‘Ah, saar, apuni ahile? Ami to pura din apunar karona roi asilu. Kali khobor palo je apuni ahibo. Kintu bahut deri hol, iman deri kiyo hol?’1 In slow but clear Assamese, Kermat Bhai asked after my health, and added that they had waited the whole day for me since they had got word of my coming the day before. ‘But it has become very late? What happened?’ he asked.

We elaborated on the difficulties of locating his place, besides our meetings with the politicians and the teachers. All this while, Mamon smiled indulgently and listened to our conversation, surprised that he was hearing this at all in his own land.

My faithful researcher, Raquib of Dhaka University, had come to the village a couple of times and to Chilmari Ghat to talk with Keramat Bhai and his friends. He had given news of me and sent word that I would also be coming to the area at some point. ‘He was a good boy, very patient, he asked a lot of questions,’ said Keramat Bhai as the villagers crowded around.

Since it was late, we decided to return to Bepari Para the next morning. It would be easier to talk in the privacy of his home, Keramat said. As we got ready to return, he stopped us and insisted on tea with biscuits at the chai dokan or tea shop on the edge of the main path, before a dusty diversion going into the village. The road could not have been more than 10 to 12 feet wide.

The next day, I returned, this time without Mamon Bhai who had to leave for some reporting, and asked to be excused. Accompanying me was Firdouz, a young and tall scholar from Dhaka University, who was taking the place of Raquib, who could not come because he was preparing for examinations. Firdouz wanted to take the civil service examinations and become a district magistrate and serve in the secretariat in Dhaka. ‘I want to be an officer, then only can we do something for our people,’ he declared, when I asked him why he wanted to join the administration. ‘But, Firdouz,’ I said, ‘all across the subcontinent, people go into the civil service with such dreams only to see them dashed within a few years of entering the system. They become as venal, corrupt and inefficient as the earlier batches.’ He only smiled, especially when I told him that, at least in India, many people from ‘service’ backgrounds were moving to management jobs in multinationals or large domestic corporates which paid far better. Or else, they were setting up their own, extremely profitable organizations.

Firdouz smiled again: ‘Ah, sir, in India you have many opportunities, people can manage and do well in other fields. Here, opportunities are less, jobs are few, we have limited choices.’ He was as fascinated by our interactions and the information that we were generating.