Mahatma Gandhi
"When quite young, Mohandas
Karamachand Gandhi witnessed along with his mother a drama on "Sravana
and his devotion to his parents" and he resolved that he must also
become a Sravana. He witnessed a play onHarischandra and that drama
impressed him so deeply that he resolved to become as heroically
devoted to virtue as Harischandra himself. These transformed him so
much that he became a Mahatma. Gandhi had a teacher when he was
attending school who taught him wrong paths. But Gandhi did not
adopt his advice. As a consequence, he was able to bring freedom (Swaraj)
to the country" (Sathya Sai Baba, Vidya Vahini.)
Sathya Sai Baba On Mahatma
Gandhi:
“Man has been endowed with buddhi or
intelligence, so that he might at every turn decide
what is beneficent for observance and what is
detrimental. Gandhi while going through hate ridden
regions, prayed, “Sabko san-mati de Bhagwan!” (O
Lord! Give everyone Good intelligence!) The
intelligence has to be kept sharp, clear and
straight.” (Sathya Sai Baba).
“When quite young, Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi
witnessed along with his mother a drama on ‘Sravana
and his devotion to his parents’ and he resolved
that he must also become a Sravana. He witnessed a
play onHarischandra and that drama impressed him so
deeply that he resolved to become as heroically
devoted to virtue as Harischandra himself. These
transformed him so much that he became a Mahatma.
Gandhi had a teacher when he was attending school
who taught him wrong paths. But Gandhi did not adopt
his advice. As a consequence, he was able to bring
freedom (Swaraj) to the country.” (Sathya Sai Baba,
Vidya Vahini)
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the town of Porbander in the
state of what is now Gujarat on 2 October 1869. He had his schooling
in nearby Rajkot, where his father served as the adviser or prime
minister to the local ruler. Though India was then under British
rule, over 500 kingdoms, principalities, and states were allowed
autonomy in domestic and internal affairs: these were the so-called
'native states'. Rajkot was one such state.
Mahatma Gandhi TimeLine:
1869: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi born in
Porbandar in Gujarat.
1893: Gandhi leaves for
Johannesburg for practicing law and is thrown out of
a first class bogie because he is colored.
1906: Mohandas K. Gandhi, 37,
speaks at a mass meeting in the Empire Theater,
Johannesburg on September 11 and launches a campaign
of nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) to protest
discrimination against Indians. The British
Government had just invalidated the Indian Marriage.
1913: Mohandas Gandhi in
Transvaal, South Africa leads 2,500 Indians into the
in defiance of a law, they are violently arrested,
Gandhi refuses to pay a fine, he is jailed, his
supporters demonstrate. On November 25, and Natal
police fire into the crowd, killing two, injuring
20.
1914: Mohandas Gandhi returns to
India at age 45 after 21 years of practicing law in
South Africa where he organized a campaign of
“passive resistance” to protest his mistreatment by
whites for his defense of Asian immigrants. He
attracts wide attention in India by conducting a
fast –the first of 14 that he will stage as
political demonstrations and that will inaugurate
the idea of the political fasting.
1930: A civil disobedience
campaign against the British in India begins March
12. The All-India Trade Congress has empowered
Gandhi to begin the demonstrations (see 1914).
Called Mahatma for the past decade, Gandhi leads a
165-mile march to the Gujarat coast of the Arabian
Sea and produces salt by evaporation of sea water in
violation of the law as a gesture of defiance
against the British monopoly in salt production
1932: Gandhi begins a “fast unto
death” to protest the British government’s treatment
of India’s lowest caste “untouchables” whom Gandhi
calls Harijans — “God’s children.” Gandhi’s campaign
of civil disobedience has brought rioting and has
landed him in prison, but he persists in his demands
for social reform, he urges a new boycott of British
goods, and after 6 days of fasting obtains a pact
that improves the status of the “untouchables” (Dalits)
1947: India becomes free from
200 years of British Rule. A major victory for
Gandhian principles and non-violence in general.
