired the mural, but told Frances Lee to change the figure of a deer to an ape. The three-quarter of an acre property had been purchased for Baba in 1949, with money given by Baron von Frankenberg and other Sufis.
Footnotes
- 1.Baron von Frankenberg, a disciple of Inayat Khan, was head of the very first Sufi organization in Australia. His group flourished from 1927 to 1950 in Melbourne and Camden (a town west of Sydney). Many of the early Australian Baba lovers had first been members of this group. Although it had been Baron von Frankenberg who encouraged Francis to meet Meher Baba, the Baron died in 1950, without himself ever meeting him. The automobile in which Baba was driven had been willed to Francis.
- 2.Indian food was fairly unknown in Australia at this time, and few Australians knew how to prepare it.