The Netaji Subash Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum in Cuttack. Telegraph picture

Cuttack, Jan. 15: Netaji’s headmaster at Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack had “roused” his “aesthetic and moral sense”.

But Swami Vivekananda’s works gave him “an ideal” to which he could give his “whole being”.

This very spiritual facet is the theme of a new gallery coming up at the Netaji Subash Chandra Bose Birthplace Museum here. The gallery will be ready to mark his 116th birth anniversary on January 23.

The new gallery on the spiritual life of Netaji, according to museum officials, has been based on detailed research and indications in Subash Chandra Bose’s An Indian Pilgrim, an unfinished autobiography.

“The gallery is aimed at highlighting the crisis Netaji was undergoing at 15 while concentrating on life’s goal and how his spiritual life was shaped after he read the works of Vivekananda,” curator and museum-in-charge J.P. Das told The Telegraph today.

Born in Cuttack on January 23, 1897, Subash passed the matriculation examination in 1913 from Ravenshaw Collegiate School and moved on to Presidency College in Calcutta that same year.

“He started reading the works of Vivekananda on the advice of a neighbour, Tarachandra Gangopadhay, the son of an English professor at Ravenshaw College, Gopal Chandra Gangopadhay,” Das said.

The new gallery will also have photographs of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Aurobindo Ghosh who influenced his life.

“A photograph of Anukul Chandra will also be a part of the gallery. Netaji’s father Janakinath Bose was a follower of Anukul Chandra. This is believed to have influenced his childhood,” the museum curator said.