• Can we take a look around the college? Not very much seems to have changed.

It’s almost the same, the same grounds, the same principal’s office. There’s the tennis court where I used to play.

• I went to the principal’s office and most of the portraits are the same — Chandrashekhar Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose, just as in many small-town colleges. There are some of students of this college who died fighting terrorism or in Jaffna (during the IPKF operations). This college produces a lot of soldiers.

It has produced many personalities. There are many from this college in the defence services. There are generals and major-generals serving the country. I met my teachers.

• So did I.

Prof Srikanth, Mr Rathi and all. I was perplexed. I was so happy I couldn’t even talk to them.

• You come from a small town and you are driving a rural state, an agricultural state. It has no industrial tradition, but by virtue of being next to Delhi — in fact it surrounds Delhi from three sides — it is now becoming an industrial state.

You’re right. Haryana surrounds Delhi like a horseshoe. There are five national highways joining the capital with the rest of the nation. Four of them run across Haryana.

... contd.