3 Dreams of Youth
Ideas will work out their own destiny, and we who are but clods of
clay encasing sparks of the Divine Fire have only got to consecrate
ourselves to these ideas.
—subhas chandra bose to Sarat Chandra Bose, from Insein Jail,
May 6, 1927
Having completed his Cambridge degree in philosophy, Subhas Chan-
dra Bose set sail for India with an unwavering sense of mission to serve
his country’s cause. He landed in Bombay on July 16, 1921, and that
very afternoon he rushed to see Gandhi at Mani Bhavan, the Mahat-
ma’s usual residence in the city.
Gandhi sat in the middle of a large room decorated with Indian car-
pets. He was surrounded by some of his closest followers, who all wore
Indian garments made of khadi, handspun and handwoven cotton.
Gandhi had adopted the charkha, the spinning wheel, as one of the key
symbols of Indian mass nationalism. Feeling somewhat out of place,
Subhas opened the conversation by apologizing for his European attire.
He was soon put at ease by the Mahatma’s “characteristic hearty smile”
and warm indulgence. The eager and impatient young recruit bom-
barded the leader, who was more than double his age, with a series of
insistent questions. How would the movement of nonviolent noncoop-
eration that Gandhi had been spearheading since 1920 accelerate in
stages toward its climax in the nonpayment of taxes to the govern-
ment? How could that and civil disobedience compel the foreign rulers