BABA AVERTS DEATH
In May, June 1917, a Mumbai lady and her younger son sat before Baba at noon Arati.
Baba: Your must come here exactly at 2 p.m.
Boy: Yes.
Accordingly the boy was there at 2 p.m. at the Dwarakamayee.
Baba: Boy, come here. Sit at my feet on this mat. Be massaging my feet and do not let go my feet till I tell you.
Accordingly the boy went on massaging. At 3 p.m. a terrible female figure with wild disheveled hair, begrimed face and head and a protruding long tongue shot out and moving like a dog's jumped over the compound wall and coming near the boy, said: "I want this person".
Baba: I will not give him.
She: This exactly is the person I want.
(She then approached the boy and pulled him. Baba got up enraged and holding the boy with one hand, kicked her on the breast. She roared and ran away)
Baba: Boy, are you not attending? Do you know the woman that came; Hallo! that woman wanting you to be given up. But how can I give? I refused.
Boy: When this was going on, I sat benumbed like a picture. I saw everything, but my body was inert or stone like.
(Baba declared that the female form was the goddess cholera. And the very next morning, Baba permitted the boy and his mother to go back to Mumbai. Cholera then began to rage at Shirdi)
