You carry two worlds

In 1984 I gave a Peace Concert in Toronto. There I met with Krishan Chandra, who succeeded Mr. Mukherjee as our Section Officer at the Consulate. Before that he was the assistant boss in our section. As I came off the stage, somebody came from behind me and fell at my feet, saying, “I recognise you!”

I said, “I, too, recognise you! What are you doing? You are my boss!”

Then Chandra said, “Inwardly I am not your boss. Ghose, we knew it, we knew it while you were working with us. We knew you were not just a clerk. Your very name is a phenomenon. You carry two worlds inside you — Eastern and Western. It is such a rare thing. Your music has transported my wife and me almost into a trance. Please let us know when you are coming again so we can be with you and be blessed by you.”

I thanked him and said, “I am so grateful to you. Your very presence is a blessing to me and to us all.”

This particular man was much older than me and he used to be my boss. Even then, he had to touch my feet in front of hundreds of people.

When the British girls performed my play about Lord Krishna in Toronto in 1995, he came to see it.

How people can be so nice to me! At the Indian Consulate, the people who worked with me were so kind to me.