112. Companion of sixty-two years

Ba's dead body was cremated alongside the Samadhi, where the ashes of Mahadevbhai had been deposited. What a coincidence! For, Ba had often said, "I will be always by the side of Mahadev."

The cremation ceremony lasted rather long, till four o'clock in the afternoon. But Bapu till the very end sat quietly near the funeral-pyre, in spite of repeated requests to get up and have some rest. But he did not budge from there, saying as it were, out of the depths of his whole being, "How can I leave her like this, she who was my companion in life for sixty-two long years? Even Ba would not forgive me for such a lapse."