On Sunday, 3 February 1957, Pendu was brought to Poona by ambulance, accompanied by Sidhu and Aloba. He was taken to Silver Oaks to see Baba, and when Pendu saw a few close lovers from Bombay and Poona who were visiting, he was overcome and wept. Baba came out in his wheelchair to see Pendu; he joked and chatted with him and thereby gave him courage.
"We will both be up and walking together," Baba assured him.
"But you suffer it all in silence," Pendu commented.
Baba replied, "You will be all right and walk again, but I will not be able to walk normally again ever. My hip joint, too, will never be normal."
After having a checkup at the military hospital, Pendu was driven to Ahmednagar, where he stayed with the Satha family at Akbar Press to recuperate. The plaster casts were removed from both legs, but Pendu, too, could not yet stand. Aloba was appointed to look after him, and treatment was arranged. A month later, Pendu was sent to Meherabad, as was Vishnu. Thus the stay in Satara came to an end. Baba would never return there.
At 9:30 A.M. on Tuesday, 12 February 1957, Baba, with Don and Meherjee, was driven from Poona to Meherazad in Meherjee's car. The women followed in Adi's car. They arrived around one o'clock. Baidul and Bhagirath had brought the luggage a few days before, on the 7th. Eruch, Bhau and Savak arrived by train at 9:00 P.M. on the 11th, and Gustadji, Kaikobad and Jalbhai arrived the next day. Due to his injury, Baba agreed to use the ground-floor bedroom at Meherazad for the next several months.
Baba's one-year seclusion was to end on Friday, 15 February. As previously announced, Baba wished to distribute cloth and sweets to 700 poor persons. Padri, Kaka, Chhagan and Adi had been instructed a month before to find the poor and bring them on that day to Meherazad. Baba was to fast for 24 hours without water that day. Accordingly, the 700 poor were brought from different neighboring villages. A truckload of cloth and laddoos had arrived and were arranged in stacks and baskets. Pukar had come from Hamirpur to help, according to Baba's wish, and the Ahmednagar lovers were also present for the occasion.
The function began at 9:00 A.M. Kaka's room had been selected for the program, as it had two doors that could be used as an entrance and exit. The front door was the exit, and the back door the entrance, through which, one by one, the poor were hurried inside. Outside the entrance and the exit, a temporary roof had been erected with tarpaulins. Baba was seated in his wheelchair in the right-hand corner of the front entrance. A stack of white cloths, cut into two-yard-long pieces, was ready for distribution by his side. It was sufficient cloth to be tailored into a man's shirt. Beside the heap of cloth were baskets of laddoos.