It was after the Dubey story faded from collective memory that my quest to make a documentary on him began. It is extraordinarily difficult to shoot a film on a person without meeting him. All we had were reference points — Satyendra as son, brother, student, friend, mentor, co-worker, boss, role model. But the picture that emerged was so real and so heart-warming, that the one overwhelming regret the entire crew had was that we would never meet the person people were describing with such warmth and admiration. Peons, steno-typists, co-workers, IIT batch-mates and close friends spoke of a man who always went the extra mile, made the extra effort.

“Zabardast insaan the”. “He used to go to the site even late at night to get the work completed, he was absolutely fearless and wanted to do his job perfectly”. “He used to tell us, ‘you private sector people, your horizon is your company, mine is the country, you will walk on our roads to your success’”. The stories as well as his small, spartan office room in Gaya with a towel draped over the chair, revealed choices that made sense only when we went to his roots, his small village, Shahpur, near Sivan, Bihar.

When an entire village tells you their own favourite Satyendra story — of how he helped with advice/ books/money etc — you begin to see why he could never have taken the easy way out and joined the multi-national or gone abroad. When you spend time with his dignified father who returned a compensation cheque, you realise why Satyendra could never have accepted the bribes or not blown the whistle. He was telling the truth, he was doing his job.

... contd.