My Brother Eruch (Page 2 of 3)

But the man insisted that Meher Baba keep it, and departed. Meher Baba then told Eruch to take the packet, keep the money, and give it to a deserving person. “But how will I find such a person?” Eruch asked. “Don’t worry,” Meher Baba assured him, “you will know.” Meher Baba then washed Eruch’s feet with his own hands and bowed down to him. “Before you give the packet,” Meher Baba instructed him, “wash the feet of the one you give it to and bow down to that person, just as I have done to you.”

Over the years I often noticed that, whenever Meher Baba gave Eruch an assignment, Eruch would always be most anxious to execute that work, lest he might die with the work unfinished! Now in this case, the packet of money and the charge Meher Baba had given to him weighed heavily on him. So when he returned to Pune, he would pay visits to pan and beetle leaf shops, sugarcane juice stalls, and other wayside centres of gossip and small talk, trying to catch word of some needy person matching Meher Baba’s description.

One day, while passing by a vendor of sugarcane juice, Eruch happened to hear a customer say, “I really pity that honest and truthful man: formerly he was in such happy circumstances, until he was accused by his corrupt seniors under some fabricated charge. He has been completely ruined and now lives in penury. What a plight the poor fellow is in!”

Eruch approached the speaker and asked, “Who are you talking about?” “What is that to you?” the man fired back, looking at him suspiciously. “My elder brother likes to give help to people who are in dire straits,” Eruch replied. “I think he would be interested in the man you are speaking of.”

Eruch got all the information and immediately set off by bus for the village of Bhor, some 40 miles to the south-west of Pune on the Pune-Satara highway. The road to Bhor branched off the main road and led across a large dam, the famous Bhatgur Dam, at that time the largest masonry dam in the world. Reaching the village beyond, Eruch inquired, and was duly led to a small ramshackle hovel on a run-down, filthy by-lane. “This is the place,” he was told.

He knocked on the door. A woman opened it. She was very beautiful, but wore a haggard look on her face, and was dressed in rags. “Where is the man of the house?” Eruch asked her. “He has gone out,” she answered, looking very alarmed. “Why do you want him? My husband has done no wrong!” For Eruch in his khaki clothes seemed like some official who had come to harass her or her husband in some way. What else would induce a stranger to visit such a remote outpost?

Eruch tried to pacify her and said that he had come to offer some help to her husband. At that she said, “No, no, please go away, as we will never be able to repay any loan.” Eruch reassured her on this point and was able to win her confidence. Then she explained to him that her husband was out at work. In fact, he was a tollgate attendant on the very road over the dam that Eruch had crossed on the way to the village. “He will be coming back home this evening,” she said. “Very well,” Eruch answered, “I’ll return tomorrow, bringing help, as I’ve assured you. Will your husband be here then? Ask him not to go before I come and see him.”