Book Reviews

From the time he joined Baba, Krishna had been doing nightwatch, but when we were Satara, Baba sent him back to his home. After Baba's second automobile accident in 1956, we left Satara and moved back to Meherazad. One afternoon when I went to Baba for nightwatch, he asked me for Krishna's address. I said that I thought Krishna was living in Bombay, but that I did not have His exact address.

Baba gestured, "Never mind. Send a telegram in care of the president of the Bombay Center. It is very urgent." And he dictated the following message for Krishna: "Don’t worry. I am with you. I will never abandon you. Love, Baba." He instructed me to send it at once. But when I went to the other side of Meherazad, I found that the boy who usually took the mail and telegrams to Ahmednagar had just left.

I returned to Baba's room and explained to him that the boy had already left. Suddenly Baba seemed very angry. "Do you mean you did not send the telegram? I told you it was urgent! You should have sent it with the other boy." And while scolding me he tore the telegram into pieces. Baba rebuked me for some time and then dictated another telegram to Krishna. It read: "You are dear to me. Have courage. Everything will be alright."

Again I went to the other side of the compound to send it but by the time I got there, the other boy had left for the village on an errand. I had to go back to Baba's room with the telegram still unsent. Baba was furious. "You could have sent it with Aloba." He gestured in disgust, "You never take anything I say seriously! I told you that it was urgent and that it had to be sent right away. I can't rely on you, I can't trust you. You don't understand the significance of my work. This was very important and you did not do it."

For two hours, Baba rebuked me over this seemingly innocuous telegram to one of his lovers. When he finished he did not draft another telegram, but lay down on his bed and tried to rest. But Baba felt very restless and tossed and turned on the bed the whole time. Finally at seven in the evening he sat up and asked for a glass of sweetened rose syrup mixed with water. Taking only a few sips, he gave the rest to me to finish. At this his mood changed completely. He was suddenly calm and in a joking mood.

Afterward I wondered about Baba's strange behavior. "Why was he so upset today?" I thought. "He knew I tried my best to send the telegrams to Krishna. There must be a reason for it." When I returned to my room. I wrote down the exact time of the first telegram, the time Baba's mood changed, and the date.

A few weeks later we went to St. Mira's High School in Poona where Baba was to give darshan. Krishna came from Bombay for the darshan, and while talking with him I asked what he had been doing. Krishna told me that he had found a job and had been working for the last month or so, however, he seemed hesitant to tell me anything about the time before that. I became curious and asked, "But tell me, what were you doing before you found this job?" Finally, Krishna began to pour out his heart to me:

"For months and months I had been searching for a job in Bombay,” he related. "I had no money, no job, and no hopes of getting one. And all the while I didn't even have enough food to eat. A few weeks ago in desperation, I decided to kill myself. Yes, I wanted to commit suicide."

"I left Bombay for a nearby mountain," he continued, "and once there, I went up on a lift. I was just about to jump, when Baba appeared to me. As soon as I saw Baba there, without a thought I climbed down the mountain and returned to Bombay. A few days later I found a job, and I’ve been working ever since."