Sipping tea and munching biscuits of unknown pedigree on the way to Korwa

This was the occasion when one of the senior officers wanted to visit HAL Lucknow and HAL Korwa to get acquainted with the working methods. And, he wanted me to accompany him because of the personal relationship that I had developed with the senior officers in the sister divisions.
Of course, I will always remain grateful to my Bengali boss who had rated me ‘below average’ in my ACR which deprived me of a promotion. But, because of his rating and my subsequent transfer, I got an opportunity to develop a few qualities that I never knew lay dormant within me. The qualities of being confident, interacting with people of different types at different levels.
I firmly believe that whatever happens in ones life is always for his good and he should accept it. Initially, it may not improve the feel good factor but, in due course, it will prove beneficial.
Anyway, since the officer was in a senior position, I need not worry about transportation. A car picked me up from my quarter, he was already seated in the car. We traveled by road to Mumbai Guest house where we stayed for the night. In the morning, we went to the airport and took the flight to Lucknow – it was an Indian Airlines flight via New Delhi.
We stayed at Lucknow for one day and next morning we left by a car for Korwa. It was a distance of around 140-Km. I had traveled on this stretch earlier by HAL bus and had seen that there are no eating joints worth its name on the route. The only place is Rae Bareilly which is about half way.

I had, therefore, suggested to my companion that we could take breakfast in the Guest House and then leave for Korwa but, he decided to leave by 6am hoping that we could take in some snacks on the way but that was not to be. The complete stretch of road was devoid of any settlement – there were only miles of land with huge mango trees. Fortunately, we saw a tiny tea shop – the owner was just opening the door and, seeing a car stop and us getting out, he hurriedly lit the oven and made some tea for us. We took it gladly along with some biscuits of unknown pedigree.
In those days, there was no mobile phone but, anticipating our arrival, the people at Korwa had kept breakfast ready. And, the first thing we did on arrival was to sit down for breakfast. It was heavenly – bread, butter, omelet and strong coffee. (to be continued …) (Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)