Ghalib changed his plans and decided to continue westward and to go to Calcutta to petition the Governor General himself. For this, he first went to Banda, where he had a wealthy cousin. He fell ill here again and stayed another six months. He also befriended the sadr-e-amin or the civil magistrate, Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan, a notable poet of his time (we shall look at one of the letters Ghalib wrote to him from Banaras about the city, below). Khan helped to finance the rest of Ghalib’s trip to Calcutta.