TAKE BABA'S NAME AND FOLLOW ME!

 
Before Baba left He told us that we were to go for daily walks and that we should not go alone, but in a group of at least four. In those days Pasarani was a very isolated place with wild animals still roaming about. Who went with whom changed from walk to walk. Sometimes Mani, myself, Katie and Meheru would go. Sometimes Katie and the three Dastur girls, Goolu, Jalu and Mehroo would go. One evening those last four came back very late from a walk, and this is what had happened to them:

Katie and the three Dastur girls had set off in the evening along the main road up the ghats. While walking and talking they had lost track of the time, and suddenly found it was dusk. They felt so frightened because they were far from home, and Baba had told us to return before dark. Then along the ghat road came a big truck with a tarpaulin covering the back. It passed them by and disappeared around the corner.

"Be careful," Katie warned the girls, "we can't trust these people. They might put us in the truck and drive away with us!" The girls then turned the corner, and there was the truck standing still on the road! They were terrified. "Oh, Baba," Katie said, "the truck has stopped. They must be planning to kidnap us. They could easily hit us on the head with a spanner! We can't go there," she told the girls. "Just follow me and do exactly as I say."

They could see the castle's lights in the distance at the bottom of the ghat, but the only way home if they were to avoid that truck was down the mountainside, which was quite steep and covered with rocks and thorny bushes.

"How can we get down there?" the three girls cried.

"Just roll," Katie told them. "Take Baba's Name and follow me!" so they struggled and scrambled down this mountainside and arrived back home tattered, scratched and exhausted.

When they told us their tale, we had to laugh at them. "What happened to all your boldness?" I asked Katie, who always boasted that she was fearless, and that if she ever met a tiger she would pinch his ears and ride on his back!