1948: Gandhi is assassinated by
Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic at a prayer meeting
(Reference)
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ON Repeating the Name of the Lord
Being born in the Vaisnava faith, I had often to go to the Haveli,
But it never appealed to me. I did not like its glitter and pomp.
Also I heard rumours of immmorality practised there, and lost all
interest in it. Hence, I could gain nothing from the Haveli. But
what I failed to get there, I obtained from my nurse, an old servant
of the family, whose affection for me I still recall. I have said
before that there was a fear within me of spirits and ghosts. Rambha,
for that was her name, suggested, as a remedy for this fear, the
repitition of Ramanama. I had more faith in her than in her remedy,
so at a tender age, I began repeating the Ramanama to cure my fear
of ghosts and spirits. This of course was short-lived, but the good
seed sown in childhood was not sown in vain. I think that it is due
the seed sown by that good woman Rambha that today, Ramanama is an
infallible remedy for me.
Gandhi's Mother, Putlibai
You must have heard about Putlibai, the mother of Mahatma Gandhi,
who spent her life in the contemplation of God. She used to observe
a vow wherein she would not partake of food unless she would hear
the singing of cuckoo. One day it so happened that the song of
cuckoo was not heard. Seeing his mother sticking to her vow and not
taking food, Gandhi who was a small boy then, went behind the house
and mimicked the singing of cuckoo. He came inside and told his
mother that she could have her food as she heard the song of cuckoo.
Mother Putlibai felt very sad, as she knew that her son was uttering
a lie. She cried, "O God! What sin have I committed to give birth to
a son who speaks untruth?" Realizing that he had caused immense
grief to his mother by uttering a lie, Gandhi took a vow that he
would never indulge in falsehood thenceforth. (Sathya Sai Baba,
Ladies Day, 1997).
In London, Gandhi encountered theosophists, vegetarians, and others
who were disenchanted not only with industrialism, but with the
legacy of Enlightenment thought. They themselves represented the
fringe elements of English society. Gandhi was powerfully attracted
to them, as he was to the texts of the major religious traditions;
and ironically it is in London that he was introduced to the
Bhagavad Gita. Here, too, Gandhi showed determination and
single-minded pursuit of his purpose, and accomplished his objective
of finishing his degree from the Inner Temple. He was called to the
bar in 1891, and even enrolled in the High Court of London; but
later that year he left for India.
Mahatma Gandhi Quotes On
Hinduism & The Gita:
“I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because I
believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas,
and all that goes by the name of Hindu scripture,
and therefore in avataras and rebirth; I believe in
the varnashrama dharma in a sense, in my opinion
strictly Vedic but not in its presently popular
crude sense; I believe in the protection of cow … I
do not disbelieve in murti puja.” (Mahatma Gandhi –
Young India: June 10, 1921)
“Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my
soul, fills my whole being … When doubts haunt me,
when disappointments stare me in the face, and when
I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to
the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me;
and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of
overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of
tragedies and if they have not left any visible and
indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of
the Bhagavad Gita.” (Mahatma Gandhi – Young
India: June 8, 1925)
The Story Of My Experiments With Truth
By Mahatma Gandhi
“What, however, left a deep impression on me was
the reading of the Ramayana before my father. During
part of his illness my father was in Porbandar.
There every evening he used to listen to the
Ramayana.”
Select Quotes About Mahatma Gandhiji:
Mahatma Gandhi (Book)
by Sankar Ghose
(Chapter 1: Kathiawar’s Ambitious Boy –
page 9)
“In later life, Gandhi regarded Ramayana of
Tulsidasa as the greatest book in devotional
literature and repition of Ramnama as an infallible
method of curing one of all kinds of doubts and
despondency.”
Priyaranjan Das Munshi’s Mahatma Gandhi!
