August 1947. Calcutta. Only a few more days before India is to become a free nation. Sarat Chandra Bose, elder brother of Subhas Chandra Bose, is very angry. He has just heard from Congress leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardarbhai Patel, that his beloved younger brother had lived with a woman in Germany since his dramatic escape from British house arrest in India, and that he had had a lovechild. Neither Sarat Bose nor the rest of the family in India knew anything about this. And there was no way he could contact Subhas on the matter. He was missing. Killed in an air crash reportedly, in Taiwan in 1945. Though his own investigations had convinced him that Subhas was still alive, somewhere, he had no clue where he was.

“The truth is that Netaji was married to the woman in question, a fact Nehru and Patel did not disclose to Sarat Bose because it served their purpose,” Madhuri Bose, Netaji’s grand-niece, told Outlook . Daughter of Sarat Bose’s son Amiyanath, Madhuri belongs to a part of the family which has... THIS ARTICLE IS PRICELESS... To read this piece, and more such stories in India's most exciting and exacting magazine, plus get access to our 25-year archives goldmine, please subscribe.

