"The account of the rest of the tour will be ruthlessly abbreviated, not because the work done was unimportant, but because the routine was to all intents and purposes the same as that of every tour that Baba has made. They went next to Cuttack, the capital city of Orissa, and thence to Madras and Hyderabad (Deccan).

The party stayed at Hyderabad for nine days, since this is a city where many masts are to be found, and during the stay there eight poor families were given money by Baba. One of these contacts was, perhaps, the most dramatic of the whole tour. I have already told you that Baba's work with the poor was (barring the Bihar flood victims) to give money to the heads of families that had once been rich, but were now desperately poor. As a result of inquiries in Hyderabad to find unfortunates of this kind, Baba's men were directed to a certain man who had inherited several million rupees from his father. His style of living had been on such a scale that he was the owner, among other things, of several elephants and of two private carriages on the railway. Shortly before he died, the father had told his son that the wealth he would inherit was enough for nine ensuing generations to live in the grandest style.

"The son, however, when Baba's men went to see him, was living in a miserable hovel with his wife, and he earned a living by peddling matches. As if his misfortunes were not enough, or more probably because they were more than he could bear, he was now a sick man, and was found lying on his bed. When Baba came to give this man Rs 200/-, two of Baba's men supported him while Baba washed his feet, and when he took the money in his hands he collapsed on the floor. His wife, not knowing that he had been given money and seeing him suddenly fall to the floor, burst into tears and began wailing that he had fallen down dead.

"Then followed several minutes of confusion, at the end of which the man was laid on his bed, where he shortly regained consciousness. He had collapsed, one supposes, at this windfall of money that had come upon him without warning. Before Baba left he gave him a further hundred rupees to buy medicines with, and some of Baba's men asked him as kindly as they could how the great fortune he had once inherited had now completely disappeared. To these questions, however, he gave no reply, only clapping his hand to his forehead.

"From Hyderabad Baba proceeded to Kolhapur and Miraj, and in the latter place he sat in seclusion for about half an hour in a langoti, thus carrying out one of the phases of the New Life.