In October 1945, Shri Nathji was very keen to return to Mussoorie, and he sought for another place to live in. The house this time was Gorge Head Estate in the Library area of Mussoorie. It was perched on a small hillock overlooking the Library Bus Stand, and commanded an excellent view of the mountains that gradually sloped into the plains of Dehra Dun. Shri Nathji stayed in the ground floor of Gorge Head Estate.
Many were the portraits taken by Mateshwari during this time. There was the portrait of Shri Nathji sitting out in the open verandah of Gorge Head Estate, dressed in a long Kashmiri dressing gown reading a book, which was his favourite, A Message of Love.
Shri Nathji was seen in another of the portraits holding the four-year old Priya Nath by his hand as he walked alongside him on the Mall Road at Library.
In yet another portrait the children were dressed in little Radha Krishna costumes by Mateshwari and photographed in the sunny verandah of the flat.
Shri Nathji and Mateshwari made their lives full of the joy of life despite the numerous difficulties that they lived in, not the least of which were the financial constraints. Shri Nathji’s arm though out of the critical danger of the past had not yet fully healed and many a time there was the fear of a relapse. He was on no medical treatment whatsoever. Letters by devotees of that period indicated that people were concerned about the state of his arm even during those days.
There was Bhai Dhian Singh’s shop, which was just below Gorge Head Estate, and which became a favourite place for the children, and, therefore, for Shri Nathji and Mateshwari as well. Shri Nathji would buy all manner of toys for the children as well as sweets, lollipops, and toffees, which the children enjoyed.
Shri Nathji would frequently walk long distances in the cold winter nights to buy toys for the children. These would be a curious assortment of stuffed dogs and cats and teddy bears, as well as dolls and doll houses, as also numerous Dinky toy cars made in England, and toy trains that ran on on rails.
Kareem Bax at the end of the slope leading down from Kulri Bazaar towards Picture Palace, was a favourite shop that Shri Nathji visited. Its owner, a Muslim, had developed great reverence for Shri Nathji and remembered him long after in the years that followed when he left Mussoorie and settled in Pakistan.
Indeed over a period of a few years Pran Nath and Priya Nath had more toys than even some of the shops that sold them, so enthusiastic was Shri Nathji in purchasing the toys for the children.
Shri Nathji also took the children along with Mateshwari to Inder Restaurant, a very small and cosy eating-place close to the shop of Kareem Bax, also near the end of the slope leading down from Kulri Bazaar.
The family would have tea and samosas, dal mot and moong ki daal, and alloo ki tikkees -potato cutlets-which were the favourite dishes of the small restaurant, and these would be followed by hot gulaab jaamuns, which Shri Nathji especially enjoyed.
The restaurant was full of printed pictures depicting the Second World War, showing armies attacking, and aeroplanes bombing. The children particularly enjoyed seeing these pictures of battle.
Shri Nathji would talk very lovingly to the owner of the restaurant who would invariably rush forward to touch his feet. Shri Nathji always made it a point to meticulously pay the bill of every restaurant or shop that he ever visited. He would never use his spiritual status to secure a reduced or concessional rate on anything that he purchased.
It was a familiar sight in Mussoorie to see Shri Nathji and Mateshwari walk on the Mall Road with the two children alongside them.
Years later, the people of Mussoorie were to recall the Divine Personality that lived in the midst of them, who was unlike any saint or mahatma ever seen by them, and who was always remembered as an extraordinarily handsome married man who had two children.
It was Shri Nathji’s miracle that even though he did not disclose his real self to the numerous people at Mussoorie including the shopkeepers there, yet whenever he would walk into any shop the owner of the shop would rush forward to bow before him with the inevitable word Bhagwan on his lips.
It was a measure of Shri Nathji’s benedictions that whenever he visited any shop the man had tremendous sales that day as streams of people poured into his shop the whole day long of their own accord. It was no great wonder then that the shopkeepers of Mussoorie would vie with each other in inviting Shri Nathji to enter their shops. Shri Nathji had often called himself a shopkeeper as well, with the following verse:
Ham ne bhee kholi hai yaan jinse Muhabbat kee dukaan
Yaa Khudaa koyi khareedaare Muhabbat aaye
I, too, have opened a shop containing a storehouse of Love
O Lord, would that a buyer of Love come my way!
It was thus that the winter of 1945 came upon Shri Nathji in Mussoorie. The children’s school, Hampton Court, closed on the 15th of November 1945. Thereafter Shri Nathji left Gorge Head Estate and decided to go once again to his home at Dehra Dun.