My gratitude-heart-offerings

I cannot close this chapter without mentioning the genuine, authoritative and illumining books about Netaji that have been written by Dr. Sisir Kumar Bose and Dr. Krishna Bose. No student of Indian history can hope to fathom the loftiest ideals and the most significant events of the years before India's independence without reading the first and foremost biography of Netaji, Dr. Sisir Bose's immortal book, The Flaming Sword Forever Unsheathed.

Again, he is the only one, aside from Netaji himself, who could have described the unimaginably daring and dangerous sequence of events leading to Netaji's escape from Calcutta, India. At every moment death threatened to embrace not only Netaji but Sisir Bose himself. This has been most lucidly and inimitably narrated in his book The Great Escape. Netaji's escape was the question of questions. His nephew Sisir Kumar's book, The Great Escape, is the only answer.

I also found a great deal to learn in Dr. Krishna Bose's book Netaji: A Biography for the Young. This most significant and instructive historical account has been written by her expressly for the younger generation.

At the eleventh hour, while I was writing this book in Japan, I was able to procure copies of her two immortal books Itihaser Sandhane and Charanrekha Taba from America. To my heart's greatest delight, I discovered that Dr. Krishna Bose had made pilgrimages to Germany and a few European countries (Itihaser Sandhane) and, a few years later, to Japan and some Asian countries (Charanrekha Taba) in order to trace the hallowed footsteps of Netaji. With a curious mind and a throbbing heart, she visited the places where Netaji's memories have been preserved sacredly, glowingly and proudly. These books provide a vast wealth of first-hand information-experiences about Netaji's most laudable activities in those countries. They are at once vividly informative and soulfully contemplative.

Indeed, these books, along with their other works, are indispensable if we desire to admire the beauty and adore the fragrance of Subhas Chandra's universal heart.