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Abuses, Jokes, and Caresses |
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Babaji's
ways were so peculiar. You could not imagine that such a saint could
behave just like a child or like an ordinary person indulging in all
kinds of jokes and mock fights, trying to provoke or embarrass people.
Ram Dass and other westerners used to come to me and complain that I
did not translate everything Babaji said. The difficulty was that
nobody could translate his abuses. He would go on saying, "Dada is an
M.A., Dada is an M.A."
One day when he was abusing everyone much, I said to him, "You are also
an M.A."
"How? How?"
"I am a Master of Arts; you are a Master of Abuses!"
He laughed, "Yes, yes, I go on abusing so much."
Many
of the western devotees got married while they were with Babaji; others
were living together although not actually married. Among these were a
fellow C. and an Australian girl, Uma. She sent a telegram to me in
Vrindaban saying, "I have had a son. Please ask Baba to give him a
name."
The next morning when I went to Babaji's room he said,
"You had a telegram last night? What was it? I told him Uma had a son
and asked him to give a name. He said, "Wherefrom shall I get a name?
All right, Dada, give him the name Khutka butka!"
[Hocus-pocus!]
Siddhi Didi and Jivanti were there and they said, "What is this? Is it
a name? Give the son of Uma a good name."
"You
wretched women, wherefrom shall I get a good name? All the good names
have been taken by ugly persons like you!" I just stayed quiet and
waited for his fun to be over. After some time he said, "All right,
give the name Ganesh. Uma [another name for Parvati] is the mother of
Ganesh."
Later in the summer we were in Kainchi and again a
telegram came for me from the States. It was delievered to me when I
was with Baba. He immediately wanted to know, "What is it? What is it?"
I told him who it was from. He said, "What do they want?" I told him
they were going to have a baby and they wanted Baba to give a name.
"What have you understood?" he asked me.
"What is there to understand? You have got to give a name."
"You
are a fool!" he cried. "You don't understand. A name is given when a
child is born. The child is not yet born, but they want a name. That is
a trap for you—that you will extract a name from me and they
will know
if it will be a boy or a girl!" He told me not to send a reply. But
later when he had retired to his room and we were alone together, he
said, "You understand now?"
"Of course."
"Then you did not understand?"
"Of course I did not understand. I am a fool, how could I understand?"
"How did I understand?"
"Of course, Baba, you are very intelligent."
"And you?"
"I don't have brains."
"No, no, you also have brains."
I
was one of the main targets for Babaji's abuse, but I took it as a
manifestation of his affection. One year a certain family came from
Lucknow to Kainchi and they were staying in the dharmashala
outside the ashram gate. They said they would cook their own food,
though of course they would take sweets or prasad
from Babaji. They were given all the provisions they needed. The two
teenagers would come and ask for this and that all the
time—some
special tea, or cups and saucers, or fruit.
One very busy day when many persons were there, Babaji went up to the
back of the dharmashala
and entered Kali Babu's room. He lay on the bed and talked through the
window to people outside. I was standing near him by the door and one
after another someone would come to me and ask for
something—one of the
cooks asked how many puris to cook, another came
for
instructions for purchases from Haldwani, and so on. Then one of those
teenagers came asking for something and Maharaj ji said, "Look at Dada.
What a fool he is. He is always running here and there, getting this
and that for all these persons. I want to see the day that somebody
comes and tells him, 'I want some cat piss,' wherefrom he will get the
cat and how he will make it urinate!"
One day in 1973 three Naga babas came from
Badrinath and they were given rooms in the outside dharmashala.
They said they would need plenty of wood for their havan
fire and various other provisions. "In Ayodhya fifty-four items of food
are prepared for Ram. We have got a statue of Ram and we also offer him
prasad and must prepare it."
One day, however, they
wanted some ganja [marijuana]. This was a problem. I asked some of the
ashram people who I knew were great smokers, but they pretended to have
never heard of ganja. I did not know what was to be done, but a
westerner heard me asking and said, "Dada, I can give you some." So the
ganja was given to them.
Babaji said, "Dada, it is good that you
have done this. They live in the open and do not wear clothes, so the
ganja will protect their bodies. They are accustomed to it, therefore
they should have it." But there was a chance of having some
entertainment from this. The next day when he was sitting outside with
many persons around he said, "Look at Dada. Those sadhus
have
come and want so many things every day and he is running and getting it
all for them. Tomorrow when they ask for a woman, let me see where he
gets one."