By V. Sundaram
News Today
“Mahatma Gandhi was a great devotee of Lord Rama
and Lord Krishna. He worshipped the Ramayana and the
Bhagavad Gita. Rama Nama and Ram Rajya were for
Gandhi synonymous terms. Addressing a prayer meeting
in New Delhi on 25 May, 1946, Mahatma Gandhi said:
‘Rama Nama should come from the heart. In that
event, Rama Nama could become an effective remedy
against all ailments. A man who believes in Rama
Nama would not make a fetish of the body but would
regard it as a means of serving God. And for making
it into a fit instrument for that purpose, Rama Nama
is the sovereign means. To install Rama Nama in the
heart requires infinite patience. It might even take
ages. But the effort is worthwhile. Rama Nama cannot
come from the heart unless one has cultivated the
virtues of truth, honesty and purity within and
without.’
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Shyness as a student
This shyness I retained throughout my stay in England. Even when I
paid a social call, the presence of half a dozen or more people
would strike me dumb. I once went to Ventnor with Sjt. Mazmudar. We
stayed there with a vegetarian family. Mr Howard, the author of 'The
Ethics of Diet', was also staying at the same watering place. We met
him, and he invited us to speak at a meeting for the promotion of
vegetarianism. I has ascertained that it was not considered
incorrect to read one's speech. I knew that many did so to express
themselves coherently and briefly. To speak ex-tempore world have
been out of the question for me. I had therefore written down my
speech. I stood up to read it, but could not. My vision became
blurred and I trembled, though the speech hardly covered a sheet of
foolscap. Sjt. Mazmudar had to read it for me. His own speech was
of course excellent and received with applause. I was ashamed at
myself and sad at heart for my incapacity. (My Experiments With
Truth)
The Sermon on the Mount
About the same time, I met a good Christian from Manchester in a
vegetarian boarding house. He talked to me about Christianity. I
narrated to him my Rajkot recollections. He was pained to hear them.
He said, 'I am a vegetarian. I do not drink. Many Christians are
meat eaters and drink, no doubt; but neither meat-eating nor
drinking is enjoined by scripture. Do please read the Bible.' I
accepted his advice and he got me a copy. I have a faint
recollection that he himself used to sell copies of the Bible, and I
purchased from him an edition containing maps, concordance, and
other aids. I began reading it but I could not possible read through
the Old Testament. I read the book of Genesis, and the chapters that
followed invariably sent me to sleep. But just for the sake o being
able to say that I had read it, I plodded through the other books
with much difficulty and without the least interest or
understanding. I disliked reading the book of Numbers.
But the New Testament produced a different impression, especially
the sermon on the Mount which went straight to my heart. I compared
it with the Gita. The verses, 'But I say unto you, that ye resist
not evil, but whosoever smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him
the other also. And if any man take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak too' delighted me beyond measure and put me in mind of Shamal
Bhatt's 'For a bowl of water, give a goodly meal', etc. My young
mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, the "Light of Asia"
and the Sermon on the Mount. That renunciation was the greatest form
of religion appealed to me greatly. (My Experiments with Truth)
After one year of a none too successful law practice, Gandhi decided
to accept an offer from an Indian businessman in South Africa, Dada
Abdulla, to join him as a legal adviser. Unbeknown to him, this was
to become an exceedingly lengthy stay, and altogether Gandhi was to
stay in South Africa for over twenty years. The Indians who had been
living in South Africa were without political rights, and were
generally known by the derogatory name of 'coolies'. Gandhi himself
came to an awareness of the frightening force and fury of European
racism, and how far Indians were from being considered full human
beings, when he when thrown out of a first-class railway compartment
car, though he held a first-class ticket, at Pietermaritzburg. From
this political awakening Gandhi was to emerge as the leader of the
Indian community, and it is in South Africa that he first coined the
term satyagraha to signify his theory and practice of non-violent
resistance. Gandhi was to describe himself preeminently as a votary
or seeker of satya (truth), which could not be attained other than
through ahimsa (non-violence, love) and brahmacharya (celibacy,
striving towards God).
Gandhi conceived of his own life as a series of experiments to forge
the use of satyagraha in such a manner as to make the oppressor and
the oppressed alike recognize their common bonding and humanity: as
he recognized, freedom is only freedom when it is indivisible. In
his book Satyagraha in South Africa he was to detail the struggles
of the Indians to claim their rights, and their resistance to
oppressive legislation and executive measures, such as the
imposition of a poll tax on them, or the declaration by the
government that all non-Christian marriages were to be construed as
invalid. In 1909, on a trip back to India, Gandhi authored a short
treatise entitled Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, where he all but
initiated the critique, not only of industrial civilization, but of
modernity in all itsaspects.
