ONLY INTERESTED IN REMAINING DISINTERESTED

 
Besides Baba's acute physical suffering, there was another element which made those times even more trying and unbearable for the Meherazad mandali, and that was Baba's mental attitude. It was as though he were only interested in remaining disinterested. If anything was told to him, he would not pay the slightest attention to it and seemed totally unconcerned about everything going on around him. He was so deeply merged in his inner work that for the first time he became indifferent to day-to-day activities.

To try to bring his attention back to everyday things, the men and women mandali urged him to take part in card games, carrom and seven tiles, but when he played, he played without the least interest. During a card game, he would suddenly throw down the cards and quit; in the midst of a game of seven tiles, when it was his turn to throw, he would drop the ball and look away. When playing a game of carrom, he would aim anywhere. He was in a seemingly most peculiar depressed state. Never before or since during his Avataric work was Baba found to be like this. Outwardly, he appeared totally unmindful and unconnected with everything.

Finding Baba in such a state, the mandali resorted to different types of amusements to please him — all in vain. They would shoulder Baba in his chair and take him long distances for walks, tell him funny stories, yet his disinterestedness did not let up but, on the contrary, increased. On the festive day of Diwali (20 October), Meherazad was gaily decorated by Meheru on the women's side and Meherdas on the men's side, and Baba showed a glimmer of awareness of what was going on around him. But soon, he reverted to the same aloof condition.