What was the real reason Sai Baba started grinding wheat, and what happened to the flour?

The act of Sai Baba grinding wheat, described in Chapter 1, was a symbolic play to protect the village. While onlookers were puzzled why a possessionless saint would grind wheat, his true intention was to combat a cholera epidemic. The source explains that "the wheat was not wheat, but the cholera epidemic." After four village women took over the grinding, expecting to be given the flour, Baba became angry at their greed. He commanded them to take the flour and throw it on the village boundary. This act symbolized casting out the disease, and as a result, the epidemic began to recede and the "bad days ended immediately."