YOU MUST GET MARRIED

 
The bungalow had electricity, but no running water, and this was rather inconvenient for us as our water had to be carried to the house from a well in the garden.

The garden was very big, especially the back garden, which had in it a guava orchard that sloped all the way down to the boundary at a dry river bed. While we were there the guavas were ready for harvesting, and these ripe fruits attracted many bats. To scare them away the servants would bang on tins making a terrific noise. And if Baba was home doing some seclusion work, this noise would disturb Him.

We called this bungalow "P.P.'s bungalow" after the gardener's wife. The landlord had employed a gardener to care for the compound and the guavas, and the gardener's wife helped us with carrying the water and so on. This woman had a most unusual voice; she talked through her nose more than anyone we had ever met. We nicknamed her "P.P.", and so the bungalow became known to us as P.P.'s bungalow.

One day we found out that although P.P. and the mali had two children, they had never been married. This is what had happened:

In India marriages are usually arranged by the parents. P.P.'s parents had married her to a man who must have mistreated her, so P.P. left this man and ran away with the mali. And all this time she had lived with him as his wife and had given him two children. They had never married, because amongst villagers one has to feed the whole village in order to be considered married. P.P.'s parents had already strained their meagre resources to the limit for her marriage, and they had then disowned her for running off with the mali. So poor P.P. could not afford another wedding.

When Baba heard they were not married He told them, "It is not at all good for you to live together like this. You must get married."

So P.P. got dressed up like a young bride and married her mali, while her two children looked on, and Baba paid for the wedding. P.P. was so happy to finally be married.