On that dreary, darkling winter sky of Paris—it was a Sunday—and again at that miserable and dirty railway station, the Gare de I’Est (famous for its mournful association with the two wars against Germany—Verdun, Somme, Marne, etc.)—four or five of us Indians—I remember B.V. Keskar was there, and so was Shaukath Ansari, students, and some two or three other Indians representing the Indian business community—we all stood still, still as a miserable photographer took a picture of Panditji and us, supposed to be a press photographer but I suspect it was for the secret police, for imperialist France, less sure of itself, was more worried about her colonies than the British ever were. Pandit Nehru was almost an unknown name in Paris in those days—as he stood, at the entrance to the station, his grey coat in hand, fair and fresh as ever, round in face and firm in stature, firm but supple, like some Gandharva, so I thought then. One always felt with Panditji that he was listening to a music which arose indivisibly within him, and engrossed his mind and all of his heart. After the photographer did his job we all went with Panditji in several taxis to a fin de siècle hotel—I think it was the Lafayette—with gilded balustrades, a Byzantine, mutlicoloured glass dome high, high up and above, and a bourgeois elegance of silk and red that ill fitted a nobleman like Panditji. After a wash and when Panditji came down, he said a few kind words to each one of us. I asked of him, how Kamala Nehru was feeling. And he answered: ‘She is somewhat better. The doctor said, I could make a short visit to Paris. So here I am.’ I asked him—but he seemed so weary—if there was anything I could do. And he answered very gently—he had been in solitary confinement for so long, speech came to him slowly, very slowly, hesitant, as it were—and he answered: ‘In prison I read of a writer called André Malraux. The New Statesman had a review of a recent book of his. If possible I would like to meet him.’ I answered I would try and see if this meeting could be arranged. But I knew it was almost impossible. For at that time Malraux was perhaps the most famous man in Paris, in fact in France, not only after receiving his Gonourt Prize, but even more, after his adventure in trying to locate the capital of the queen of Sheba in the deserts of Yemen. But I thought I would still try. I was so young and so inexperienced. But for an Indian nothing ever seems impossible. The gods always worked for you.