Dastur then left for Bombay to consider Baba's conditions.
Zoroaster's death anniversary was also observed on 16 June, and Baba himself cleaned the Jhopdi verandah which was splattered with mud due to the rains.
During June, Baba often spent six hours a day at the Meher Ashram, personally supervising everything at the school. But on Saturday, 18 June 1927 at 11:00 A.M., Baba took Ghani, Ramjoo, and a few of the mandali up the hill, where he said he wanted to have a "holiday" from the usual routine. They stayed until eight that night, most of the time playing games inside the tank rooms. A Ping-Pong table had been set up in one of the rooms and Baba relaxed with a few games.1
Special meals were brought up for Baba and the mandali that day, both for lunch and dinner. Ghani remarked to one of the other men that, if he had such appetizing food every day, he would not mind to stay at Meherabad permanently. Ramjoo overheard him and informed Baba what Ghani had said. Baba then promised Ghani the same quality of food every day and directed him to stay in Meherabad for two weeks each month, as Ramjoo was doing. At first Ghani tried to back out of it, but Baba rebuked him, claiming he was not living up to his own words. After some discussion, Ghani agreed to Baba's proposition.
Since many more boys were expected to join the ashram once the leaflets were distributed and advertisements placed in the newspapers, Baba suggested moving the boys' ashram from the Arangaon Family Quarters to the Water Tank on Meherabad Hill. Ghani was entrusted to oversee some of the necessary work to one of the large rooms in the Water Tank building (which began the following day).
In the course of the afternoon, Baba prophesied:
There will be a terrible world war in the near future, and it will be more destructive and horrible than the last one. America will take a leading role in this bloodshed. Millions will die. The war will be so horrendous that there will not even be time to dispose of the heaps of corpses. It will be then that I manifest myself as the Avatar!
Every day for the next three days, Baba went up Meherabad Hill to supervise the alteration work to the Water Tank. The mandali and a few hired laborers struggled to knock a hole through the thick stone wall of the tank building to construct a door.
Footnotes
- 1.Since there were no doors to the east and west room of the Water Tank building at this time, the Ping-Pong table was probably set up in the middle room of the building.