Hundreds of people had waited patiently for hours at the railway station to welcome Sen home, as he arrived by a special Eastern Railway saloon car attached to the Shantiniketan Express at 12.25 pm.

The crowd broke into spontaneous applause as the cheerful-looking nobel laureate alighted from the saloon. Sen smiled and waved back.

A red carpet was rolled out for him under tight security, as senior police officers escorted Sen out of the platform through a special `Amartya Gate', installed in his honour.

He was received at the station by Vishwa Bharati Vice-Chancellor Dilip Sinha, senior university officials, office-bearers of the Bolpur Municipality and local political leaders with bouquets and garlands.A group of students of Sen's alma mater Patha Bhavan also welcomed `Amartya Sir'. Sen was admittedto the school founded by country's first nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1942 and topped the ISC examination in 1951.Sen then boarded a white Contessa, provided by the West Bengal Government, specially brought from Calcutta to drive VVIPs during their visits here. An eight-car convoy sped towards `Pratichi', where he had an emotional reunion with his 87-year-old mother.

People gathered various points of the convoy's 3-km route to catch a glimpse of the 64-year-old master of Trinity college, who enthusiastically waved back to them.

``Today is the most memorable day of my life. I have driven presidents, prime ministers and other VVIPs, but this is the first time I'm carrying a nobel laureate,'' said Susantha Das, driver of the Contessa.

Earlier, Sen, accompanied by State Minister for Environment and Tourism, Manab Mukherjee, daughter Antara, and son-in-law Pratik Kanjilal, boarded the Santiniketan Express at Howrah railway station at 10 am amidst cries of `Amartya Sen Zindabad'.

The large crowd atthe station gave the securitymen a tough time.Large crowds also thronged the Burdwan and Guskara railway stations to catch a glimpse of the Nobel laureate.

There was chaos, however, at the Bolpur station and then Sen's residence with lensmen complaining that they were not allowed to take photographs of the Nobel laureate.

The confusion started when the train outshot the platform with the result that the saloon car stopped ahead of the spot where photographers and the electronic media had set up their equipment.

In desperation, the photographers and the electronic media rushed towards the saloon with policemen in tow.

The scene was reprated at Pratichi, where lensmen were denied entry to the house.

A little later, Sen, accompanied by his mother, daughter and son-in-law came to take a stroll in the compound of the house for the benefit of the lensmen, though some of them expressed dissatisfaction that they could not get `good shots'.