BABA'S MOUSTACHE

 
Until the beginning of 1935 Baba generally wore His hair loose, but the wind at Meherabad in the summer is very strong, and coming up the Hill Baba's hair would blow in His face and eyes. So one day He told me to braid it; that was the first time I braided Baba's hair. In the early days I sometimes tied it back with a bow, but I had never braided it for Him. (Baba started to grow His hair after He left Sakori; every time the Avatar comes He has long hair.)

And when Baba's fingernails grew rather long I would remind Him, "Baba, Your nails are very long."

Baba would reply, "Yes, they need to be trimmed," so I would cut them. Of course, I saved the clippings.

It was during these years on the Hill that I began to trim Baba's moustache. Baba, in the early years, never cut His moustache. He trimmed it first before going to the West for the first time in 1931, and after that the men mandali must have cut it for Him.

This is how I learned to do it. The little room that is now the library was empty. Mani would occasionally go there for injections that she had to have for her health, but at that time I never went there. One day Baba called Kaka Baria, one of the men mandali, up the Hill and had him wait in this little room. Then He called Mani and told her on the alphabet board which He was still using, "Now watch carefully. Kaka will show you how to trim My moustache, and you are to explain it to Mehera."

Then, after fifteen days or so, when Baba's moustache again needed trimming, He came up the Hill to our kitchen and told me to trim it. Mani had explained how Kaka Baria had done it, but still I was feeling very nervous about doing it. With a tiny little comb I gently combed Baba's moustache straight down, and very, very carefully I cut first one side, then the other. Then I stood back and looked at it. One side was shorter than the other! "Oh, Baba," I told Him, "it's not quite even."

"Let Me see " Baba said, so we brought Him our looking glass. "Yes, I see," Baba told me. "Cut a little more from this side."

So I trimmed the longer side, and again stood back to look. The side that had been longer was now too short! But that was not all. By now Baba's whole moustache was a little shorter than He usually wore it. Baba again looked in the glass and said, "Leave it like this. Don't cut it any more." He did not want a moustache like Charlie Chaplin's!

From that time I always cut Baba's moustache. After that first time I knew how to do it, and it was not lopsided again. Baba does not mind if we make mistakes the first time, because then we learn how to do things properly.