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tomorrow morning!  We look through the whole city for drawing paper, a primitive compass and a ruler.  At seven in the evening I have the things and can begin after dinner. By about ten-thirty the black-white plan is done and on the following morning it is colored in, and given over to Baba at nine o'clock. Baba is satisfied with it and happy.

 

At ten o'clock the Major comes. He begins by saying "This morning I sent my wife to Venice to see something that will happen there today." (Baba and I look at each other and smile: when it is eight o'clock here it is two in the morning in Venice). Baba explains my drawing to him, the Major is enthusiastic. "We need about 40 acres of land." says Baba. "Let's make it 1000 acres," answers the Major.

 

It will cost about 25 laks (two and a half million rupees). says Baba. "Let's use 30 laks," brags the Major. In a few days he claims he will have the situation in hand by speaking with a few rich people. In the meantime the rector of the university and the chief engineer of Hyderabad come. They talk more carefully, smile covertly about the Major. From 600 acres one slowly works one's way back to 100 acres, from the stone houses to mortar and tile constructions (which material one can recycle - here the largest universities are at first built in this way!), from 25 laks to I lak to begin with.

 

Baba asks, how one would feel about a leper colony here, he would care for, feed and wash their wounds personally, (makes fitting hand gestures). "Oh, I've done even more," the Major jumps in with, "I have cooked, dusted and cleaned for them." The others are a little embarrassed. A leper colony is very questionable. About 500 westerners intend to come, Baba says. That is fine, the others say. One has to imagine the dimensions of the buildings. A terrain needs to be looked at in a hurry. Baba drives out there with these gentlemen and upon return is satisfied.

 

As "his right hand" the Major is supposed to take care of money and land, the engineers prepare plans, when everything is ready in about a month, Baba should be notified, then he will come with N., Ch., and D. for details. - That afternoon the Major said to Norina, he intends to do everything for Baba under the condition that Baba give him "realization". (He probably imagined, that he would be a sort of super-magician, while realization, being-one-with-God, means the laying down of all ambitious Me-plans.)

 

Starting the few days prior I had to drive out on excursions into the surrounding regions to land and hills which would be right for the "central dwelling".

 

The women were meanwhile taking excursions with the bus. A wonderful installation is the fortification in Golconda. There were diamond mines there earlier, in which in its time the famous giant diamond Koh-i-Noor was found. If I'm not mistaken, it is now in the British crown in the Tower of London.

 

The walls of the fort stretch away for miles, perhaps 100 times larger than the Munot in Schaffhausen. Between the walls are old temples, secret dungeons, underground passages, old city-quarters. Golconda was once larger than Hyderabad. It is probably similar to the relation between Auegst and Basel, which once was a Roman camp of over 100,000 inhabitants while Basel was just a village.

 

In the vicinity of Golconda are the huge mausoleums of the Kutub-Shas, who ruled the region for centuries around the year 1000. In the middle of the empty rooms of the temples, which can only be entered without shoes, stand the sarcophagi hewn in stone, which are covered with writing. About two dozen such huge graves are spread out there in the gardens. I think that pictures of them are even to be found in Professor Zimmer's book on Indian cult forms.

 

In Hyderabad lives a woman who is on the sixth plane and spiritually "Holds the key to all of Hyderabad in her hands." Pleader had to find her and say to her, Baba was here. People think she is crazy. Baba sends Hedi and me there, in order to make photos of her. We find her in a narrow, very busy little street, where people offer their goods for sale through low openings in the houses. She is about 60 years old, large, with grey ruffled hair and her upper body naked, large mouth half-covered eyes. Michelangelo could have painted her into his ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

 

We take photos as best we can in the direction of the dark compartment, where the old woman is sitting on the ground. Then she stands up, large, drags herself almost naked across the little street, where a ruckus ensues because of it. A policeman comes, she looks him in the eyes, we take

Continued on page 63.

 

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