Agarwalla Tries to Divert the German Partnership Project is a commercial betrayal narrowly prevented by Karabi Guha’s decision to act on what she has learned. Agarwalla has obtained the Pakrashis’ detailed plan for a German industrial partnership and intends to meet the German representatives privately, hoping to take the project for himself. His effort depends on Anindo being absent from the Shahjahan Hotel at the crucial moment. Karabi’s intervention brings Anindo there instead, helping preserve the partnership on which the Pakrashi business depends.

The Scheme and Its Stakes

Agarwalla’s plan exploits the Germans’ indifference to which Indian businessman becomes their partner: they are willing to build the factory with him or with the Pakrashis. Having acquired the detailed plan for Industrias Madhab, Agarwalla means to enter the negotiations independently and quietly. He asks repeatedly how long Anindo will remain in town, including a call the night before to find out that day’s schedule. His questions make the proposed meeting more than a sudden opportunity; they show him checking when the Pakrashis will be vulnerable to being bypassed.

Phokla Chatterjee supplies Agarwalla with information and promises to arrange for Anindo not to come to the hotel that evening. Agarwalla, in turn, authorizes spending whatever is needed, whether on an outing, drinks, or anything else required to keep the plan moving. The effort therefore relies not only on access to the business plan but on a paid diversion: Anindo must be kept away while Agarwalla approaches the Germans without the Pakrashi family present.

The stakes are greater than Agarwalla’s maneuver initially appears. Shankar later learns that the Pakrashi business empire is less secure than it seems. Without the German collaboration, its foundations would begin to shake. The attempted diversion threatens, then, to deprive the family of an agreement on which its commercial stability depends.

Karabi’s Decision

Karabi tells Shankar what she has pieced together and admits that until then she had thought her loyalties belonged to the person who employed her. Reading poems Anindo had given her has made her recognize that she has an identity of her own and must answer for her actions. This change in self-understanding gives the scene its moral hinge: she is no longer treating the scheme as someone else’s business simply because her job places her on its edge.

She asks Shankar to call Anindo. He agrees, but insists that Karabi herself must speak to him. When Anindo answers, he explains that he will not be coming to the hotel that evening: he is going out with his uncle, who has promised to introduce him to the poet Jibanananda Das at a poetry reading, after which they will go to the river. Karabi’s lips tremble as she urges him to come to her immediately instead. She does not explain the whole danger over the telephone; the urgency of her request is enough to change the evening’s course.

Karabi comes down at once. Shankar goes to the desk and speaks with William, who owes him a favor and is trying to keep him content. William may have another chance to dine with Rosie if someone covers for him, so the practical arrangement at the desk is bound up with the hotel employees’ own competing obligations. Sata Bose is also present. The scene places Karabi’s risky intervention amid ordinary hotel work rather than outside it: the scheme is exposed in a lobby where staff must still manage the desk and one another’s shifts.

The Plan Is Interrupted

Shankar does not expect the confrontation to unfold before them. Anindo and Agarwalla enter the hotel almost simultaneously. Agarwalla is in good spirits until he sees Anindo, whose presence plainly shocks him. His trousers have slipped below his navel as he pulls them up, a moment of physical disorder that cuts across the polished business explanation he immediately offers. Anindo asks why he is there; Agarwalla claims he has come to see a friend waiting in the bar and says he will leave in a minute. He adds a show of concern for Anindo’s guests and asks to be told if they have any problems.

Anindo goes inside. Agarwalla heads for the lobby telephone, but fails to reach the person he wants. He then tells the desk that, if Phokla comes looking for him, staff should say that he has gone to Mrs. Chakladar’s house. The explanation and instruction show him trying to manage appearances even after the meeting he wanted has been disrupted. Phokla arrives shortly afterward and goes directly to the desk, complaining to Sata Bose that the situation is too much for him and that, at his age, he would be content with a ten-to-five job. His arrival makes the previously concealed link between Agarwalla’s plan and its intermediary visible at the hotel.

Outcome and Significance

Shankar recalls Sata Bose’s warning and his own reluctance to become involved: his work, he had thought, should be his sole concern. But he can no longer remain a silent witness while Agarwalla stabs the Pakrashis in the back. The decision to respond is not presented as a formal investigation or a public accusation. Karabi acts by securing Anindo’s presence, and Shankar’s involvement helps make that intervention possible at the hotel.

Anindo never learns that Karabi’s request protected his family. By assuring her he would be beside her that night, he had unknowingly helped frustrate Agarwalla’s intentions. The eventual newspaper photograph supplies a public counterpoint to the private maneuvering: it shows Madhab Pakrashi signing the memorandum of agreement with the German company, with Anindo at his left. Karabi cries with happiness when she sees it. The agreement confirms that the Pakrashis retained the partnership, while her response reveals the personal consequence of a choice whose importance Anindo himself does not know.