17th November, '06

I met this interesting man in a train from Calcutta to Jamshedpur. He was old, probably in his mid 60’s - a humble Bengali gentleman and even though his clothes were shabby, he seemed very decent and respectable. He had a cup of tea with us, accepted the packet of chips we offered; we had a little chit-chat in English…quite obviously educated, he seemed sad and so when we asked him the cause of his grief he only told us what we know already – “it’s all fate. You never know where it’ll take you”. Seeing the cheerful bunch of teenagers suddenly becoming dull, he quickly gave us his blessings and left.

The catch? He was a beggar.