Meherabad, A Rural Town in India and Site of the Meher Pilgrim Retreat (original) (raw)
Meherabad is a rural town in India where Meher Baba’s Samadhi, the Meher Pilgrim Retreat, charitable establishments, residences and other facilities for pilgrims are located.
This is a follow-up post to The Most Peaceful Place To Visit In Rural India.
Drawings of Meher Baba
In my last post I wrote about how wonderful it is staying at the MPR (Meher Pilgrim Retreat) located in Meherabad. In this post, I will show you the surroundings.
Me driving the scooter in India.
Meherabad is a very small town but you will find everything you need there. You will see lots of walking paths and open fields, you will see the typical trucks, motor-bikes and rickshaws on the streets, you will find various fruit and vegetable markets off the main road, and lots of animals roaming around including cows, goats, pigs, dogs, water buffalos and even deer.
Meherabad, apart from the beautiful MPR and Samadhi also has a bookshop, a coffee shop, an internet cafe with Indian trinkets and clothing and snacks, another shop where you can find any essentials and more snacks, the old Pilgrim Center, a medical dispensary, a school, a museum, an ATM, the Meher theater where movies and plays take place, and a few more things.
Double-decker
For some reason when you take photos of Indian people they pose and become very serious even though they are very joyful people. I wanted to get her smiling so I took this candid photo of her.
There is a free bus service available almost every day that can take you from the MPR to Ahmednagar a few miles away. This way you can get away from the peace and quiet of the MPR (if you so desire) to go do some shopping, have a bite to eat, and buy some Indian sweets. This would be the place to go to bring home gifts.
To get from the MPR to the main road you have to cross the railroad tracks. It is almost like a game to see if the gate will be closed or open. Trains come by almost every hour and because of safety issues they close the gate maybe 10 minutes before they know a train will come. I don’t know how they know.
So the “game” is that when you approach the railroad you might be stuck waiting on one side for 10 minutes, or 5 minutes, or zero minutes if you get lucky and the gate is open.
Waiting for the train to pass.
They are actually currently building a traffic bridge that will go over the tracks.
This cow was not happy with me taking her picture. I kinda felt bad for disturbing her peace.
Every now and then you might encounter some very interesting sights like this man carrying a torch running barefoot on the main road. We were told he was doing it for Durga.
Durga is the principle form of the Goddess, also known as Devi and Shakti in Hinduism. Durga the mahashakti, the form and formless, is the root cause of creation, preservation and annihilation. source
Sometimes it is nice to get to the place where no tourists go. Where you can see the locals do their own thing and experience their true hospitality. Have you ever spent time in the rural areas of a foreign country?