99. Ba's Premonition

When the All-India Congress Committee met in Bombay during August 1942, Ba went there with Bapu from Wardha. As the train steamed out of the platform, several inmates of the Sevagram Ashram, who had forgathered there to bid good-bye to both Ba and Bapu, said to Ba, "Please come back soon."

As if her heart foreboded some ill, Ba replied, "If in response to your good wishes, I do come back to Sevagram, it will be, indeed a great joy."

Later on, after Mahadevbhai passed away, she remarked again and again, "Why did Mahadev go away ? It was I who ought to have gone."

Again, when Bapu embarked on a fast in the Aga Khan Palace, and a number of the Ashramites visited him to enquire after his health, Ba said to them, "Do not feel anxious. Bapu will certainly be up and doing again. But I shall never leave this place alive. I shall precede him in departing from this world. I shall go the way of Mahadev, this place is Mahadev's temple."

After Bapu's fast was over, Ba once again told all those Ashramites, who had come there to meet Bapu, "Good-bye! This is our last meeting." She said the same thing to Lakshmibehn, widow of Panditji Khare.

Hearing this Sushilabehn said to Ba, "Why do you again and again say like that? All of us will soon be out of jail."

Ba replied, "Yes, you all will go out, but not I."