Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
1962Page 4,791 of 5,444
When Baba had given darshan in Dehra Dun in November 1953, the children had come with a long flower garland and crown for him. On Baba's birthday in 1962, the children sent a unique greeting card. It was a small portrait of Baba painted on a sliver of tree bark, and beneath it they wrote: "Give us speech, O silent Meher Baba!"
Baba sent this telegram in response:
Your love for me speaks more than any speech, and the only thing worthy of hearing is my Word of words. I send my love blessing to you all of Nanhi Duniya.
On Sunday, 4 March 1962, instead of calling his lovers to Meherazad, Baba was driven to Arangaon in the DeSoto, where he listened to the Arangaon Center lovers perform bhajans and he distributed prasad. Eruch, Bhau, Francis and Pendu accompanied him. Nariman and Jim had arrived that morning from Bombay and also attended the program.
On Thursday, 8 March, Bhau's play Jai Meher was enacted by members of the Ahmednagar Center on the spacious stage of the Sarosh Cinema, a movie theater in front of Khushru Quarters. Baba went to see it with both the men and women mandali. The men and women living in Meherabad were also invited. At 9:30 A.M., as Baba's car drove into Ahmednagar, he and the women heard loud chanting and saw several hundred Muslims bowing toward the west (toward Mecca) at the Mohammedan prayer ground next to Khushru Quarters. It was Ramzan Id (a Muslim holy day of fast). Age noted ironically, "Little did the people realize that the One to whom they were praying was at that moment driving past them!"
In the play Jai Meher , Kokila took the lead role of Maya , and her husband, Bhagirath, played the Ancient One ; Edke's daughter Shobha enacted the part of Shireenmai (Baba's mother); Shivaji Mandhare became Dukhiram (the Suffering One); Shobha's elder sister played Earth . Rustom Kaka and Usha Kulkarni sang so soulfully that it was as if creation were starting over! A local devotee, named Shelke, painted a beautiful backdrop of the sea. At the start of the play, with the sound of " OMmmmmmm ," waves appeared in the Ocean, and Time , Maya and the drop-souls were born.
Baba and the audience of nearly 200 persons thoroughly enjoyed the production. Rustom Kaka, his wife and son, as well as Rangole and Waman labored tirelessly to put on the performance. When the two-hour play ended, Baba embraced all the actors and praised those who had worked on it.