The car was to pose a great problem for Shri Nathji in more ways than one in the years to come, the least of which was garaging it. Those were the days when cars were not allowed inside the city of Mussoorie, and garages were hard to find. Shri Nathji never used a car in Mussoorie and the only time that he would be using it was when he came down in the winters to the plains. That would mean that the car would have to be locked in a garage at Mussoorie for nine months of the year from March to November.
Soon after coming to Mussoorie, Shri Nathji had to find a garage for the car, and he searched meticulously till he found Macdonald’s Garage, which was on a small plateau at a considerable distance down the hill road from Mussoorie to Dehra Dun.
Shri Nathji walked all the way back from Macdonald’s Garage to St. Andrews after locking the car there. It was a long climb back home; however Shri Nathji had the stamina of a young man when it came to walking.
When Shri Nathji had come from Delhi to Mussoorie in the Standard car he had engaged a driver, or chauffeur, for the car. His name was Victor.
He was an Indian Christian. He had been working for the owner of the Kwality Restaurant at Delhi, but he took leave for a few days and came with Shri Nathji to Mussoorie in April 1948. He was totally overwhelmed by the love of Shri Nathji and decided to stay on with him even after the car was locked in the garage.
Over the days, his faith in Shri Nathji became so intense that he began to see the holiest of the holy in him. He called him “Pitaji” in the same manner that Pran Nath and Priya Nath did. Never before in his entire life had anyone spoken so lovingly and so gently to him. He received such great love from Shri Nathji as he had never received from anyone in his entire life. Whenever he would come before Shri Nathji, he would feel purified and cleansed from within.
Mateshwari was like a mother to him and began to love him greatly. He always played with Pran Nath and Priya Nath as if he were their age, even though he was over twenty years of age while the children were still seven and eight years old.
Victor would be seen at Jhoola Ghar, squeezing himself awkwardly into the kiddie cars of the boys, and riding down the slope in them.
His association with Shri Nathji lasted from 1948 till 1953, for five years. During this period he would live with Shri Nathji for some months and then become restless for his old life in Delhi again. He would leave Mussoorie without permission and return to Delhi. His fault lay in the flightiness of his character. Shri Nathji had often tried to bring him to the right path, but he would always revert to his bad old ways again.
There were many occasions when Shri Nathji was seen reprimanding him to bring him on the right path.
He was very loyal to Shri Nathji, though, and would not tolerate any insult to his master.
There was the time when a local bania, a shopkeeper, came to ask for the payment of a bill from Shri Nathji, which Shri Nathji had already paid. The man was nonplussed and said sarcastically: “Oh, if I don’t get paid in this birth I will take my dues in the next!” Victor could not bear this slight to his Master. He had been playing hockey with the children and had a child’s hockey stick in his hand. He swung it in the air and knocked the bania’s turban several feet down the hill. The man was so terrified that he ran away. He never bothered Shri Nathji again.
At another time Mateshwari was kind enough to offer food to two passing mahatmas in ochre robes. Even as they sat and ate in the house, they were heard by Victor to pass irreverential remarks about Shri Nathji. The next instant Victor had pounced upon them, and an unholy tussle took place in which the mahatmas were thrown by Victor on the flowerbeds in the house, quashing them.
There was yet another instance when the toll-gate keeper on the Mussoorie road would not believe that there were only Shri Nathji and Mateshwari and the children inside the car, and insisted that the cabin light inside the car be turned on. Victor turned on the light, and simultaneously boxed the man so that he went stumbling down the road to the Toll Gate.
Once a devotee of Shri Nathji began to ape Shri Nathji’s dress and to call himself Chotte Nathji i.e. the younger Nathji. Victor spotted him in Delhi and yanked the head-dress off his head, threatening to slap him on the face if he ever found him wearing the same dress again.