ME AND MY IDENTITY TO BE SETTLED ONCE AND FOR ALL IN A VERY LONG ESSAY---SORRY IF I HAPPEN TO RUFFLE A FEW FEATHERS ALONG

ME AND MY IDENTITY TO BE SETTLED ONCE AND FOR ALL IN A VERY LONG ESSAY---SORRY IF I HAPPEN TO RUFFLE A FEW FEATHERS ALONG

I hate being falsely associated by hundreds and hundreds of people of inaccurate understanding that I am a member of Netaji's extended family simply because I am the namesake of a certain member of the said family. My profile self-description clearly states that I am unrelated to Netaji. My cover picture and my profile picture both announce in luminous terms that I bear a distinctly different visage to the said gentleman who has himself never mistaken me to be him. And gramercy so! This constant false association, often accusation that I am impersonating him, is an insult to my person, my parents, my family and my entire lineage to as far back as I am privy to. I consider myself blessed to have been born of my parents and of none else, that my siblings are not of any other family but mine and I in no way give in to this slavish mentality that we as a race so often exhibit in hyper-adulation of a particular individual and his family to the extent that all others become inconsequential, a la non-person as if in communist parlance. This is dynastic mentality, the inertial carry-over of the feudalism of yore which we have left behind at least Constitutionally but sadly are victim to it in the social scene. If the forest brute persists in us despite city-civilisation adorning our lives in a pervasive way, it is small wonder that adoration of Netaji should linger on as infatuation for his future extended family members who are in no way exceptional as to deserve this sort of adulation or superlative treatment at the expense of others.

A host of my Facebook friends had initially mistaken me to be this other gentleman on account of this peculiar disposition that seems characteristic of our race which is manifest in our general slipshodness that results in our failure to successfully compete at the highest level of international sports as also to win Nobel Prizes on a regular basis.

A curious thing that happened once was that one of Sarat Bose's grandsons in trying to clear confusion about my identity in one of these online stumbler's minds eminently said that I did not belong to the Bose family to which I in derisive delight asked the offending gentleman if I in his opinion then belonged to the Ghosh family 😃. For it seems in these people's minds one cannot be a Sugata Bose unless one happens to be the one who was born of Sisir Bose and Krishna Bose. That much for the titular (surname) tolerance of the followers of Netaji in regard to all such 'dare you be a Bose' such as me and, to top it all, with our historian's name. But what to do? Providence has cast me in this life in a Bose family by birth and thence unwittingly prompted my parents to preserve my identity by giving me the name Sugata. Now, would you dare question Providence or be so uncouth as to do so my parents for lavishing their love on their progeny thus?

Written by Sugata Bose