184 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
least a dozen intelligence agents employed by the central and provincial
governments to ferret out information on what might be going on in-
side. One such agent dutifully reported that Subhas, upon his return
home on December 5, had oatmeal porridge and vegetable soup, and
his voice sounded quite normal. From that day onward, all his visitors
were monitored and his correspondence was intercepted, copied, and
read at the post of fice before being dispatched or delivered. During the
week following Bose’s return home, the agents mostly reported that
he was discussing affairs of the Congress parliamentary board and
planning an all- India protest calling for the release of detainees. On
December 12, he reportedly formed a council of action for that move-
ment.^9
Unbeknownst to those who imagined they had him under strict
surveillance, Bose had by that time taken a decisive step for action of
a very different sort. On the afternoon of December 5, Subhas had
warmly clasped the hand of his nephew Sisir for an unusually long
time. Sisir, the third son of Sarat Chandra Bose, was a twenty- year- old
student at Calcutta Medical College. The following week, once the
stream of visitors of the first few days had ebbed, Subhas sent for Si-
sir at Sarat’s three- story mansion, 1 Woodburn Park—another premier
po lit i cal address in early twentieth- century Calcutta. Sarat’s home
had spacious rooms with high ceilings, an impressive marble stair-
case, curved southern verandahs, and sophisticated Western furnish-
ings. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru stayed there as Sarat’s
guests during visits to the city. Gandhi held his prayer meetings on its
terrace, and the house had served as the venue for im por tant po lit i cal
conferences of the Indian National Congress. Having received his un-
cle’s summons, Sisir walked immediately from one Bose house to the
other.
The WandererSisir had always been in awe of his Rangakakababu, his radiant uncle.
Looking pale and thin, with a bushy half- grown beard, Subhas was re-
clining on his pillows when Sisir entered his bedroom that December
afternoon. Subhas bade his nephew take a seat on the bed, to his right.