Babajan lost two of her fingers by allowing them to be eaten away by maggots. So many insects were in her wounds that they would fall out. She would pick them up and put them back in the wound without in the least minding the horrible pain. Instead of taking treatment for her fingers, she was feeding the maggots! Babajan deliberately suffered unimaginable agony, and in the end lost both fingers.
At the present, I, too, have a blister inside my mouth that pains me severely, but I don't mind it. I don't pay any attention to it. Saints are always happy, even while in agony.
From the 1st of June, the teaching of Persian began in the Meher Ashram school. Rustom was assigned to teach Persian grammar for three hours of classes every week, and Raosaheb general conversational Persian for one hour every day.
The next day, Dhake was granted a ten-day leave for his marriage, and a Brahmin acquaintance of Kaka Shahane named Phadke was hired to assume Dhake's duties in his absence. That morning at ten o'clock, an argument arose among two other teachers, Pandoba and Ramkrishna Gite, about the value of education.1 Pandoba claimed that education had spoiled India's traditional family system of vocational trades (such as the son of a tailor or cobbler following in his father's footsteps), whereas Gite was in favor of it, maintaining that it had greatly benefited the nation. Hearing them, Baba made the following statements:
Education, however faulty and incompetent, is always better than ignorance. It is beneficial and does much good. If not always beneficial financially, education always brings about good mental training. Mentally, it is a step further toward human advancement, betterment and progress. Under all circumstances and at any place, I would repeat and declare that education is and does good. A system [of education] may be defective, even bad, yet you must not blame one for the other — i.e., education for the system.
Raosaheb was the ashram "lamp manager" in charge of seeing that the kerosene lanterns were daily filled, cleaned and distributed to the different departments. That night a new Petromax lantern was lit for the first time, and the mandali and pupils welcomed it with loud whistling and cheering. Coconuts were broken for good luck to inaugurate it, and all celebrated the event.
A strong breeze was blowing and Baba warned Raosaheb to look after the new lantern well, threatening, "Remember, if anything happens to the Petromax lantern, I will march out of Meherabad to an unknown destination."
Footnotes
- 1.Gite is pronounced GI-tay