Why did you leave Santiniketan?

I finished my studies, then I wanted to stay a year more, which I couldn’t do. Then in any case, I had to sort of make a living, so I came out of Santiniketan to Calcutta in the beginning. There was a friend of mine who had a jewellery concern which sold diamonds and jewellery, so he said, ‘Why don’t you come and stay with me and do something?’ I mean that was just a sort of excuse for saying that I didn’t feel that I was not sort of used when he was giving me hospitality in his house. So why don’t you do some designing for us? So I did that for a while, and later, when there was a friend of mine who got employment with what is called the, in one of the vocational training centres of the new ministry of rehabilitation, the country was divided and people from Pakistan had come out to India. So there were various kinds of institutions coming up, projects. So there was a sort of centre in Punjab there, so I went there, but then of course we were all living in tents, there was no infrastructure. I had a good time staying there and watching what other people do, but I couldn’t make too much of a contribution, except by way of learning what can be done.