The immensity of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Netaji is mind-boggling and I can draw no definite conclusion about it. There are so many theories doing the rounds and so much of claims and counter-claims that the mind reels and one is led into maze where the exit is totally blinded from sight.

The Air-crash Theory now debunked by the Justice Mukherjee Commission Enquiry Report continues to draw its adherents who posit the reliability of testament of several eye-witnesses to the air-accident and its aftermath.

The fact that Netaji had escaped to Soviet Russia seeking Stalin's help to continue his war for freedom against imperialism has its considerable number of adherents as well. While groups holding this view thereafter differ as to the fate of the leader, they all agree that there was no air-crash after all, that it was a ruse to help facilitate the escape of Netaji to a safe haven post Japan's surrender in World War II.

The departure between rival Russian angle theorists now begins. While some claim that he was incarcerated in a Siberian gulag by Stalin's orders in compliance with agreement with the Anglo-American Allies of WW II and after several years of enslavement there was executed by Stalin, others say that Netaji was 'an honoured guest' of the Soviet leader and was subsequently released to essay his way through Red China eventually into India.

Here comes the twist now. Netaji, according to the protagonists of this theory, continues to wander as a monk incognito with the tag of 'international war criminal' hanging on his head like a loose noose any moment to strangulate him should he be detected somehow. He wanders through Uttar Pradesh, settling for short whiles at different places like Neemsar, Purani Basti, Ayodhya and, finally, Faizabad where he gives up his body on 16 September, 1985.