110. Who was more fortunate?

February 22, 1944, the fast of Mahashivratri, Ba's last day on this earth. Her condition was critical. The doctors, attending on her, suggested that the patient should be injected with penicillin. But Bapu did not like this at all. Talking to his son, Devadas, he said, "Why do you not have faith in God? You want to administer medicine to your mother even on her deathbed?"

It was now quarter-past seven in the evening. And yet Bapu did not go out for his usual evening walk, which had already been delayed by three-quarters of an hour. At last, when he was getting ready to go out, Ba called him to her bedside. Seeing her so restless he asked her, "What is ailing you?"

Ba, as if standing on the shore of some unknown country, answered like an innocent child, with a stammer, "I do not know."

She then tried to sit up, but Bapu dissuaded her from doing so. And placing her head in his lap, she drew her last breath.

Thus Ba's ardent wish to die with her head in Bapu's lap was fulfilled. Bapu himself had on one occasion observed, "Whosoever would have served Ba devotedly, she would, in her last moments, place her head in his lap."

Now who was more fortunate, Ba or Bapu ? Perhaps, both.