Gandhi returned to India in early 1915, and was never to leave the
country again except for a short trip that took him to Europe in
1931. Though he was not completely unknown in India, Gandhi followed
the advice of his political mentor, Gokhale, and took it upon
himself to acquire a familiarity with Indian conditions. He traveled
widely for one year. Over the next few years, he was to become
involved in numerous local struggles, such as at Champaran in Bihar,
where workers on indigo plantations complained of oppressive working
conditions, and at Ahmedabad, where a dispute had broken out between
management and workers at textile mills. His interventions earned
Gandhi a considerable reputation, and his rapid ascendancy to the
helm of nationalist politics is signified by his leadership of the
opposition to repressive legislation (known as the "Rowlatt Acts")
in 1919. His saintliness was not uncommon, except in someone like
him who immersed himself in politics, and by this time he had earned
from no less a person than Rabindranath Tagore, India's most
well-known writer, the title of Mahatma, or 'Great Soul'. When
'disturbances' broke out in the Punjab, leading to the massacre of a
large crowd of unarmed Indians at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar
and other atrocities, Gandhi wrote the report of the Punjab Congress
Inquiry Committee. Over the next two years, Gandhi initiated the
non-cooperation movement, which called upon Indians to withdraw from
British institutions, to return honors conferred by the British, and
to learn the art of self-reliance; though the British administration
was at places paralyzed, the movement was suspended in February 1922
when a score of
Indian policemen were brutally killed by a large crowd at Chauri
Chaura, a small market town in the United Provinces. Gandhi himself
was arrested shortly thereafter, tried on charges of sedition, and
sentenced to imprisonment for six years. At The Great Trial, as it
is known to his biographers, Gandhi delivered a masterful indictment
of British rule.
Owing to his poor health, Gandhi was released from prison in 1925.
Over the following years, he worked hard to preserve Hindu-Muslim
relations, and in 1924 he observed, from his prison cell, a 21-day
fast when Hindu-Muslim riots broke out at Kohat, a military barracks
on the Northwest Frontier. This was to be of his many major public
fasts, and in 1932 he was to commence the so-called Epic Fast unto
death, since he thought of "separate electorates" for the oppressed
class of what were then called untouchables (or Harijans in Gandhi's
vocabulary, and dalits in today's language) as a retrograde measure
meant to produce permanent divisions within Hindu society. Gandhi
earned the hostility of Ambedkar, the leader of the untouchables,
but few doubted that Gandhi was genuinely interested in removing the
serious disabilities from which they suffered, just as no one
doubted that Gandhi never accepted the argument that Hindus and
Muslims constituted two separate elements in Indian society. These
were some of the concerns most prominent in Gandhi's mind, but he
was also to initiate a constructive program for social reform.
Gandhi had ideas -- mostly sound -- on every subject, from hygiene
and nutrition to education and labor, and he relentlessly pursued
his ideas in one of the many newspapers which he founded. Indeed,
were Gandhi known for nothing else in India, he would still be
remembered as one of the principal figures in the history of Indian
journalism.
How this story is written
"This chapter has brought me to a stage where it becomes necessary
for me to explain to the read how this story is written from week to
week. When I began writing it, I had no definite plan before me. I
have do diary or documents, on which to base the story of my
experiments. I write just as the Spirit moves me at the time of
writing. I do not claim to know definitely that all conscious
thought and action on my part is directed by the Spirit. But on
examination of the greatest steps I have taken in my life, as also
those which may be regarded as the least, I think it will not be
improper to say that all of them were directed by the Spirit.
