The Collector of Ahmednagar, P. M. Shahane, was permitted darshan with his family on Sunday, 19 January 1964. Meherwan Jessawala arrived that day for a stay at Meherazad until the 1st of March. It was a privilege Baba would grant him every year thereafter.
A blind Bengali scholar named Dr. Subodh Chandra Roy, 50, had been teaching in New York at the New School for Social Research since 1948. Tom Riley had been a student there in 1956 and had taken courses in Indian philosophy with Dr. Roy. One day Tom told Dr. Roy about Baba and referred him to God Speaks . Dr. Roy became so intrigued that he had someone read the book to him. He subsequently met Filis and Adele, and another student, Rose Garbade who, like Tom, had also met Baba in America in 1958. Rose gave Roy another of Baba's books.
Although Roy had been blind since he was seven years old as a result of cholera, he had attended Calcutta University and served as a professor there; worked at the Tata School of Social Sciences, Bombay; done graduate work at London, Columbia and New York universities; and been a Harvard Research Scholar. In 1963, he became the first blind scholar to be granted a Fulbright Scholarship to travel and lecture in India. His research subject was "Modern Trends in Hinduism" and he was described as a philosopher and teacher who was "devoted to that fusion of Eastern and Western cultures in which lies today's hope for the world."
After arriving in Calcutta and talking at length with A. C. S. Chari, Dr. Roy was determined to meet Meher Baba. He wrote to Adi in October 1963, and Baba permitted him to come to Meherazad at his convenience on any date in the last week of November or first week of December 1963. But Dr. Roy failed to show up on the appointed day. Baba acted very concerned about him. By mistake, Dr. Roy had gone to Ahmedabad instead of Ahmednagar, a difference of over 500 miles. But the man had a strong will and, at last, found his way to Adi's office in Ahmednagar, along with an Indian escort who was a schoolteacher.
On the morning of Tuesday, 21 January 1964, at 9:00 A.M., Dr. Roy and the teacher were brought to Meherazad by Adi. After embracing him, Baba kissed him two or three times and lovingly permitted Dr. Roy to pass his hand over Baba's face. Subodh Chandra Roy recalled the incident:
I was very happy and also much embarrassed, as I had never been kissed by a man. But Baba embraced and kissed me with such kindness and affection that it was most gracious.