Plastic dreams

Sir ? In ?Mallika?s Cannes Cannes act? (May 27), Subhash K. Jha describes Aishwarya Rai as ?the true face of Indian womanhood?. On the contrary, Rai, like the rest of her ilk, goes out of her way to style herself as an occidental, rather than a buxom oriental. Far from epitomizing ?Indianness?, Rai?s flawless china-doll image feeds the poor man?s fantasy of the desi gori mem. Also why is Jha selectively abusing Zeenat Aman and Mallika Sherawat by calling them ?wet-dream girls?? Can any female make it in Bollywood if she isn?t the stuff of Indian males? wet dreams? Jha adds insult to injury by stating that ?curry exotica? can be replaced by ?dime-store exotica? at the peril of ?foreigners? losing respect for Indian cinema. For one, the exotica ? curry or dime-store ? is fake and does not inspire respect. Second, Indian cinema is not synonymous with a few Rais and Sherawats.

Yours faithfully,
Arpa Ghosh, Calcutta

Man and hero

Sir ? Emilie Schenkl told her family and Leonard Gordon, says Sarmila Bose in ?Love in the Time of War? (May 15), that she and Subhas Chandra Bose were married on December 26, 1937. But in a case against Jayasree Prakashan, Sisir Bose stated in his affidavit in 1977 that Bose had married Emilie in 1942. In Brothers Against the Raj, Gordon says about the date of the alleged marriage, ?Krishna implied 1941.? Shekhar Bose?s well-known book, Netajir Sahadharmini, informed us that it had happened in 1941, while in 1994, Sisir Bose and Sugata Bose, in their editors? introduction to volume 7 of Netaji?s collected works, wrote that the marriage had taken place in 1937. Who was speaking the truth?

No one ever claimed to have witnessed the so-called marriage. Nor has the authenticity of the much talked about letter to ?mejda? (Sarat Bose) ever been examined. All that we have about this letter is that Sarat Bose, after receiving it, visited Vienna in 1948 and welcomed Emilie and Anita into the family. Questions like when he received it, who sent it, and so on remain unanswered. Will Sarmila Bose tell us why the said letter did not surface during Sarat Bose?s lifetime?

Is it believable that a man like Subhas Bose, after his marriage in 1937, would state his marital status as single in 1939 in his visa application to visit China? The alleged marriage was such a closely-guarded secret that even the British intelligence failed to lay their hands on it. It is a pity that the British missed a golden chance of trivializing Bose?s daring escapades as desperate efforts to meet his wife in Germany. But kudos to Sarmila Bose who, unfazed by the absence of any corroborative evidence, has spearheaded the selling of this garbage to the gullible.

Yours faithfully,
Nandalal Chakrabarti, Calcutta

Sir ? Sarmila Bose says that ?the prospect of being totally cut off from his beloved for an indefinite period of time...would have been a calamity of unbearable proportions for Bose?, implying that this was behind his journey to Europe in 1941. This was the same Netaji who had declared to Emilie Schenkl that for him, love for his motherland came first. What about Subhas Bose?s letters to his mother, written in his teens, where he compares the goddess Durga to Mother India and expresses his willingness to sacrifice himself for her? Alas, the modern generation, with its fashionable cynicism, does not appreciate the passion of a Bose. If Subhas Bose made two hazardous expeditions to be with Schenkl, what thesis would the author offer for his journey east, from Germany to Indonesia, leaving behind Emilie and two-month-old Anita? Leonard Gordon is not even sure whether he had the time to see his newborn daughter, regardless of what Shyam Benegal shows in his film.

It seems to me that Sarmila Bose?s fanciful suggestions reveal more about her mindset than they do about her grand-uncle. In fact, she is following in the footsteps of her other grand-uncle, Nirad Chaudhuri, who famously denigrated Subhas Bose in Thy Hand, Great Anarch.

Yours faithfully,
Dwarka Nath Bose, Calcutta

Sir ? Sarmila Bose?s thesis threatens to pull down Subhas Chandra Bose from his pedestal of a national hero. Leonard Gordon?s comments about the changes in Bose after he fell in love are not new and very human. Bose himself has dealt with some of these feelings in An Indian Pilgrim. Sarmila Bose may say that his desire to be with Schenkl was uppermost in Netaji?s mind when he went to Europe. But his first letter to her is dated April 3, 1941 a full week after he arrived in Berlin on March 28. His first business on reaching Germany had been to organize plans to wage the battle for India?s independence. Also, there is no mystery about why Bose wanted to go to the Soviet Union. As a socialist state, he felt that it would be the only big power in favour of India?s freedom.

Another point. The 1939 Congress session took place in Tripuri, a small town on the Narmada, and not Tripura.

Yours faithfully,
Pijush Kanti Roy, Barrackpore