People always got angry and annoyed because Babaji so frequently said, "Jao!"
[Go!] to them. But there was usually some reason why he did not allow
them to stay longer. It was better not to try and guess what the reason
might be.
One winter in Allahabad he was giving darshan
and the whole room was full. A certain officer in the Accountant
General's office entered and took his seat in the rear. He had heard
about Babaji from some of his fellow officers and was very curious to
come. After a minute or so, Babaji said, "Jao!"
He replied, "No, Baba, I am not in a hurry. I shall sit here for some
time."
"No!
You must go." Babaji was insistent. The officer was unhappy. Everybody
was looking at him, so he stood up reluctantly, wondering about this
Baba. Then Babaji said, "You came on a cycle?"
"Yes."
"All right, return by the same way that you came." The man didn't
understand, but he went.
The
next day he returned and said, "Baba saved the life of my son. After I
left, my small boy went out with his cycle and collided with a scooter.
He was lying more or less unconscious there on the road, the same road.
I picked him up and took him to a doctor."
In July 1972 we
were in Kainchi and a Muslim gentleman came who was the general manager
of the Roadways Bus Company in Bhowali. He was very much devoted to
Baba and whenever he could take some time he would come. On that day he
was sitting in Babaji's room and after about a half hour, Babaji said, "Jao!"
He said, "No, Baba, I am free and I have my own conveyance, so I shall
stay."
After some time Babaji insisted, "You go."
Later
someone returned from Bhowali and said there had been a serious
accident—a bus coming from Haldwani had fallen into the
flooded Bhimtal
Lake. The general manager was needed to organise the rescue work. It
was a great tragedy. The bus had been full of people returning from
work and many schoolboys.
The next afternoon that gentleman came
again. Maharaj ji took him to the small room we called his "office."
Nobody but myself was allowed to come and both the doors were closed.
The manager broke down, crying bitterly, "I can understand the old
people dying, but the little children returning from school?"
Babaji
tried to console him and was saying, "What is this life? These laws
cannot be understood. But God's creation goes on like
this—someone is
coming, someone is going, new leaves are budding, old leaves are
falling down." Babaji quoted from the scriptures, the Koran
and the Upanishads for an hour. It was the only
time I heard him speak from the scriptures in that way.
Another
time in Bhumiadhar, Maharaj ji was sitting on the cot in his room and
persons were coming from Nainital, Ranikhet and Almora. A retired major
in the army and a retired civil surgeon were there and Babaji was
abusing them in a way I had never heard before. They were actually
trembling and all they wanted was to be allowed to go out of the room.
Then he said, "Jao!" When they had gone away, he
looked at me
and smiled—I couldn't believe it was the same man. He said,
"Dada, were
you frightened?"
"No, Baba."
"It is also sometimes necessary to rebuke and abuse."
The
explanation was that these persons had opened a nursing home for
further treatment of patients who were discharged from the Bhowali
tuberculosis sanitarium. It was a business proposition and they were
taking the name of Baba, saying that he would come to inaugurate it.
They had not asked him, but had taken it for granted. He had been
thrashing them about that.
After the storm was over, one of them came and said, "Baba, we have no
hope that you will come."
He said, "Yes, yes, I will come." And actually Baba and myself went
there. That was his way.
Mr.
Sharma, an old devotee, was a taxi driver and frequently drove Maharaj
ji from Kainchi or Bhumiadhar. One morning we got into his car at
Bhumiadhar and drove down to the sanitarium near Gethia. Maharaj ji
said, "Go and see if the doctor is there." When the doctor and I
returned to the car, Maharaj ji got out and said, "I shall be hiding
here. I don't want anybody to come." As Mr. Sharma was going away,
Maharaj ji said to me, "Go and tell him that he should not talk to
anybody."
I said, "I have told him."
"No, no. You go and tell him again. You do not know these paharis
[mountain people]. They go to a hotel or tea shop and say, 'Do you know
that Baba has come? But you must not tell anybody!'" So I took some prasad
to the driver and again told him not to talk to anyone.
