why did subhas telegraph an afgan friend to meet him in kolkata??
Answers
KOLKATA: In the 1940s, the sprawling Bose family with Prabhavati Devi as the matriarch living in two addresses — 38/2 Elgin Road and 1 Woodburn Park — owned several cars. The large Studebaker was used for family outings. The compact Opel was preferred by men for going about town to carry out errands. The Wanderer was also there for everyday use. When Subhas Chandra Bose was finalizing the Great Escape in the winter of 1940, he decided on the Wanderer W24. On the face of it, the Wanderer was an unusual choice. It’s powerful engine made a racket, not quite the getaway car in the dead of night. The Opel was quieter. But Subhas’ decision lay on an unusual quality in the German-made saloon: unlike the other cars in the Bose family fleet, the Wanderer could do long distances without the need to stop and water the radiator. In those pre-coolant days, overheating caused problem, particularly on long drives.
There was another consideration. His nephew Sisir, then barely 20, drove the Wanderer and had the endurance to be at the wheel for hours. On the fateful day, Sisir drove all night to reach his elder brother Ashok Nath’s bungalow at Barari in the morning. Subhas, disguised as Md Ziauddin, an insurance agent, alighted from the car well before the bungalow. Sisir drove down, while Subhas walked cautiously. The duo spent the day in the house. Later that evening, Sisir, Ashok and his wife, Mira, dropped Subhas off at Gomoh station from where he took the Kalka Mail.
“Subhas was supposed to catch the train from either Dhanbad or Asansol. But Ashok Nath advised him to take the train from Gomoh because it was less busy and the chance of being spotted was low,” said Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew Abhijit Ray, who has researched on the Great Escape, a clandestine journey that began in the wee hours of January 17, 1941 from 38/2 Elgin Road in Kolkata and ended three months later in Berlin when Goebell’s radio service announced to the world that he had evaded the British intelligence and reached the German capital to seek Hitler’s help.
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Sisir returned to Woodburn Park on the evening of January 18.
Despite being tired, he then attended a wedding at CR Das’s house, on his father Sarat’s insistence.