THE NECESSITIES OF THE OCCASION

 
By the way, I should tell you of one very funny incident which happened [during the New Life] on our way to Moradabad. A wheel of one of the tongas broke, so Baba sent Adi and Don, who drove the tonga, and someone else, I think, to the next village in another tonga to repair the broken wheel. This had to be done because there was no wheelwright anywhere close to where the breakdown occurred.

As soon as the party reached the next village and found a wheelwright, he agreed to do the whole thing. It was nightime when the repairs were finished, and they still had to return to the camp to be ready for the next day's journey. They had money to repair the wheel and to feed the horse, but there was none provided for their own food — so they had to go out to beg.

Adi said, 'It's too late. All the people must be asleep now. Where can we go to beg?' They were all hungry, but they couldn't ask the wheelwright to feed them because of Baba's instructions. So Adi, knowing very well that it would be five rupees for the wheel repairs, paid him ten rupees.

The wheelwright said, 'This is too much. Why do you pay me this?'

'No, no, accept it,' Adi insisted. 'You did the work, even into the night.' Then he continued, 'Well, we'll have to go out now for out bhiksha. We'll have to find food. Please accept the ten rupees and don't trouble us with the change.' So the fellow took the hint and offered them food for their supper in bhiksha.

In this way Adi and the others managed to have some food and then return to us. So, you see, a little discretion and a little intelligence were also used in the New Life to adjust our lives to the necessities of the occasion.