WHO IS HERE?

 
One time we were on the station platform very exhausted. It was dark. Baba said that we would have to pass the night there and catch the next train early in the morning. He said we would be sleeping there, so we went to the end of the platform and spread out the bedding for Baba on the earth itself — the end of the platform is never floored; it is just filled with earth. So we just spread out our things there, and all the mandali slept around Baba. It was the custom; Baba was in the centre — on one side myself, on another side Pendu, Kaka or Gustaji, with the others around Him here and there. We would be keeping watch in turns.

This night the watchkeeper must have been feeling drowsy. In the mean time we all had gone to sleep with Baba ... when all of a sudden I found Baba was shaking me to wake up. I got up from that sound sleep. "What's the matter? Where am I?" I said. Then I realized that I was on the station platform. Baba wanted to know, "Who is here?"

I found that between Baba and myself there was somebody else. I looked and found there was a man sleeping next to Baba. He had got into the middle of our group and hidden under our covering. I woke him and said, "Who are you?"

As soon as I woke him, he got up and started running. Then the police began whistling. They were watching for a thief they had been following, but he had eluded them. The thief had taken protection near Baba not knowing that it was Baba Himself.

He had hidden from the police with the help of our bedding covering him. But when he left his hiding place under our bedding, the police caught him.