I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. I have the world's
faith in God my own, as as my faith in ineffaceable, I regard that
faith as amounting to experience. However, as it may be said that to
describe faith as experience is to tamper with truth, it may perhaps
be more correct to say that I have no word for characterizing my
belief in God." (My Experiments With Truth)
In early 1930, as the nationalist movement was revived, the Indian
National Congress, the preeminent body of nationalist opinion,
declared that it would now be satisfied with nothing short of
complete independence (purna swaraj). Once the clarion call had been
issued, it was perforce necessary to launch a movement of resistance
against British rule. On March 2, Gandhi addressed a letter to the
Viceroy, Lord Irwin, informing him that unless Indian demands were
met, he would be compelled to break the "salt laws". Predictably,
his letter was received with bewildered amusement, and accordingly
Gandhi set off, on the early morning of March 12, with a small group
of followers towards Dandi on the sea. They arrived there on April
5th: Gandhi picked up a small lump of natural salt, and so gave the
signal to hundreds of thousands of people to similarly defy the law,
since the British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale of
salt. This was the beginning of the civil disobedience movement:
Gandhi himself was arrested, and thousands of others were also
hauled into jail. It is to break this deadlock that Irwin agreed to
hold talks with Gandhi, and subsequently the British agreed to hold
a Round Table Conference in London to negotiate the possible terms
of Indian independence. Gandhi went to London in 1931 and met some
of his admirers in Europe, but the negotiations proved inconclusive.
On his return to India, he was once again arrested.
For the next few years, Gandhi would be engaged mainly in the
constructive reform of Indian society. He had vowed upon undertaking
the salt march that he would not return to Sabarmati Ashram in
Ahmedabad, where he had made his home, if India did not attain its
independence, and in the mid-1930s he established himself in a
remote village, in the dead center of India, by the name of Segaon
[known as Sevagram]. It is to this obscure village, which was
without electricity or running water, that India's political leaders
made their way to engage in discussions with Gandhi about the future
of the independence movement.
At the outset of World War II, Gandhi and the Congress leadership
assumed a position of neutrality: while clearly critical of fascism,
they could not find it in themselves to support British imperialism.
In 1942, Gandhi issued the last call for independence from British
rule. On the grounds of what is now known as August Kranti Maidan,
he delivered a stirring speech, asking every Indian to lay down
their life, if necessary, in the cause of freedom. He gave them this
mantra: "Do or Die"; at the same time, he asked the British to 'Quit
India'. The response of the British government was to place Gandhi
under arrest, and virtually the entire Congress leadership was to
find itself behind bars, not to be released until after the
conclusion of the war.
A few months after Gandhi and Kasturba had been placed in
confinement in the Aga Khan's Palace in Pune, Kasturba passed away:
this was a terrible blow to Gandhi, following closely on the heels
of the death of his private secretary of many years, the gifted
Mahadev Desai. In the period from 1942 to 1945, the Muslim League,
which represented the interest of certain Muslims and by now
advocated the creation of a separate homeland for Muslims,
increasingly gained the attention of the British, and supported them
in their war effort. The new government that came to power in
Britain under Clement Atlee was committed to the independence of
India, and negotiations for India's future began in earnest. Sensing
that the political leaders were now craving for power, Gandhi
largely distanced himself from the negotiations. He declared his
opposition to the vivisection of India. It is generally conceded,
even by his detractors, that the last years of his life were in some
respects his finest. He walked from village to village in riot-torn
Noakhali, where Hindus were being killed in retaliation for the
killing of Muslims in Bihar, and nursed the wounded and consoled the
widowed; and in Calcutta he came to constitute, in the famous words
of the last viceroy, Mountbatten, a "one-man boundary force" between
Hindus and Muslims.
"Man has been endowed with buddhi or intelligence, so that he might
at every turn decide what is beneficent for observance and what is
detrimental. Gandhi while going through hate ridden regions, prayed,
"Sabko san-mati de Bhagwan!" (O Lord! Give everyone Good
intelligence!) The intelligence has to be kept sharp, clear and
straight" (Sathya Sai Baba).
The ferocious fighting in Calcutta came to a halt, almost entirely
on account of Gandhi's efforts, and even his critics were wont to
speak of the Gandhi's 'miracle of Calcutta'. When the moment of
freedom came, on 15 August 1947, Gandhi was nowhere to be seen in
the capital, though Nehru and the entire Constituent Assembly were
to salute him as the architect of Indian independence, as the
'father of the nation'.
