In the afternoon I visited Kitty Davy at the Poona Club and met Katie Irani, who had shared the early ashram days with her. They exchanged lively reminiscences of the hardships, the humorous and the wonderful moments of day-to-day life with Baba in the old Meherabad ashram.

Two interesting stories Katie told were of Baba warning her family to move from Quetta because it would be destroyed. Her family moved to Bombay; two years later a terrible earthquake completely destroyed Quetta. Another time when Baba visited this northern part of India he paced up and down a certain road, saying, "The line will be here." It came about that after some years the border between India and Pakistan was settled along that very line.

At the beginning of the New Life, Katie was one of those whom Baba sent back into the world; the shorthand and typing Kitty had taught her in the ashram helped her procure an office job with "strange-speaking people" — as Baba had predicted — the Japanese Consulate.

When I returned to the Poona Hotel, Adele said she had seen Baba again that afternoon about her work and to deliver the gift of medical supplies. She reports a few of the things Baba said: "Within one year, I will break My Silence; then drop My body; My glorification shall last for one year. . .

“You must go through the ocean of fire and come out alive . . .

"Discourses and writings mean very little. In Persia, Rumi was a famous poet; well-known people sought his advice. But he was barren of spirituality until he came to the feet of the Perfect Master of the time, Shams-E-Tabriz. Then, he disposed of his writings.

"I am impatient to break My Silence . . . to prepare for the urge to break My Silence.”

Several others were present that afternoon, including Charles Purdom, who discussed his forthcoming revised biography of the Perfect Master.

Giddy with the prevalent "Poona belly," I skipped dinner except for a banana and tea, and went to bed early, for we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. on the morrow.

Tuesday, November 6

After the tea and toast allowed by Baba, we climbed into the buses and cars arranged for us and met in the pearly gray dawn hours by Baba's mango tree in the Bund gardens. Far out in the river men were fishing