3rd Item: From Jan. 1st we begin touring India. So we leave in the newly made omnibus on Dec. 15th.

4th Item: From Oct. 15th to Dec. 15th, every evening at 7, I go to my room for work

(Here ends the talk leading to the great climax or surprise.)

I think the first thing I have to say is that between Cannes and India my contact with Baba was through Kitty. She used to write letters to me which I still have kept, and many of them have the signature "M.S. Irani" on them which is very valuable.

When I first was in India I had a big box of chocolates sent to me from Switzerland, in a wooden crate. I thought I'd like to present it to Baba, so I borrowed a typewriter and wrote a little note — "from a lover", with just the date. I thought Baba will know who gave it, because, of course, Baba knows everything. So a day later I got the note back and the word "lover" was underlined and there was Baba's signature, M.S. Irani . I still have it at home. It means I am not the lover, Baba is the lover, because we do not know what love means, only Baba knows. I cherish this small paper so much, it will be valuable to me forever, till the end of my life, because I know Baba is the lover, and I should try to go near it if I can.

We used to think it would always be like that — Kitty remembers --, but Baba used to say 'No'. We always used to sit together in that cantonment office building in Ahmednagar. We would discuss things or Baba would call on one or the other and say "come on — what's wrong?" I seldom could say what for. But we never felt that it's good that person "gets it"; we felt really bad because we all felt we had done even worse things, we had disobeyed, or had bad thoughts, etc. It was worse when that person had to stand up in front of us all. Didn't we all feel bad, ourselves, Kitty at that time? Well, I did, I remember feeling very bad if anyone had to go up to Baba. I also had to go up sometimes, but I never felt that the others were happy that you were the one picked. You felt bad for the one to go up but we were the ones who really needed the "kick".

Also in one of his evening talks Baba 'spoke' about Non-Violence. What does Non-Violence really mean? It doesn't only mean NOT to take action. I remember clearly that Baba asked us, "What if you saw a herd of sheep and you saw a beast,— a lion or a tiger about to attack and kill as many sheep as he could — what would you do?" We all had different opinions. If you believe in Non-Violence, should you let this lion or tiger devour as many sheep as he can or should you kill it? Baba asked, "What do you think, what is right?" Different answers were given, but I said, “You should kill the beast to save so many innocent ones." Baba said, "Yes, that is the reality of Non-Violence, — to kill one who may kill so many others — to protect the unprotected". I remember it and I have written it down. I can just see us all sitting around Baba when he asked us this question.

Every evening Baba did a wonderful thing -- he used to hug every one goodnight — like this! It was so easy as we were all standing in line. He would hug everyone and just leave one person out. If it was you, you would just feel terrible. You had terrible pangs, you just had to control yourself, and not let your tears run while Baba was still there, but when you went up to bed, you stayed under the covers and cried — you had such pangs! Baba could feel that! Baba said goodnight but if he left one out (and I know it wasn’t only my experience, but I heard it from others), they did the same thing. But afterwards we found out that it was a special favor of Baba to leave you out! Because it's so easy just to start at one end and go round; it's difficult to leave someone out. So Baba left you out probably to make you feel more how much you long for Baba. But I think it was a treat that he left you out, because you realized what it meant to be left out, you were the most favored one. The very fact that Baba “forgot" you made you realize this. As soon as we found this out, then Baba never "forgot" us again, seemingly, because then the effect was gone. You knew if he left you out it showed a special love for you.

At that time, we were traveling a lot in India, all during the mast tours of Baba from '38 to '46. We paid a visit to the Jaipur observatory which was very old. It had some very interesting sorts of steps and certain angles so if you watched the