Bhagavan in that hot sun! I asked Venkatarama Iyer to sit there while I ran down to meet them. When I found them I saw that Bhagavan was tired and that he was also sweating profusely in the hot sun. He was crawling slowly over the stones, and the sharp edges of the pebbles were rupturing the skin on his palms and feet. In his month of inactivity Bhagavan had lost the habit of walking, so much so that he was finding it extremely difficult to climb the hill. His big toe had not yet healed properly, but even so he did not agree when we proposed to take him down the hill. Since he was determined to carry on, Rangaswami and I caught hold of him on either side and helped him to climb the hill. After a long struggle we reached Skandashram at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. By then Bhagavan was utterly exhausted. He lay down on a stone slab gasping for breath.

 

An ashram worker who was whitewashing and cleaning Skandashram came, prostrated before Bhagavan and said, ‘What a fortunate day for me! The all-merciful Bhagavan came up the hill all this way to give me darshan.’

 

I thought that Bhagavan would recover if we gave him something to drink, but what was available in such an isolated place?

 

The man said that he would go down the hill and bring something but Bhagavan stopped him and asked, ‘Is there no porridge in your bowl?’

 

The man went and saw that there was nothing left in his bowl except a few dried pieces that were sticking to the sides. He had drunk the remainder earlier that day. We wet the sides of the pot, mixed the dried porridge with water and gave the resulting liquid to Bhagavan. It revived him and he soon recovered.

 

Down the hill in the ashram the doors of Bhagavan’s hall were opened at 3 o’clock. When it was discovered that Bhagavan was not there, people ran in all directions looking for him. One of them came to Skandashram, arriving just as Bhagavan was narrating to us the story of how he used to beg for his food in town.

 

‘In those days,’ he said, ‘I used to walk without even a bowl in my hand. If anyone gave me anything, I used to take it in my hands, eat or drink it, and then clean my hands with my hair and walk away. There was not a single street in which I did not wander and beg.’

 

‘Did everyone give food?’ I asked.

 

‘Some used to keep food and wait for me. Others used to give if anything was left over. Some people used to scold me, saying, “You are very strong; why don’t you work?” These people used to chase me away.’

 

‘Did you not feel bad when you were treated like this?’ I asked.

 

‘Why should I?’ he replied. ‘I used to go away with a smile.’

 

The man who had come up looking for us went back down the hill to inform those in the ashram that he had found Bhagavan. The man who was whitewashing left temporarily. He went down the hill and came back with some puffed rice and dhal for us to eat. Seeing Bhagavan had obviously made him very happy.

 

Bhagavan turned to him and said, ‘I came for you. Your prayer brought me here.’

 

I was astonished that Bhagavan had gone to so much trouble in the heat of the day merely to answer a prayer.

 

‘What was his prayer?’ I asked.

 

‘Don’t you know?’ enquired Bhagavan.

 

When it became clear that we did not, he narrated the whole story.

 

A hall was being built for Bhagavan in front of Mother’s Temple. Four days previously the ashram priests had decided to do a puja to bless and sanctify four pillars that had recently been erected there. On that day, with the doctor’s consent, the temple architect had taken Bhagavan and had made him sit before the pillars. A big crowd collected there to watch. Our hero, the whitewashing man, was also in the crowd.

 

After the puja, when Bhagavan was going away, it seems that he thought, ‘Those who build this temple are important people, so Bhagavan came to see their work. How will Bhagavan see my work and devotion in Skandashram? It is a long distance for him to walk. Why should he come now?’

 

After narrating this story Bhagavan answered his prayer by inspecting his work.

 

A little later he came back and said to us, ‘A message will soon come from the ashram asking me to come back. Let us ignore it. We can spend the night here. At 1 a.m., after the moon has risen, we can slowly go down to the town, see the newly whitewashed temple gopuram in moonlight, and then go back to the ashram without making much noise.’

 

Bhagavan spoke like an absconding school child involved in a great conspiracy.

 

What else do we want except to be with him? However, the plan was not carried out because as soon as it became known that Bhagavan was on the hill, all the people in the ashram came up to see him. At six o’clock a big crowd had assembled. We were very disappointed that our overnight programme could not be carried out, but in a last attempt to salvage it, we asked all the devotees to go down to Ramanasramam. None of them moved.

 

‘It is getting dark,’ I said. ‘There are some snakes here. So please go back to the ashram.’

 

‘When our lamp [Bhagavan] is here, where is the darkness for us?’ said Mudaliar’s wife Rukmini Amma.

 

I tried to frighten the devotees with stories of tigers and wolves. I tried to tell them that being stranded on the hill in total darkness with no food would be dangerous, but no one was inclined to believe me. Or if they did, they were prepared to risk all the dangers so long as Bhagavan was with them.

 

Bhagavan knew that it was pointless to argue any more. He got up and we went down via the eastern slope of the hill. We reached the ashram at about 9 p.m. that night.