TO BE OR NOT TO BE MYSELF
I am not Prof. Bose or Netaji's some supposed grandson if ever he had one. I am content to be Sri Sugata Bose with no blood-bond whatsoever to Netaji's extended family. Therefore, dispel your illusions and delusions about me and desist from misidentifying me with historian or politician or grand-nephew of Netaji of scholarly eminence and allow me my microscopic space of self-survival in my own humble way.
This sort of undeserved and unwarranted adulation of my person, mistaking me for another, is uncalled for, and this kind of fascination with Netaji's familial descendants is productive of unwholesome dynastic dispensations which our motherland continues to badly suffer from. At its least level of toxicity it leads to the personality cult which in principle is highly incongruous in a democratic polity.
What the cause of this misapprehension of my identity is, has never been quire adequately explained to me by any of my Facebook friends, unnumbered among them having been initially prone to the same error. If my cover picture misleads, then I must say, ' "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings." '
My honourable Monsieur, the cover picture expressly reveals my identity, my contrasting features from that of the venerable Prof. Bose you confuse me with. A fair comparison of the profiles of the twain will set the record straight in your befuddled mind. If the cameramen apparently photographing me, as seemingly revealed in my cover photograph, deludes you into such exaggerated estimation of my attainments and lineage, I must illumine you then adequately on that count, too.
The occasion was Mother Teresa's Centenary Memorial Meet held at the Terrace Garden of Taj Bengal, Kolkata, in 2011 with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama the Chief Guest and the memorial speaker. Eminent personalities such as Sunita and Naresh Kumar who were the organising hosts, Sister Marie Prema who is the Sister Superior of the Missionaries of Charity, the ex-Governor of West Bengal, N.K. Narayanan, the TMC leader, Derryck O'Brian, the tennis legend, Leander Paes, film actress, June Malia, and a host of other leading lights of society attended the meet. There I was as well, insignificant me, invited specially by Sister Lynn, the Sister-in-charge of the Centenary Memorial Celebrations.
Inconspicuous as I was, I stood up, nonetheless, to greet His Holiness in Tibetan and proceeded to ask him a pertinent question on the inception of Buddhism in Tibet. This was in the Q & A Session following an enthralling and quite a humorous speech by the exiled leader. It was then that my photograph was clicked by the official photographer, the source of all my suppoosed Facebook fame of an ulterior kind and my consequent discomfiture at that.
Now, Monsieur, may I request you to take off your high-powered lens and behold me with the eye bestowed on you originally by Nature. It is unbecoming to foist on others one's imagined identities and to then proceed to enter into deliberations with them. I neither deserve such misplaced honour nor do I feel gratified by misjudged identity. I am happy to be myself, the old fool that amuses the courtiers of this kingdom of God. And be thou pleased to be amused by this present jest by way of affable gesture to thee as well.
Concluding now this long address and hoping to hold your attention,
I thank you in my much befuddling name,
Yours in truth,
Solely, wholly in truth,
Sugata Bose of an alternate identity, family and lineage.
I am not Prof. Bose or Netaji's some supposed grandson if ever he had one. I am content to be Sri Sugata Bose with no blood-bond whatsoever to Netaji's extended family. Therefore, dispel your illusions and delusions about me and desist from misidentifying me with historian or politician or grand-nephew of Netaji of scholarly eminence and allow me my microscopic space of self-survival in my own humble way.
This sort of undeserved and unwarranted adulation of my person, mistaking me for another, is uncalled for, and this kind of fascination with Netaji's familial descendants is productive of unwholesome dynastic dispensations which our motherland continues to badly suffer from. At its least level of toxicity it leads to the personality cult which in principle is highly incongruous in a democratic polity.
What the cause of this misapprehension of my identity is, has never been quire adequately explained to me by any of my Facebook friends, unnumbered among them having been initially prone to the same error. If my cover picture misleads, then I must say, ' "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings." '
My honourable Monsieur, the cover picture expressly reveals my identity, my contrasting features from that of the venerable Prof. Bose you confuse me with. A fair comparison of the profiles of the twain will set the record straight in your befuddled mind. If the cameramen apparently photographing me, as seemingly revealed in my cover photograph, deludes you into such exaggerated estimation of my attainments and lineage, I must illumine you then adequately on that count, too.
The occasion was Mother Teresa's Centenary Memorial Meet held at the Terrace Garden of Taj Bengal, Kolkata, in 2011 with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama the Chief Guest and the memorial speaker. Eminent personalities such as Sunita and Naresh Kumar who were the organising hosts, Sister Marie Prema who is the Sister Superior of the Missionaries of Charity, the ex-Governor of West Bengal, N.K. Narayanan, the TMC leader, Derryck O'Brian, the tennis legend, Leander Paes, film actress, June Malia, and a host of other leading lights of society attended the meet. There I was as well, insignificant me, invited specially by Sister Lynn, the Sister-in-charge of the Centenary Memorial Celebrations.
Inconspicuous as I was, I stood up, nonetheless, to greet His Holiness in Tibetan and proceeded to ask him a pertinent question on the inception of Buddhism in Tibet. This was in the Q & A Session following an enthralling and quite a humorous speech by the exiled leader. It was then that my photograph was clicked by the official photographer, the source of all my suppoosed Facebook fame of an ulterior kind and my consequent discomfiture at that.
Now, Monsieur, may I request you to take off your high-powered lens and behold me with the eye bestowed on you originally by Nature. It is unbecoming to foist on others one's imagined identities and to then proceed to enter into deliberations with them. I neither deserve such misplaced honour nor do I feel gratified by misjudged identity. I am happy to be myself, the old fool that amuses the courtiers of this kingdom of God. And be thou pleased to be amused by this present jest by way of affable gesture to thee as well.
Concluding now this long address and hoping to hold your attention,
I thank you in my much befuddling name,
Yours in truth,
Solely, wholly in truth,
Sugata Bose of an alternate identity, family and lineage.
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