As always, we would work on the house, in this case 48, Brompton Square, London, and Shri Mataji would work on us. I spent a great deal of time stripping white paint off wood panelled doors with a blow torch and then staining them with Peruvian Mahogany wood stainer – a rich brown colour not too far from the colour of Indian people’s skin – or the pigment of the indigenous peoples of the Cape in South Africa, places I lived for most of the next twenty years. All the shops selling it in Knightsbridge and Kensington knew me – including Harrods which was nearby, and we cleaned them out of Peruvian Mahogany wood stain.
I also did a fair bit of glazing as there were a lot of doors in the house which were made of small glass panels. Putty, used to attach the glass to the frame, was nice to work with and I shall never forget the smell of linseed oil when Mother showed me how to put it on – which She did perfectly.
Regular contractors couldn’t take the vibrations – they usually did crazy things or just ran off. The trick was to do exactly what Shri Mataji asked and not argue with Her, and definitely not say, ‘I don’t think I can do that’. She tried to get me to do some wallpapering one day – really expensive paper, and I refused, saying, ‘I don’t know how, I will just waste it’. Shri Mataji said my problem was I didn’t let Her work through me. The person who took over the job when I failed – I think it was Kay McHugh from Australia or maybe Danya Martoglio, just surrendered in their hearts and although they had also never wallpapered before, just said, ‘Mother, You are the doer,’ and the wallpaper went up fine.
Everything was a mess at Brompton Square, to begin with, one day Shri Mataji was walking round overseeing operations – paint stripping, carpentry, electricity et cetera. Someone had a tape recorder and was playing a sung version of Ya devi sarva bhuteshu. Shri Mataji said to turn it off and the person asked if there was something wrong with it. She said there was not, but it caused the vibrations to flow from Her so strongly, and it was too much in among all the building work.
Shri Mataji would appear not to understand something like a complicated point of electricity or plumbing. She would appear to be completely in the dark. Then when whoever it was gave up and said they couldn’t do it, She would very sweetly suggest this and that, and whatever it was, She would give the perfect answer.
A lot of people came from all over Europe and England to help at weekends – French, Italians and also some Portuguese. We would send out for chicken takeaways and other good things to eat from The Midnight Shop, owned by an Indian, just down the road.
Kay McHugh was on the Bombay-London route for Qantas and Mother often asked her to bring wooden sculptures and all sorts of amazing things with her on the flight whenever she came through. Kay put them in a cupboard in First Class – much to the surprise of the rest of the cabin crew.
Linda Williams