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Welcome to AK Hazra's correspondence with Beloved Baba
This web site contains something relatively unusual in the community of Avatar Meher Baba: the full text and images of most of the correspondence that passed between Amiya Kumar Hazra and Meher Baba. There is a story behind how it happens to be available here.
I met Amiya in India, at the Meher Pilgrim Centre. I had wanted to know Amiya ever since I had read Memoirs of a Zetetic, Amiya's amazing autobiography. Through those westerners who knew about these things (primarily Tony Griss), the news filtered down that it would not be possible to meet Amiya in the West, since his health was marginal. It turned out that many western Baba Lovers had made the trek to Jabalpur where Amiya lived, but I had not thought to be that adventurous.
But in the end, it was my good fortune to be standing outside the Pilgrim Centre when a rickshaw pulled up, disgorging a very tall Indian gentleman, who proved to be Amiya himself. Without a word of introduction, he came over to me, gave a big hug, and Amiya and I became the friends that I had so hoped (reading his book) to become, some day.
Since that day, Amiya and I have co-authored a book "Of Men and Meher Baba" and Amiya's Memoirs are back in circulation after the many years during which the Memoirs had been basically out of print. On my first visit to Jabalpur, Amiya explained that he had received a circular from the Trust that requested Baba lovers favored with correspondence from Beloved Baba to make arrangements for the future safekeeping of these documents and to consider giving copies (or originals) to the archives. One idea was to scan the letters so that the originals could still remain with him and the set of digital copies would become part of the Trust's archives. Should he do it? After consulting with the people involved for the Trust, I offered to coordinate and carry out the scanning, which was subsequently done at Meherabad under the sponsorship of the Archive Committee. You can see the images here if you don't mind opening rather large image files.
Amiya subsequently translated those letters written in Hindi (actually, the bulk of the correspondence); the translations are available here. Of special interest are the explanations he gave -- the stories that go with each letter, telegram or postcard. They include much that was left out of Memoirs of a Zetetic -- some of it quite interesting. Some letters were lost, which is all you should read into the qualifier applied above ("most of the letters").
Here is a wonderful picture taken of Amiya and me, courtesy of Michael LePage. It expresses Amiya's huge heart. It has been an especial delight to become a friend of Amiya's and to be favored by his irregular correspondence.
Jai Baba to you all,
Keith Gunn
Words of Meher Baba and His mandali are Copyright � 2001 Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust and are used by permission. Remarks and stories are Copyright Amiya Kumar Hazra � 2001
