Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
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On the 20th of February (the same day the American astronaut John Glenn orbited the Earth in a space capsule), Mani persuaded Baba to sit outdoors while Don took more film shots. Baba came at 10:00 A.M. and sat quietly in the back compound. Eruch suggested going out by the front gate to the little hut where Baidul and the other watchmen sat. Eruch tried to get Baba to sit in the hut, but Baba gestured the floor was too low, and he did not want to sit so far down. Eruch sent Aloba to bring a cushion, which was put on the floor of the shack. Baba sat on it.
Each time Stevens stopped the camera to rewind it, Baba asked, "Are you finished?"
Each time, Stevens told him he was rewinding and had a few more feet. Finally, just as Don finished the reel, Baba signaled that the filming was through.
One day Baba, making certain that Don Stevens was not getting bored during his stay, instructed Don(kin) to take him out for a drive. Thinking Stevens would be interested in seeing a band of wild monkeys, Don drove him to the nearby forested canyon, Happy Valley. While climbing, Don warned Stevens to be careful of a poisonous vine indigenous to the area that sticks to the clothing and gives a terrible rash if touched. Bent on locating the monkeys, Don hiked on ahead, and soon Stevens lost sight of him.
After a while, Stevens decided to return to the car when all of a sudden he found he could not move. He looked down and saw that he had become entrapped in the poisonous vine that Don had warned him about. Cautiously lifting the end of the vine off his trousers and arm to unwind himself, he finally got loose and met Don by the car. When they arrived back in Meherazad, Baba immediately wanted to know if they had spotted any wild monkeys, but they had not.
The next morning, Don Stevens woke up and found a small rash on his hands. Baba came to mandali hall as usual in the morning of 21 February. Stevens had forgotten about his hands, but all of a sudden in the course of talking with him, Baba stopped gesturing and looked at him. As Baba watched him, Don Stevens noticed that he was unconsciously scratching his right hand.
"Don, what is that?", Baba asked.