190 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Durgapur forest beyond Burdwan, he came upon a large herd of buf-
falo crossing the road and again had to bring the Wanderer to an
abrupt halt. Dawn broke as they reached the outskirts of Asansol; their
late start in Calcutta meant that the drive along the undulating road
from Asansol to Dhanbad had to be done in the bright morning light.
At around 8:30 a.m., Sisir dropped off his passenger a few hundred
yards from his brother Asoke’s house in Bararee, near Dhanbad.
Sisir had barely fin ished telling Asoke what was going on and what
had to be done, when a north Indian Muslim named Muhammad
Ziauddin (Subhas in disguise) arrived on insurance business. Asoke
told the gentleman that since he was about to leave for work, a conver-
sation would have to wait until the evening. The domestic staff were
instructed to make up the spare room for the visitor and in their pres-
ence Sisir was formally introduced to Ziauddin in En glish. At the end
of the day’s work for Asoke and a good day’s rest for the travelers, the
visitor and Asoke had a discussion, ostensibly on the hazards of work
in the coalfields. Subhas communicated his decision that Gomoh in
Bihar, rather than Asansol in Bengal, was the railway station where he
preferred to board the train. As Sisir was not quite sure of the route to
Gomoh, he wanted his brother to serve as navigator. Asoke was reluc-
tant to leave his wife alone late at night in that locality, and so it was
decided that Sisir’s sister- in- law Mira would also join the party. After
an early dinner, Muhammad Ziauddin left, bidding the Boses goodbye
as they prepared to go out to visit friends. Some distance from the Ba-
raree house, Ziauddin was picked up in the Wanderer, and they all took
the road to Gomoh.^19
The Delhi- Kalka Mail was not due at Gomoh Station until much
later that night. So the Wanderer stopped twice on the way. The Boses
sat under a tree listening to the bells jingling on the necks of bullocks
as a pro ces sion of carts passed by. Closer to Gomoh, they stopped amid
an expanse of rice fields, where they could see the silhouette of Paresh-
nath Hill in the moonlight. At Gomoh Station, a sleepy porter came
and picked up the luggage. “I am off—you go back,” Rangakakababu
said as he took his leave. Sisir watched him “mount the overbridge
slowly after the porter and walk across it with his usual majestic gait till
he disappeared into the darkness toward the platform on the opposite