HARDLY FOUR YEARS OLD

 
There are glimpses of Baba, seated on a high stool because movement was painful, playing table tennis with the mandali, or out in the garden enjoying a game called 'Seven Tiles', in which the driver and gardeners took part as well. In this Indian version of skittles or bowls, seven pieces of stone or tile are balanced on top of each other and the player tries to knock them all down with a ball.

Baba took great pleasure in the gardens, in watching the animals and birds both tame and wild. He enjoyed listening to music: "Teatime at Meherazad," wrote Mani, "is a happy hour for us women, when we sit together at the dining table with the Beloved; and mingling with snatches of conversation and the tinkle of teaspoons in cups, is the music from our transistor radio.... This would find Baba drumming briskly on the table in rhythm with the music, the response from our brass tea-kettle being a jerky little dance as it would bob up and down with the vibration of the table."

Children and child-like people afforded him relief. He responded instantly to the loving acceptance of children, who had no requests to make, were not interested in hearing discourses, but wanted only to get as close to him as they could.

At Guruprasad in an assembly so crowded that there seemed no inch of floor space left, Baba singled out and silently beckoned to him a little girl hardly four years old. She made her way forward, bowed solemnly before him, and then smiled ecstatically as Baba drew her to him, embraced her and caressed her cheeks.

She had come, it was later learned, from a place a long way from Poona. Her parents were not with her. Hearing that some neighbours were travelling to Poona to see Baba, she had urged and insisted with tears that her mother allow her to go with them and see him.