THE STORY OF THE MYNAH BIRD

 
I must tell you of the talking mynah we had (a raven-black Nepali bird with a yellow beak, ear-flaps and legs) — she not only imitated speech, but also the exact tone of each one's voice, the fretful crying of a baby and the wheezing asthmatic cough of an old man (this she picked up in the little Indian shop from where a Baba lover brought her to Baba.)

So early every morning Mehera would go to its cage and repeat, "Baba, Baba darling." The mynah picked it up in a few days and she said it so clearly and humanly that we'd turn round with a start every time those words rang out. You can imagine how tickled Baba was, and He'd go to her cage and blow her a kiss through the bars!

Then one morning there was an unexpected storm when we were not in the room. Before we could run out to cover her cage, she caught a cold and developed bronchitis and in spite of all our care she died.

But the most wonderful part was as she lay in warm flannel while we stood around her, with her dying breath she croaked feebly but clearly, "B..A..B..A." Beloved Baba said we couldn't have an iota of an idea how fortunate that bird was — that it would be a human in its next form!!

5 May 1958