Of course, soon people began coming and the doctor was very concerned
that he would not have prasad for so many. We
sent to Kainchi for puris,
and while we were distributing them someone came and said, "The Mothers
are standing outside under the tree and it is raining very heavily."
They had walked from Bhumaiadhar.
Maharaj ji shouted at me, "Where are you going?"
I said, "I am going to bring those persons."
He said, "Let them suffer, those badmash.
I told them they should not come! Let them stand there!" But I brought
them inside and they were given dry clothing. Who could imagine a saint
talking the way he did?
The first time I went to Kainchi
there was just one temple and a few rooms. Some construction was to be
done and Babaji took me around and showed me where there would be so
many bathhouses and so many toilets. After a few months, when the
construction was completed, he said to me, "Dada, people have now
started calling me 'Tatti Baba' [Latrine Baba]. That's very good." He
had so many names and now he had a new one.
In the afternoon
at Kainchi he would come and sit before the showers in a very jolly and
relaxed mood. In 1973, he was supposed to be not keeping well, so he
had to be properly wrapped. Siddhi Didi was very particular that he had
to wear his pullover and blanket. I would try to put on his pullover,
but sometimes it would be very difficult. One day it was getting dark
and a little chilly, so I brought the pullover. As soon as I came, he
said, "What is that?"
"Your pullover."
"I shall not wear it!"
So I said, "All right, don't wear it."
"Give it to me."
"Why
should I give it to you if you are not going to wear it? I shall keep
it with me." I kept it and people were looking. It was a very childlike
sort of thing he was doing.
Then he went on talking, but he kept
looking at me suspiciously. I placed the pullover on his shoulders. He
said, "What? This is what you do? You never obey me."
I said, "Let it remain, what difference does it make?"
Later a devotee said, "Oh,Dada, what fun we had. This was Bala Gopala's
[Baby Krishna's] lila. How you make him do
things!"
Once
in the summer months in Kainchi, Babaji was wearing a tee shirt, a
pullover and his blanket. When he entered his room, he dropped the
blanket and I took off his pullover and tee shirt. The shirt was so wet
with sweat that you could squeeze out drops of water. Siddhi Didi
brought another tee shirt to put on him, but he pushed her away. "You
wretched woman! I am dying of heat from these clothes and you are
trying to put more on me!"
Balaram Das, one of the westerners, used to take so many photographs
and have them printed in Delhi. On the June fifteenth bhandara
in 1973, Maharaj ji had Balaram take so many photos of the kitchen
people, but allowed only a few of himself. When Balaram brought back
the prints from Delhi, Babaji selected those of himself and put all the
others of the kitchen workers in an envelope and said, "Give this to
your Didi, she is very fond of pictures."
The Mas were waiting,
eager for new photographs of Maharaj ji. "Let us see, let us see!" When
I gave them the envelope, they cried, "What is the joke?"
I said, "How should I know what is there? It was just a closed envelope
that he gave me."
Once
I went to the bazaar near the Bihariji temple in Vrindaban to a small
Gita Press shop. I found an illustrated Mahavir Hanuman, a short life
sketch of Hanuman. I took all the copies that they had, about fifteen
or twenty. When I brought them to the ashram, everybody wanted one.
Maharaj ji actually snatched a copy from my hand. "You do not give me!
You are disturbing, but you do not give me!" He began reading it
loudly. BalaramDas took some photos of him.
He could be very
strict or very frightening, but if you were not taken in by the outer
antics and if you tackled him properly, you could make him very soft
and light. The June fifteenth bhandara in 1972
was coming
nand since it was the anniversary of the temple inauguration, a very
attractive red dress was being made for Hanuman ji's murti. I do not
know how the idea came, but I though there should be a red blanket for
our Hanuman also. I asked Siddhi Didi to have her sister or others
bring one to Kainchi. She said, "Oh, Dada, we can get it, but he will
not wear it."
I said, "Nevertheless, let us get it and keep it ready."
So
the day came. Maharaj ji was out moving here and there and then
returned to his room. I said to Balaram, who was there with his camera,
"Be alert. There may be something."
When we were getting ready
to come back out, I brought the red blanket to put on him. He said,
"No! I don't like the red blanket. I won't wear it. I don't like it."
I cried, "You may not like it, but we like it. You must have it!"
"You are forcing me?"
"Yes, sometimes you have to be forced." I put the blanket on him. He
went out and Balaram took those photos.
