13.

After driving Subhas from Calcutta to Gomoh, with a rest stop at the house of his brother Asoke in Dhanbad, Sisir halted at the railway station in good time for Subhas to board the Delhi-Kalka Mail. Subhas, Asoke and Sisir alighted from the car. Sisir then relates:

"‘I am off, you go back,’ was all that he said at the end. I stood motionless and forgot to do my pranam….So also was my brother. We watched him mount the overbridge slowly after the porter and walk across it with his usual swaying majestic gait till he disappeared into the darkness….By that time the rumbling of the approaching mail train was audible."