Dreams of Youth 61That they have but need of courage, and
To call on the name of their God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God that
Loves the peoples
For whom he died naked, suf fering shame.^30Closer to home, Subhas undertook a careful study of Burmese cul-
ture, ancient Indian his tory, and Bengali literature through the medi-
eval, early modern, and modern periods. He even believed he could
supply Rakhaldas Banerjee, a famous ancient Indian historian, with
missing links in the his tory of early and medieval Bengal from his
study of Burmese records. He found Burma to be “a wonderful coun-
try” that had developed “a perfect social democracy.” He noted admir-
ingly that women were more powerful in Burma than in any European
country. The indigenous and inexpensive system of primary education
had resulted in much higher rates of male and female literacy in Burma
than in India. Subhas pursued and urged the acquisition of a deeper
knowledge of his tory, literature, and art. A revival of ancient and medi-
eval Bengali culture, he believed, could serve as the foundation of na-
tional reconstruction, much the way “a revival of classicism laid the
foundation of modern Europe.”^31
“Writing letters has become a prob lem,” Subhas had lamented to
Sarat soon after his arrival in Mandalay: the sword of Damocles was
hanging over his head, in the form of the police censor. “But write I
must,” he had concluded, even if his letters hardly ever reached his re-
cipients intact.^32 Correspondence with family and friends sustained
him during his two- and- a- half- year ordeal in Burmese prisons. Despite
being subjected to the scrutiny of the government censor, Subhas’s
prison letters supply some of the deepest insights into the workings of
his mind. The letters covered a wide array of topics—art, music, litera-
ture, nature, education, folk culture, spirituality, and of course politics.
The correspondence between Subhas and Dilip exemplified the
meaning of friendship. They dwelled on debates about the variable ca-
pacity to bear suf fering and the question of individual aptitude and
sense of fulfillment. Dilip had suggested that it must be Subhas’s philo-
sophical bent of mind that gave him fortitude in adversity. Subhas