NETAJI --- MAN, MYSTERY AND MYTH ... 2
Born on 23 January, 1897 in the year of Swami Vivekananda's epic lecture tour from Colombo to Almora, Subhas Chandra Bose must have imbibed some of the spirit of the cyclonic monk from within the womb of his mother even as Abhimanyu did in epic times. A strange similarity was borne out between the lives of the two heroes in later years as Subhas matured to lend manhood to a movement for freedom that was increasingly losing direction during the interwar years. The gift that Prabhabati Devi and Janakinath Bose gave to India and to the world bore fruition in a tumultuous career spanning two decades and a half before melting into thin air on 18 August, 1945 whereupon there has been no confirmed news of his whereabouts, so to say, although, legends of his reappearance have grown over the years as a reclusive monk in hiding in several places successively in the province of Uttar Pradesh.
Subhas was a brilliant student, a precocious scholar, a reader voracious who matured fast beyond his years to be burdened with the single thought of liberating his motherland from foreign yoke, a task he dedicated his life to with one-pointed concentration and eventually achieved amidst the circumstances precipitated by his armed aggression against the British Raj. Throughout his academic career at school, college and university he excelled, topping his classes and even securing the second rank in the Matriculation examinations. Thereafter, in a truncated term of eight months he competed in the Indian Civil Service Examination to secure fourth rank but promptly gave up position as I.C.S. to devote himself to the nationalist cause of freedom.
His return to India from Cambridge, England was a hero's homecoming as his sacrifice of the most lucrative career of the day was seen by the world as one of patriotic love, courage and sublime self-giving and it catapulted him to the centre of Congress politics in the Bengal Presidency immediately under the stewardship of the redoubtable Chittaranjan Das.
End of Part 2
To be serialised...
Written by Sugata Bose
Born on 23 January, 1897 in the year of Swami Vivekananda's epic lecture tour from Colombo to Almora, Subhas Chandra Bose must have imbibed some of the spirit of the cyclonic monk from within the womb of his mother even as Abhimanyu did in epic times. A strange similarity was borne out between the lives of the two heroes in later years as Subhas matured to lend manhood to a movement for freedom that was increasingly losing direction during the interwar years. The gift that Prabhabati Devi and Janakinath Bose gave to India and to the world bore fruition in a tumultuous career spanning two decades and a half before melting into thin air on 18 August, 1945 whereupon there has been no confirmed news of his whereabouts, so to say, although, legends of his reappearance have grown over the years as a reclusive monk in hiding in several places successively in the province of Uttar Pradesh.
Subhas was a brilliant student, a precocious scholar, a reader voracious who matured fast beyond his years to be burdened with the single thought of liberating his motherland from foreign yoke, a task he dedicated his life to with one-pointed concentration and eventually achieved amidst the circumstances precipitated by his armed aggression against the British Raj. Throughout his academic career at school, college and university he excelled, topping his classes and even securing the second rank in the Matriculation examinations. Thereafter, in a truncated term of eight months he competed in the Indian Civil Service Examination to secure fourth rank but promptly gave up position as I.C.S. to devote himself to the nationalist cause of freedom.
His return to India from Cambridge, England was a hero's homecoming as his sacrifice of the most lucrative career of the day was seen by the world as one of patriotic love, courage and sublime self-giving and it catapulted him to the centre of Congress politics in the Bengal Presidency immediately under the stewardship of the redoubtable Chittaranjan Das.
End of Part 2
To be serialised...
Written by Sugata Bose
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