Friends, I will relate to you four or five incidents that came within my
knowledge. I had very hard treatment from H.P.B. often; I bore it, knowing what she was.
During 1883 or 1884 I used to come here to Adyar every day from my home in Mylapore,
spending the night and going away early in the morning. One evening when I came, she was
sitting just here. She took my new chaddar, and next morning she did not give it me back.
Next day she had turned it into a blouse, and put it on. I was very pleased, and thanked
her for the privilege of using my cloth! That evening she spoke to Bawaji, Damodar and me
about the Tibetan Dugpas and Gelugpas. Two days afterwards I met her; she stopped and
called me. I was wearing a red turban. She took the turban and threw it down, and said,
"Soobiah, I hope you wont wear a red turban again."
One morning I was about to go. She said, "Do not go, I have some work
for you." She gave me a lot of papers to copy, twelve sheets of foolscap. I copied it
and gave it to her. She looked at it, crumpled it and threw it into the waste-basket. She
was in a rage. I went home and to the office, but I couldnt do much, thinking of
this incident. At one oclock it struck me that I had written on both sides of the
paper. So I hurried out and copied it all again, writing on one side only, and then gave
it to her. "I suppose after this, Soobiah, you wont copy on both sides in case
of matter for the press. This is a very good lesson for you, and will make you feel your
duty."
The third incident was this: I was the youngest of the lot of her office
helpers, and was requested by my friends to ask her an important question. That day she
was very kind, and so it was a good time for the question. "Madame," I said,
"you preach control of temper, but you go into outbursts now and then."
"Soobiah, that is my loss and your gain. If I didnt have that temper, I should
have become an Adept by this time."
She went to Ootacamund one summer, and sent for me. I went and stayed
seven or eight weeks with her there, living in the same house. One day a European
gentleman came to see her and I announced him. She said, "I do not want to see
him." Because he was a man of high position, I persuaded her to see him. He asked
impertinent questions, and she treated him similarly. When he left, she said, "You
had better not bring any more such people to me. He came to examine me and ridicule me. Do
not introduce such people."
Another day she gave me letters to post. "Have you any money
left?" She asked. "Yes, Rs. 14 or 15," I said. She said, "You
cant have any left. You must have spent some of your own money. You are looking
thin; your father will think I am not taking proper care of you." Once when I was in
her room in the evening, the Master appeared. I saw His arm materialise as He gave her a
paper.
Another incident was in regard to my house in Mylapore. One morning just
as I was getting up, a message came to go to her. She said: "Your father wants you,
you had better run." I found my fathers mother had died just an hour before.
Two days after, she asked me the details of the death. She thought her passing away was
inauspicious. She suggested that my father and the family vacate the house where we lived,
but my father would not go. Fifteen days afterwards she again requested him to vacate the
house for seven months or seven weeks. He would not. The result was there were four deaths
within eight months in the family. Then my father agreed to go. Just before we left the
house, H.P.B. said: "This is more fitted to be a Roman Catholic Church than a
residence". The house had to be shut up for a few years. I wanted to sell it at any
price. One day a man came and offered Rs. 10,000. He gave me Rs. 1,000 cash; I did not
even know to whom I had sold it. It was for a Roman Catholic Convent. A year or two
afterwards I went to the house to see it. The Lady Superior showed me round. She took me
to the hall where H.P.B. had said this - it was a Roman Catholic Chapel! But she had
passed away a year before that, and so I could not write it to her.
G. Soobiah Chetty