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4

 

"Well, where did that idea come from, then? It's because of that that were here."

"I know! I 've been very interested. "

 

The following September I drove to New York, met Fred and Ella Winterfeldt, Jane Barry Haynes, Margaret Craske, the Agostini’s, and other Baba followers who gave me practical insights into the booth business, and took me to see Baba's lovely corner at the Fair. Then, partly to compensate for the cancelled trip to India to see Baba, I went to Meher Centre, Myrtle Beach, for the first time, to spend Christmas there. But nothing was said about Expo.

 

When Kitty again visited Montreal in May, 1966 the newspapers were full of accounts about nations planning to exhibit at Expo. I showed her a clipping about the India Pavilion, she urged me to make enquiries before more time passed. She suggested I tell Baba my findings by writing to Adi K., Baba 's secretary in India. My letter was on the same flight to Bombay as was Mr. P. K. Panarkar, India's Director of Exhibitions — the man I was to contact should Baba let me approach the India Pavilion. Strangely, Mr. Panarkar died hours after his arrival in New Delhi — about the same time my letter would have reached Ahmednagar.

 

Adi replied masterfully on June 11th: "The thought of the Canadian Exposition and the India Pavilion and display of our books and dissemination of Baba's revelations are really exciting and useful; but we know it takes a tremendous amount of total labor, expense, time and energy to put through the whole project. I know so far as organizing, attending, displaying and talking to visitors is concerned it is possible with enthusiastic application of a team of Baba lovers. But where the expense part of it is concerned, becomes difficult and very difficult. It all depends on how you could all manage ... Your letter was read to beloved Baba and He wants me to send you and Stella DuFresne His Love Blessing." Unlike his instructions for the New York Fair, Baba was letting us seek space in a national pavilion ... in India. This was the green light.

 

That July, I went to Meher Centre again where Jane Haynes — who had led the New York Fair project — answered every question I could think of about running a booth. She also lent me the many, many letters Baba followers had sent to support the New York Fair booth. Their expressions of love impressed me at first, then moved me to tears. Finally, after reading nearly 100 of them, they stiffened my will to get the job done in Montreal.

 

Home again, I found that Mr. Pa Panarkar’s successor at the India Pavilion had not been named yet. So, Florence Wong and I reviewed the information I had collected, and listed pavilions I could approach. In the next few weeks, I contacted Man and the Earth, Man and Energy, and Man the Creator theme pavilions, the

 

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