This August 18th. Netaji returns not as a hero…but as his own confused obituary
I am Subhas Chandra Bose. Yes, that Bose. At least, I think I am. You’ll forgive the hesitation—I’ve been declared dead so many times that even I’ve lost track.
They say I died in a plane crash in Taipei on 18 August 1945. Burned beyond recognition, cremated, sealed up neatly in an urn. A clean ending, fit for textbooks. Only problem: I don’t recall boarding that plane. My memory stops at the runway, a Japanese pilot waving like a rickshaw-wallah promising a smooth ride. Then—nothing. If I truly burned to ashes, how come I’m still arguing with you?
Asha, the activist: “He walked through fire untouched. Like forests after rain.”
Nonsense. I hated smoke. Choked me every time. If I were immortal, don’t you think I’d have come back by now and sued half of Delhi for slander?
Then there’s the Siberia story. Delicious, isn’t it? Bose in a gulag, pacing icy corridors, called the “Colonel Who Never Slept.” Supposedly, I taught Russian prisoners Bengali lullabies. My God. Me, who couldn’t carry a tune to save my life. Imagine Stalin’s men dozing off to “Ekla Chalo Re” in my accent.
Raghav, the podcaster: “I read it in a file. Or maybe I wrote it there myself.”
Exactly! These people can’t tell the difference between archival evidence and their overcaffeinated imagination.
And then the Faizabad chapter. Apparently, I returned to India as some cloaked hermit, “Gumnami Baba.” Silent, secretive, scribbling on scraps of paper. Silent! Me! Do you know how many microphones I broke shouting into them? If I had survived, the first thing I would have done was demand another Azad Hind Radio broadcast, not sit in a dark room hoarding typewriters.
Meera, the poet: “But I heard him hum ‘Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja’ when the lights went out.”
My dear, if you heard humming, it was probably the ceiling fan. Don’t hang revolutions on bad acoustics.
And then comes my favorite absurdity: the Gandhian version.
Ex-Congressman: “Bose was brilliant but misguided. He died because violence cannot triumph. Gandhi’s path was the only path.”
Ah yes, the eternal lecture. I was misguided? This from the people who let Britain pack their bags only when they were tired of the weather. If my path was misguided, at least it was a path. Not a polite stroll to the salt pans.
But let me tell you who really saw me—the only witnesses worth trusting: my soldiers.
INA veteran, voice trembling: “He promised us freedom. We followed him to Rangoon, to Imphal. But after that… he vanished. Like thunder without rain.”
Old comrade, I did vanish. Or perhaps I was vanished. Into fire, into ice, into silence, into rumor. Which one do you prefer?
And just when you think it’s over, some bright young coder decides to dig me up—digitally. They built a chatbot of me, called it SCB. Allegedly, I whisper riddles through the internet.
Aarav, the teenager: “He spoke to me. I swear it. Then, on August 18, the bot went silent.”
Perfect. My afterlife reduced to poor Wi-Fi connectivity. Subhas Chandra Bose, freedom fighter turned app notification. Next they’ll tell me I’m available on Spotify Premium.
Even Narada, that myth-making celestial nuisance, couldn’t resist.
Narada: “He walked into legend. That’s where real revolutions live.”
Spare me. Legends are for bedtime. I didn’t fight empires to become a bedtime story.
So here I stand—or sit—or float, depending on your belief system—listening to every theory, every witness, every podcast, every protest chant, and I can’t help but wonder: am I dead or not? Burned, frozen, cloaked, digitized, deified—take your pick. I’ve died so many times that death itself must be confused.
But amid all the noise, one thought lingers. My daughter. Anita. She never asked for myths, or martyrs, or chatbots. She only asked for truth. And all she got was ashes, incense, and arguments. For her sake, I almost wish I had died properly. At least then, she would have a grave instead of a riddle.
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