I reported for duty at Calcutta and was asked by Col. Ewing where I would like to be posted and I replied that I was completely new to India and he could post me wherever he wanted but keeping in mind that I had just returned after 21 days trek in a difficult mountainous terrain. I was posted to Asansol in West Bengal as Assistant Executive Engineer, Government of India in charge of Aviation works in constructing airfields for the Royal Air Force and the American Air Force.

Where to stay the night at Asansol?

I can recollect that when I first landed at Asansol late in one evening, I just did not know where I was going to halt for the night. A porter approached me and finding that I had no place to go to, suggested that I may spend the night in one of the cheap hotels nearby and he was even kind enough to take me to that place. The place was awful and my bed was so full of bugs that I could hardly sleep throughout the night.

Anyway, in the morning I was able to trace my office and from that time onwards, I was very well looked after by my staff. I had a very nice time at Asansol with the Railway friends there and took an active part in the All Saints Church where the Pastor was one Rev. Mitchell who many years later became a Methodist Bishop and served as Vice-chairman when I took over as Chairman, CASA. I was posted at Asansol for about two years from 1942 to 1944 where I constructed the  airfield at Kalipahari for the Royal Air Force,   complete with all the technical and residential accommodation and bomb shelters for the planes.

Two hundred birds and a feast of eggs  

I was staying within the Air Force complex and was allotted a big bungalow where I had a Poultry Run with almost two hundred birds of all kinds, like leghorns, Rhode islands, black Minorca, country fowls and so many other minor varieties. The large number of eggs that I used to get every day was freely distributed to all my friends. I was then posted to Purulia in West Bengal to construct Charra airfield for the American Air Force with all the connected accommodation to meet their technical and domestic requirements. Here also, I had a wonderful time with my  Christian friends and attended and took part in the church there.

A cobra under my bed

I was residing at an old palace of a Maharani with large-sized rooms but so old as to harbour a number of cobras with their young ones in the rooms that were kept locked by her. A number of times I had to kill the small cobras whenever they came out into the accommodation that was allotted to me.

The climate of Purulia was so hot that I used to sleep on a bed over a chabutra,  a circular concrete platform,  right out in the open, far from the house using a mosquito net  as mosquitoes were plenty. I was told by some of my contractors who came to see me quite early in the morning that they always saw a big cobra sleeping under my bed and so they had to leave without meeting me.

By the time I got up from my bed, the cobra probably slid back to its home, as I never had the chance to see the cobra. God has been looking after me through a guardian angel. I could have stepped on the cobra and got bitten if I had got up early on any of the mornings.