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Growing up with Meher Baba (Page 10 of 10)
Meher Baba held Sahavas at our apartment in New York City. I remember people coming in from all over to see Baba and the phone ringing madly. I also remember running backwards and forwards, sometimes taking the girls places while the Sahavas was going on. I also took a memorable trip to Scarsdale when Murshida went out with me. Baba had told her that she had done a good job; that He was very pleased. Murshida looked at Him and said, “Baba, you don’t need to give me a pat on the shoulder every time I manage to accomplish something for you.” You don’t need to make me feel good, was the implication. And Baba drew Himself up and said, “If I feel like patting you, I will pat you. If I feel like slapping you, I will slap you. That is how I work.” And from there on out, that whole trip, He used to jibe at her. He would suddenly turn around and say, for instance, “Ivy has done the flowers beautifully today. And that is no pat on the shoulder!” It just went on all the time. And Mother said she would never again question a pat or a slap. It was all one. And I think that was true for everybody. Although I can’t really remember any slaps!
Also during that trip, I took Baba one day to the doctor. Baba said, “Will the doctor be there? Is he going to be on time?” Of course I assured Baba and said, “Oh yes! We even called ahead.” When we got there, the doctor didn’t show up. Finally, after more than an hour he came in and said it was too late to see the patient because the x-ray room was shut. He dismissed us saying, “I guess you better come back tomorrow.” I remember saying, “Doctor, don’t you know who this man is?” Then Baba told me to ask him this question: “Doctor, where is your humanity?” And the doctor suddenly took a second look at Baba and he just turned on his heel and escorted Baba down to x-ray and tended to the whole thing without another word. In any event, these various visits to doctors did not seem to cure anything. Baba still had the cast on His leg. And Mehera still had a big flap of skin loose on her forehead that had not healed after the terrible crash.
One day Baba said to Murshida that He thought He would take me to Europe, and was she jealous? Mother said, “Of course not, Baba.” So plans were made for me to go off to Europe with Baba. This was a pretty exciting adventure for a young lady of my age. And I was to help drive the car for the girls when we were going around. Finally, the day dawned when we were to leave and, as always, Baba wanted to get out to the airport at least two to three hours early. We arrived at the airport and Baba spent a long time there. He loved the airport, it seemed. If you can think of how Masters work with people, what a lovely place an airport must be; people coming in and out from every part of the world. They are very concentrated on what they are doing, and it is a wonderful place for God to turn them around or reorient them in some way. So we spent a lot of time in different cities sitting in airports before takeoffs.
We got on the plane, and Baba had to have special seating because He had to be able to put His foot up; He was still in a cast. All of the accident victims needed special care. It used to take around thirteen hours to get over to London, and it might have been a bit longer. In those days, it took thirteen hours just to go from New York to San Francisco! I think London is a bit farther, and I know it was a long trip by the time we got there.
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Charmian with her daughter Mary in Hawaii. |
After spending time in London, we flew down to Geneva and were met by Irene Billo. I can’t remember who all came to the airport, but I do remember Irene and I remember riding up over these beautiful Alps heading into Locarno, which was our final destination. As we were driving along, Goher said, “Oh, Switzerland must be a wonderful place to live. They have such marvelous hospitals here. Every place that we’ve been, they are the biggest buildings in town.” Then we realized she was seeing these big buildings in the middle of each town and seeing this flag flying from them with a red cross on a white background. She thought these were the hospitals, not realizing that this was the national flag of Switzerland!
We then pulled into Locarno to this sweet little house. As we walked to the house we saw a big pink wall and then a little gate into a beautiful garden. Baba’s room was down on the ground floor with its own entrance off the gardens. The rest of us were on the second floor. We had a balcony that overlooked Baba’s room. At night Baba always had a watchman with Him, and I would sometimes wake up at night and slip out onto the balcony and take a peek down below to see what was happening. It was obvious that no matter what hour of the night I went out, He was awake. He would be talking to people and you could just see His hand moving.
Until I traveled abroad, I hadn’t realized how here in the West you grow up with a certain sense of privacy. People make a big thing out of having their own room, of having space and privacy in what you are doing. In the Middle East that is not the case. It is almost bad manners in many countries to leave a guest alone in a house. So the result is that they always leave a family member with you. It wouldn’t matter if you were sitting reading a book or something like that. They would have someone there in case you may want somebody to cook something. If you were a girl, one of the girl children in the family would stay in your room, at whatever age. There is always someone with you. To a Westerner, sometimes, this was somewhat startling.
And it just happened that there in Locarno, Delia and I shared a room and we had a bathroom off our room. None of the girls wanted to use the bathroom that was off Mehera’s room down at the other end of the house because her room was over Baba’s. They didn’t want any noise from the bathroom to disturb Him. So everybody used our bathroom and came through our room. Meheru was so cute. She would come through, and every time she would say, “Ah! You are reading a book.” “Ah! You are taking a nap.” “Ah! You are doing something. . . .” And this would go on every time she walked through. At one time I thought she was going to walk in and say, “Ah! You are breathing!” It was so funny! But after a little bit I not only got used to it, I welcomed it. It was fun. And it was always fun having someone to talk to and chatter with or be with — just companionship.
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Charmian and Duncan Knowles at Meherazad. |
Once Anita brought some big scarves to Locarno. I had a couple of scarves too that I had taken on the trip with me and Anita showed Mehera, Mani and me a dozen ways to wrap these scarves so that we looked elegant in them, and we had fun! We were taught how to make them into boleros and how to make them into little sashes tied in the back, like Japanese obis. There were infinite varieties of ways to do this. And the girls and I had lots of fun with it.
I had always thought of Switzerland as being cold — the Alps and so on. Yet down in Locarno, even in Geneva and some of the other towns there, the cities grow palm trees. They are common on all the streets. One of the things I had never thought of was insects. I used to run around in my bare feet all the time in the garden and down to Baba’s room. One day I saw Dr. Donkin come out of Baba’s room with a big dustpan and there was something in it. I looked down and asked, “Dr. Donkin, what have you found?” There was an enormous scorpion in the dustpan. He had found it right under the doormat to Baba’s room. I suspect even scorpions try to get as close to the Avatar as they can. But it just gave me the willies. I am sure Baba was protecting all of us; we were walking over this mat in our bare feet all the time! And here was this great big creature under the doormat. Well, this scorpion disappeared into the dustpan, but that was the last time I went barefoot in Switzerland.
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