Without you, Mussoorie had become a lonely place! said Mahavir Prasad Agarwal, the tall, gaunt, retired chief engineer, Do not forget that we have caught hold of your hand from a long time. We have nowhere else to go!
The Mall Road, which had witnessed many a repartee between Shri Nathji and intellectuals, had looked strangely barren over the years. It was as if the pearl of spirituality had gone out of the oyster of materialism.
Halwaa tayyaar hai? Mahabir Prasad’s voice used to echo on the Mall in the past, as he walked with Shri Nathji, “Is the halwa ready?”
The halwa is ready, Shri Nathji would say, but do you have the hunger to eat it?
No, the Chief engineer used to reply, in truth, I don’t!
Then to whom do you wish to feed the halwa? Shri Nathji would ask.
“Well, then,” the chief engineer would say, “give us hunger, as well as the halwa! Bhook bhee lagaa deejiye aur halwaa bhee khilaa deejiye!”
And Mahabir Prasad Agarwal would be heard quoting Shri Nathji’s verse on the Mall:
“Samundar men katraa fanaa ho gayaa
Fanaa ho ke laa-intahaa ho gayaa!
The drop of water perished in the ocean,
And perishing, it became of infinite dimensions!”
It was Shri Nathji’s definition of the salvation of the human soul.