At the end of the meeting, prayers were offered to God by
those present to enable them to hold fast to Baba's daaman and to obey him one
hundred percent.
ON JULY 6th, Dr. Dikshitt performed a barium meal
examination of Baba's gastrointestinal and urinary tracts, but no evidence of
any obstruction or lesion in his urinary tract was found.
Wednesday, July 8th, marked the end of Baba's fifty-six days
of work, but Baba made no reference to it. He also did not issue any instructions
for the observance of Silence Day that year, and left it entirely to the inclination
of each person concerned to observe or not to observe silence as they wished.
But on that day, July 10th, 1959, Baba decided to go to the old Poona Center,
where one hundred poor children were gathered, and Baba washed their feet and
gave them each ten rupees as a love-gift.
Meanwhile, Kumar's eldest son, Prashant, age nineteen, who
worked as an electrician in a mine near Belgaum, was called to Guruprasad in
early July. After Baba embraced Prashant, he remarked, "You have fever." Calling
Gunatai and Nalini Gadekar, Baba asked them to keep him in their house, and
asked Nalini (who was in medical school) to treat him. They did accordingly,
but his illness worsened and he was removed to Ruby Hall Nursing Home. After
a medical examination, he was found to be suffering from leukemia.
Ruby Hall Nursing Home was situated near Guruprasad, and
it belonged to a doctor named Keki Byram Grant, age thirty-nine, who had met
Baba through Dr. Goher. On the evening of Friday, July 10th, Baba sent word
to Dr. Grant that if he saved Prashant that night, Baba would restore Prashant's
health. But the doctor failed to do so, and Prashant died at 10:00 P.M. When
the news was received, Baba kissed Eruch on the forehead and sent him to the
hospital, telling him to do likewise to Prashant's corpse. As instructed by
Baba, Meherdas had nursed Prashant in the hospital and served him well in his
dying moments.
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