Gangadhar Pant was an eminent writer of Pune. He had written the ‘History of India’ in five volumes. During his train journey he was wondering what course history would have taken if the result of the Battle of Panipat had gone the other way, This helped him to make a transition to the other world. India was altogether different country in this world. Unlike the India he knew so well, the India he was witnessing around his was self-sufficient and selfrespecting. It was independent. It had never been enslaved by the white men. It had allowed the British to retain Bombay as their sole outpost. This was done for purely commercial reasons. These buildings and offices in this British Bombay were same as in typical high street of a town in England. East India House, the headquarters of the East India Company was housed in an imposing building outside Bombay V.T. The station itself looked remarkably neat and clean. The staff was mostly made of Anglo Indians and Parsees along with a handful of British officers.
The Bombay, he knew, was altogether different. The offices of OCS buildings peeped above the shorter Victorian buildings. There was handloom House as well.
