NONE COULD MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF IT

 
On the twentieth of December, 1927, the forty-first day of his fast, the Master confined himself in a double room in the near vicinity of the Meher Ashram. This room had been built in July of that year and none could make head or tail of it at that time. About six feet in length, equally deep underground and four feet in breadth, with a small flight of stairs just sufficient for a single person to pass through this crypt-like place at a time, the lower level was solidly built in lime and stone and resembled a steel safe. In place of a roof, a flat piece of wooden board was fixed over the top, closing the room in from all sides save the small opening above for the stairs.

Immediately above this peculiar pit of a room, another was built of wooden scantlings, bamboo matting and iron sheets. This latter room was a bit more spacious than the crypt right below it. A door was fixed at one end of this upper room for the attendants and visitors, who where seldom let in. The room had three other openings as windows. One of these was at the back overlooking the sadhak ashram, a set of five separate rooms, each one just large enough for a person to lie down comfortably, wherein five of the grown-up disciples had also imprisoned themselves just a few days before the Master confined himself.

To continue the description of the Master's prison, the remaining two windows were in the front overlooking the Meher Ashram, its playgrounds and the rest of the premises connected with it. One of these was enclosed with wire netting for the Master to look through when he retired into the upper room, and the other served the main purpose of enabling him to appear before the disciples, boys and visitors, as he generally did throughout the day and also during the early hours of dawn.

The Master remained locked up there till the twenty-sixth of February, 1928. During this period of two months and eight days the Master never came out of this peculiar lock-up and usually retired for the night in the vault below.