21. Bapu's Renunciation

One night, in Sabarmati, all of a sudden, Bapu got up from his sleep and began to walk away from the Ashram. Now Ba and another sister, who slept in an opposite room, saw this. Both of them, therefore, followed Bapu tiptoe, wondering where he could be going, whether like Buddha he, too, was going to renounce them all. After some time, however, when he retraced his footsteps, he noticed Ba and her companion. He laughed and said, "Did you think that I was running away?"

The fact of the matter was that someone had been suddenly bitten by a scorpion on the road and Bapu, hearing his cry of pain, was awakened from his sleep.