The last few months of Gandhi's life were to be spent mainly in the
capital city of Delhi. There he divided his time between the 'Bhangi
colony', where the sweepers and the lowest of the low stayed, and
Birla House, the residence of one of the wealthiest men in India and
one of the benefactors of Gandhi's ashrams. Hindu and Sikh refugees
had streamed into the capital from what had become Pakistan, and
there was much resentment, which easily translated into violence,
against Muslims. It was partly in an attempt to put an end to the
killings in Delhi, and more generally to the bloodshed following the
partition, which may have taken the lives of as many as 1 million
people, besides causing the dislocation of no fewer than 11 million,
that Gandhi was to commence the last fast unto death of his life.
The fast was terminated when representatives of all the communities
signed a statement that they were prepared to live in "perfect
amity", and that the lives, property, and faith of the Muslims would
be safeguarded. A few days later, a bomb exploded in Birla House
where Gandhi was holding his evening prayers, but it caused no
injuries. However, his assassin, a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin by the
name of Nathuram Godse, was not so easily deterred. Gandhi, quite
characteristically, refused additional security, and no one could
defy his wish to be allowed to move around unhindered.
In the early evening hours of
30 January 1948, Gandhi met with India's Deputy Prime Minister and
his close associate in the freedom struggle, Vallabhai Patel, and
then proceeded to his prayers. "To see the Universal and all
pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the
meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that
cannot afford do keep out of any field of life. That is why my
devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can
say without the slightest hesitation, and yet with all humility,
that those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not
know what religion means."
Gandhi sought trikaranasuddhi, purity of thought, word and deed. In
the words of the Sai Avatar, this is the definition and the
embodiment of integrity. Listen to Gandhi speak of his (our) journey
toward purity:
"But the path to self purification is hard and steep. To attain to
perfect purity, one has to become absolutely passion free in
thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of
love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not
in me as yet that triple purity (tri-karana suddhi) in spite of
constant and ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's
praise fails to move me, indeed, it very often stings me. To conquer
the subtle passions seems to me to be harder than the physical
conquest of the world by force of arms. Ever since my return to
India, I have had experience of dormant passions lying hidden within
me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated, though not
defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and
given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a
difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero." (My
Experiments With Truth, last page).
That evening, as Gandhi's time-piece, which hung from one of the
folds of his dhoti [loin-cloth], was to reveal to him, he was
uncharacteristically late to his prayers, and he fretted about his
inability to be punctual. At 10 minutes past 5 o'clock, with one
hand each on the shoulders of Abha and Manu, who were known as his
'walking sticks', Gandhi commenced his walk towards the garden where
the prayer meeting was held. As he was about to mount the steps of
the podium, Gandhi folded his hands and greeted his audience with a
namaskar; at that moment, a young man came up to him and roughly
pushed aside Manu. Nathuram Godse bent down in the gesture of an
obeisance, took a revolver out of his pocket, and shot Gandhi three
times in his chest. Bloodstains appeared over Gandhi's white woolen
shawl; his hands still folded in a greeting, Gandhi blessed his
assassin: He Ram! He Ram!
As Gandhi fell, his faithful time-piece struck the ground, and the
hands of the watch came to a standstill. They showed, as they had
done before, the precise time: 5:12 P.M.
On the afternoon of the 30th of January, Baba led a few people to
the Chitravathi River. Suddenly, He ran back to the mandir and
bolted the door. He emerged intermittently, until 7.30 p.m., when He
finally came out and spoke a few words to the devotees to the effect
that a great soul had passed away. No one knew exactly what had
happened. A remote village like Puttaparthi did not have methods of
instant communication with the rest of the world. Periodically,
Balapattabi would go to Bukkapatnam to collect mail. After a couple
of days, one of the devotees read in The Hindu newspaper that
Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, had been assassinated at
about 5.30 p.m., on the 30th of January, in New Delhi. It happened
almost at the very time when Baba behaved in a strange manner. (Love
is My Form, Chapter XIV)
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