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FULLER PORTRAITS
47 The Subhash I Knew was published by Dilip Roy as Netaji-the Man: Reminiscences in 1966 with a few changes. The new title was suggested by Sishir Kumar Bose. Subhas Chandra's nephew. The 'Appendices' given at the end of the latter edition consist of the updated material available on the subject. The author has also included a few excerpts from Subhas Chandra's autobiography, An Indian Pilgrim which was published in 1965.
in Pilgrims of the Stars, too, Roy has written briefly about permanent influence Subhas Chandra Bose had left on his own life.
Though the paths chosen by Dilip Roy and Subhas Chandra Bose were different, they remained in intimate contact. The two met whenever Dilip Roy visited Calcutta. They also frequently corresponded.
Subhas Chandra Bose stood before Roy as an embodiment of various ideals. One of them was determination to dedicate everything to the service of the nation. In Pilgrims of the Stars he notes:
"Subhash... was so utterly one-pointed and dedicated to the ideal of achieving here and now India's political freedom that he said over and over again that first things must come first, and the first need of the hour was India's final liberation from
the stifling alien yoke."68
Dilip Roy felt that "Subhash was a born patriot and a man of action."69 Subhas Chandra Bose used to tell Roy:
"Our spiritual message cannot be borne home to the world at large till we stand finally on our own feet. For the world at large just will not hearken to the psychic message of a race of slaves who subsist to do the will of a heartless bureaucracy of alien masters."70
When Subhas Chandra Bose resigned from the I. C. S., all Indian students in England were elated. They wanted to lead a procession on horse-back, with him at their head before the Buckingham Palace. But he never approved of such admirations and pseudo-patriotism. He always put sincerity and solid organizing work above rhetoric. Once he told Dilip Roy: "To win to freedom is not a joke, Dilip!."?! For him, the cause of the Indian Independence rose above everything, even above his own self and his family. While resigning the degree of the I. C. S., he wrote emphatically to the authorities in England that he could not work under and alien bureaucracy", and he also told them that he could not be loyal to the British Raj and yet serve India honestly heart and soul.” 72 Subhas Chandra's father in India was very much worried fearing that Subhas might be arrested as soon as he arrived in India. But Subhas did not live for father and family alone.
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