This time Baba looked at him in disgust and stated, "You are useless! Go sit down."
And he lay back down on his bed and continued to pound his thighs with his fists, as if he were playing a tabla.
Bhau sat in the chair feeling both foolish and sorry for having failed and for having displeased Baba. Then something wonderful happened. As he was sitting in the chair, all of a sudden it was as if a breeze of understanding blew across his mind — instantly he knew what Baba wanted! He understood how to write ghazals — the meters and style.
Immediately, without saying a word, Baba sat up in his bed, and snapping his fingers said, "Compose, compose!"
Within half an hour, Bhau composed the first ghazal of what was to become the book of ghazals titled by Baba, Meher Sarod .
He read it out, and Baba was quite pleased.
He embraced Bhau and assured him, "Yes, this is what I want. Now, I will continue giving you one line or so every day, and you should continue composing in this way."
Every day for two months, Baba would give Bhau one, sometimes two, sometimes many couplets from which to compose ghazals. Sometimes when Baba was in the mood, he himself would compose the entire ghazal. At times, he would describe a story, such as about Sar Mast, Majnun & Laila, or Farhad & Shirin, or give Bhau points which he wanted him to versify.1
And each day when Bhau would go to Baba in the afternoon, Baba would inquire, "How many ghazals did you write today? Read them out."
Some of the ghazals were composed in Baba's room itself. At times, Bhau would be so absorbed in his thoughts after Baba had given a line that when Baba would gesture for water, Bhau would walk over to get it, but then forget what Baba wanted. He would stand there and look at Baba, thinking of the ghazal, and Baba would laugh and gesture again to bring the water.
Baba would sometimes ask Bhau to repeat a certain line, or sometimes the entire poem.
Often Baba would embrace and kiss him, and gesture, "Do you know, have you any idea what you have written? How touching it is? You have no idea how sublime it is — how high, how deep! You have no idea what you have written! Your writing flows; it flows like a river!"
Footnotes
- 1.From Aurangabad, Sar (Persian for tall or high) Mast was executed by the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb (1618–1707) because he insulted a Muslim priest by saying, "Your God is under my feet!" It was later revealed that the priest had been thinking of money while praying, and a treasure of gold was, in fact, discovered buried under the floor in the mosque at the exact spot where Sar Mast stood when he abused the priest. After the truth was found out, Aurangzeb greatly repented for executing Sar Mast.