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."