The Flame Still Burns Bright

Today is the birthdate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Though, India doesn't hold him as important as to grant a national holiday, he still burns like a fire in many hearts.

I first came to know about Netaji when I was a small child. My father has a portrait of him alongside Rabindranath Thakur at our home. My father - then 17 years old - bought the portrait from a road-side vendor. He never abandoned it though many things changed with time.

I still remember how I came to know about him. One day, I was quite bored while playing with a set of model airplanes. My father was reading his copy of Anandabazar Patrika at a chair nearby. My mind wandered off and I asked my father who the 'military man' is (Rabindranath Thakur as an old man with a long beard didn't interest me then...I was a child!). He kept his paper aside for a while and began explaining things I didn't know about. I came to know about how Britishers enslaved our country for a brutal 200 years. I was told about men and women who worked relentlessly against the oppression of the Imperialists. And, finally came the name of Subhas Chandra Bose.

I will not add endless details about Netaji here. I am no scholar in his life nor great enough to comment on his feats.

But, I am interested in other things - how could a man become such a figure? How men like him can do things other people can't? How could a boy interested in philosophy rose to such prominence against a colonialist superpower?

I guess we can't say for sure. But what we can learn from his story is that endless perseverance and a steadfast unwillingness to accept what is wrong, can move mountains.

118 years later, a person is writing about a child born on this day. The man knows in his heart that the flame still burns bright.....