Among friends

When I hear about people quarrelling and fighting at the office, I think that I was so lucky at the Indian Consulate. I did not have even one enemy. Everybody was so kind and affectionate. Everyone had a good heart.

One of my friends was the librarian, Mr. Master. Anything important in the newspaper he used to underline and tell me. When he was leaving the position, he wanted me to apply for his job. But in the meantime I got my green card, so I no longer had to work at the Consulate.

Then there was a Bengali called Anil Kumar Mukherjee. He was Assistant to the Consul. He was so nice to me. Now nobody knows where he is. He used to tell me, “I do not believe in religion. I do not believe in spirituality. I do not believe in yoga — no. But, Ghose, when you stand in front of me, everything changes.”

At the Consulate, we never used first names. We always called each other by our surname. It was our practice. I was always known as Ghose, never Chinmoy. Mr. Ramamoorthy was called Mr. Ramamoorthy, my section head was Mukherjee and so on. We knew the first names, but we did not care to use them.