A chance encounter with Dilip-da
I have never seen Dilip-da walking on the pavement; he always walked in the street. As soon as I saw Dilip-da, I would get such a thrill. He had such unimaginable charm.One day, around three or four o'clock in the afternoon, I happened to be coming back home from the Ashram when I saw Dilip-da in the street. He said to me, "Do you know where Prabhakar lives?"
Prabhakar Mukherjee was my Bengali teacher. He used to teach in Calcutta University. He was so fond of me. He used to come to my house and I would read him my poems. After I had been in his class for only six months or so, believe it or not, he wrote an article about me. And he was the one who secretly took two of my notebooks to Nolini-da to get Nolini-da's comment about my poetry. Nolini-da gave a very nice comment, but he asked Prabhakar-da not to tell me at that time.
Anyway, Dilip-da wanted me to show him where Prabhakar's house was. Can you imagine! Then Dilip-da said to me, "I am writing a poem in Sanskrit. I need the proper grammar for one word."
I said to him, "I can go and bring Prabhakar-da to you immediately!"
"No, no," he said, "I will go and see him."
Then I escorted Dilip-da to Prabhakar-da's place. It was quite far. We walked for a half mile or so. I did not dare to walk by Dilip-da's side. I stayed twenty metres ahead of him. He was in his singing mood.
When we approached Prabhakar-da's house, I screamed and screamed, "Prabhakar-da! Prabhakar-da! Dilip-da wants to speak to you!" Prabhakar-da came out of his house when he heard my voice. Then Dilip-da gave me a very big smile and again I came back.
