Vajifdar moved into the house with his sister-in-law Jerbai and her sister Hilla, as soon as Baba and the mandali settled there.
Those who were employed would eat lunch at their jobs and have their dinner along with the rest of the mandali. For those who stayed with Baba, lunch consisted of the usual dal and rice. The evening meal was a vegetable and bread. Vajifdar's sister-in-law and her sister would do the cooking, which was a great relief to the men.
From the first week of October 1923, the Master began taking food and tea once every day. Upasni Maharaj had recently expressed his concern to Yeshwant Rao (which Yeshwant had conveyed at Manzil-e-Meem) that, "Merwan would give up even this much food." Soon, for as long as eight to nine months, Baba would do as Maharaj had foretold.
The work of collating the pages of Volume I of Upasni Maharaj's biography in Gujarati, Sakorina Sadguru , continued at Irani Mansion. Those who stayed in the house during the day did most of the collation, arranging the printed pages in proper order, but those who returned in the evening from their jobs also had to help. Written by Baily and Sorabji Desai, the book was directed at the Zoroastrian community of Parsis and Iranis.
Baba was anxious to have the book published before proceeding to Sakori on foot, which he planned to do in mid-October. For this purpose, a bullock cart was purchased to carry their luggage during the foot journey. It was an odd coincidence that the bullock, purchased with the cart, was the same animal which had accompanied them during their trek from Poona to Bombay in May 1922.
By the middle of October 1923, nearly all the Marathi and Urdu copies of Upasni Maharaj's biography were finally sold.1 A thousand books had been purchased by various devotees to be given away free to students. The responsibility for distribution was handed over to the government's public education department, thereby saving the mandali the bothersome task of trying to sell them. The balance of the Marathi and Urdu versions were stored in the wooden cupboard at Irani Mansion, and Vajifdar volunteered to take upon himself the responsibility of selling these books, and Volume I of the Gujarati edition. Thus, the publishing work of Circle & Company came to end. Baba had no plans to publish other books (besides Volume II of Sakorina Sadguru , which was being completed) and therefore had the company officially dissolved.
Footnotes
- 1.Many persons had gone to Sakori for Upasni Mahraj's darshan after reading his Marathi biography, including the parents of Godavri Mai.