4
IN
MEMORY OF NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE, THE UNFORGOTTEN HERO
-
Arghya Singh (India)
O, the dedicated child of Mother India,
The intrepid spirit of your motherland you
were;
An ardent devotee of the revered Swamiji,
The true leader of your indigenous populace
you were.
That was the monk of knowledge–––Swami
Vivekananda,
The sage of wisdom whose teachings did seed
The passionate feelings of patriotism in the
young mind,
The young Subhas Bose, the brave-heart who
dared to challenge
The mighty authority of the Crown, the
audacious paws of Imperialism.
O, Bose, the Messiah as a divine gift to us
you were,
You were the savior of our race, our culture.
You nurtured your ambition –––– the sole one
To free India, to unchain your motherland
From the shackles of the colonial misrule.
You, the scion of a high lineage,
Could have dreamt of a lucrative career for
A lifestyle of abundant comfort, which easily
Could you have ensured by dint of your merit
and hardship;
The brilliant ward of a well-educated family,
You had in possession a high degree of
academic talent
Which you achieved because of your earnest
craving
For learning and by burning the midnight oil.
Much time you didn’t take to realize that
It was impossible to serve your nation as a
civil servant,
As perception of yours was that serving the
British Crown and
Rendering service to the nation couldn’t be
simultaneously accomplished.
You being an ideal lover of your country
dared
To forsake the lucrative and enviable job of
a bureaucrat
Inspite of the fact that you stood fourth
In the ICS Examination only after a few
months of rigorous study.
You took a major leap forward
By joining the national movement for the sake
of our country.
You did take a plunge in Indian national
politics
With the sole intent of freeing Mother India.
You always dreamt of an independent India,
But, alas! Could you see the same you
desired?
You, yourself, were an able leadership, you
were
Everybody’s leader and you had affection for
everybody of your country;
Your popularity enraged the Imperial agents
of the Union Jack
And you embraced imprisonment a number of
times.
You led a stiff hunger strike at Mandalay
jail,
There you passed starving days and sleepless
nights by
Delving yourself in reading several books
until
Your health deteriorated seriously.
O, the rising sun of India’s independence,
Among the then three hundred million
population
You instilled rays of hope for liberation
from
The plight of dependency under the ruthless
rule of the blue eyes.
Your passionate call “Give me blood and I
shall give you freedom”
Did appeal to the thousands of your brothers
and sisters;
You raised an incredible militia –––– the
Azad Hind Fauj
And thousands of hands joined you in the venture.
You cherished the idea –––– like cures the
like,
And so you threw dust in the eyes of the
White Masters
By means of escape from home internment and
Fleeing to Germany to seek the aid of the
Nazis,
And then you made your way to the land of the
rising sun
Risking your life, passing through perils in
the seas.
The springing tiger, you were a threat to the
Raj,
You made the Imperialists suffer from a
nightmare
That their misrule would come to an end;
You launched attacks on the Empire from the
corners,
The beginning of a new dawn you marked for
the soil.
As a one man striking force you stood against
the dark reign
Like shoots defy gravity and pervade hard
rocks.
But did a plane crash claim this valiant
soul?
Heroes like you perish never; eternally
etched
Are those priceless gems in their nation’s
memory.
****