SHADOW ON THE DOOR

How symbolic the photograph of Bose with Hitler and Ribbentrop is in the light of the shadow of Bose's profile cast on the door! Chasing the mirage of the Indian dream, ever-drifting, ever-shifting as in a sunlit desert, Bose entered Hell itself to win his Mother freedom. The shadow of his personality would loom large in Hitler's mind for sure as reverse after reverse in the ensuing battles would drive home the validity of Bose's prophesy about the Russian misadventure to the Fuhrer. Who can say how many times Hitler must have thought of the phenomenon that Bose was, for only a lion can recognise a lion, never a sheep as a timid Mahatma nor an opportunist as a cowardly perfidious Pandit? The later developments of Netaji's life have remained so shadowy in the wake of his mysterious disappearance post 18 Aug,1945 that the shadow cast on the door seems indeed symbolic, portentous of the life to follow.