Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
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After a few minutes, Baba gestured to Ann, "Now go to Mehera and Mani."
She started to get up, but Baba called her again for another five minutes.
After it too had expired, Baba motioned, "Now you really have to go." As she was leaving, he remarked, "When I come back in 700 years, make sure you come back as a man so you can attend these exclusive meetings."
Ann was taken inside, where Mehera told her they wanted her to try on a sari. The women helped her put on one of Mehera's, a beautiful lavender sari flecked with gold. "Put your hands together and say, 'Namaste, Baba,' " they coaxed. Ann had no idea what they were up to until Goher shoved her into the crowded hall where Baba was sitting with the men. Ann was afraid the sari would fall off, but, as rehearsed, she put her hands together and said, "Namaste, Baba," and Baba's eyes lit up. What the women mandali did not know was that same morning Ann had had an urge to dress up for Baba. Baba had fulfilled her wish.
The final afternoon of darshan on 31 May proved to be the most crowded, when at 4:00 P.M. no fewer than 3,000 persons poured through Guruprasad. Baba permitted those lovers still in Poona to repeat their visit on that last occasion, and lovers from all over India also came. The singer Narsing Qawaal performed as each lover filed past Baba, in what seemed like an unending procession, to receive prasad (in the form of a sweet) from his hand.
Two young men from America who slipped in "under the wire" were Irwin Luck and his brother, Edward. Like Ann Conlon, soon after they read the Family Letter, they left America without informing their parents, since their father was still vehemently against their going to India. They arrived at the Napier Hotel at 4:00 P.M. just as Meherjee was picking up Harry, Fred and Ann to take them back to Guruprasad to see Baba. The Luck brothers got into the car, too, and in the hall went to Baba, who embraced them warmly and asked them to sit beside him. Edward was transfixed by the translucent quality of Baba's skin and "the purity of a newborn baby" emanating from Baba.
At one point Baba stopped the darshan and introduced the Westerners present.
He introduced Fred and Harry as being from New York and, although Ann was too, when her turn came Baba remarked, "This is Ann Conlon from the United States. She is a blessed woman. Otherwise, why would she have come here when she had never seen me? Her love brought her and that love is my gift to her."
(This confirmed again what Ann had felt in the Lagoon Cabin in Myrtle Beach.)