It
would be such a problem for the barber to give him a shave. In Kainchi
we had some old barbers who knew Babaji very well. While shaving would
be going on, he and they would be talking to each other and they would
actually be basking in his grace. It would take only about half an hour
or so to do the shaving, but they would not be in a hurry and would
stay the whole day. In Allahabad also an old barber would come and
there was no problem. He understood Baba and was not in a hurry.
The
problem came in Vrindaban when Babaji said, "I shall have a shave." We
did not know any barber and Kishan Singh's son, Bapu, was asked to find
one. He got a young man who ran a small shop in the bazaar. When that
barber came, he was in a hurry because he had left his shop. The
shaving was to be done in my room where there was an adjoining
bathroom. The barber came and I went to get the hot water and other
things. When I returned, I found that Babaji had taken the bedsheet
from my bed and wrapped it around himself. Maharaj ji held the sheet
tight and said, "You never give me this. Do not snatch it away."
I
said, "I will not." So the shaving began. The greatest difficulty was
that Baba would take the mirror in his hands and make faces in it.
The old and expert barbers knew how to deal with this, but the young
man in a hurry was having trouble.
I said, "Baba, sit straight and let him shave you." But he kept moving
and there was a cut. The barber was upset.
Maharaj ji said, "What is that? What is that?"
"Of
course, it is a cut. This is what you have done. The poor fellow is
embarrassed; he feels it is his fault. It is yours. You would not allow
him peace to shave you."
Some alum was put on—it was only a
small cut. The barber finished and went away. Babaji asked me, "Dada,
will the hair grow here again?"
When Maharaj ji would go
away from Allahabad, everyone would be asking where he had gone, but I
would never disclose it. In 1972, when so many westerners were there,
they were keen to follow him if they could learn where he was going.
Babaji said, "Dada, they will follow me if they know. They will go
anywhere and everywhere. What will you do?
I said, "Don't worry. I can manage."
"Tell me, tell me, what will you say?"
"Baba, now I have learned how to speak lies."
He laughed, "How, how, how?"
During the Guru Purnima
celebration in 1972, he was giving all kinds of indulgences to the
devotees, especially the westerners. They washed his feet with a bucket
of panchamrita, took sandalwood paste and wrote
"Ram Ram" on
his forehead. I was feeling a little unhappy, but Babaji kept saying,
"Oh, Dada, let them do it, let them do it."
We were sitting
before Babaji and someone said that if something was good it was all
Babaji's grace and Babaji should be thanked. On the other hand, if
something went wrong, the individual was responsible for it and should
be blamed. I said, "I do not believe that. Why should Babaji take only
the credit and I am to suffer the blame? No, no. If I do something
good, he should take the credit. But he should also take the blame if
something goes wrong."
Then Maharaj ji said, with tears in his eyes, "Why Dada said so? Why
Dada said so?"
One
day Baba and I were in his "office" in Kainchi. The doors and windows
were bolted. He was leaning on his side and looking at something near
the window. Outside the westerners were singing kirtan,
but
there seemed to be nothing else to take note of. Then he shouted, "Let
me have some paper!" I didn't have paper, but I gave him a letter I had
in my pocket. With very great care he picked up something on the letter
and gave it to me, saying, "Take it out."
As he was handing it
to me, a fly flew away off the paper. Fly spray had been spread in the
room and many flies had died, but some had only become unconscious.
This one had been on the window sill. With great care he had picked it
up and when it flew away he cried, "I caught it with such great effort
and you allowed it to fly away!"
I also shouted, "It flew before it reached my hand. It was from your
hand that it flew away!"
"Accha? I shall catch it again. I shall catch it
again!"
That
room—the "office"—was actually Babaji's temple.
Babaji would be opening
the window and closing it. Persons standing around would come rushing
to see him or he would be yelling at them and then again close the
window. Once a devotee said, "This is Bihariji's temple." [The Bihariji
temple is a famous temple of Krishna in the town of Vrindaban, where
the play of Krishna and the gopis took place. The
murti
of Krishna is hidden behind a golden curtain and only revealed during
certain ceremonies each day.] In that temple there is a curtain which
is opened for Biharaji's darshan and then the
curtain is closed. One cannot have continuous darshan
of Biharaji, is it not that?
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