EVERYONE BUT THE BEWILDERED CAMERAMAN

 
"Is Don ready now for the television film? Where does he want it to be photographed? How long will this take?"

Baba had no sooner finished the first task than he was impatient to be on with the next. Everyone asked questions, everyone volunteered answers, almost everyone gave orders. The confusion was uproarious, the good humor and excitement unsurpassed.

The idea of participating in a film to be shown to American television audiences could not quite compete with listening to Baba, but it had a zest of the unusual about it, and the sahavasis were enjoying the situation to the hilt.

The great dilemma was how to satisfy the needs of the camera for sunlight, and Baba's need for shade. Decisions were made and unmade in rapid succession by everyone but the bewildered cameraman, who clearly was unprepared to cope with the exuberance of two hundred fifty men who had spent three full days in the presence of their master.

Two trials were lost in a babble of confusion and misunderstanding, but the third trial went off without a hitch. For good luck there was a fourth, and a fifth, all from slightly different angles. Then Baba held up his hand to signal that the filming was at an end.

His hand gestured quickly, and a smile of mixed amusement and embarrassment broke out on Eruch's features as he said not too loudly, "Baba says that the next time Don says something will take ten minutes, Baba will know he means thirty minutes."