One Man and a World at War 185After looking at Sisir intensely for a few minutes, Subhas asked, “Amar
ekta kaj korte parbe?”—“Can you do some work for me?”^10 Without
knowing what sort of kaj (“work”) he was being asked to do, Sisir nod-
ded. The task, as it turned out, was to help plan and execute Subhas’s
escape from India. Sisir would have to drive his uncle, in the dead of
night, to a railway station quite a long distance from Calcutta. Subhas
stressed that they needed to draw up a “fool- proof ” plan of escape. No
one must know, except for Sisir’s sister Ila, who would make sure peo-
ple thought Subhas was still at home. This encounter between uncle
and nephew closed with Subhas asking Sisir to return the next evening
with clear- cut ideas. Sisir walked back to 1 Woodburn Park “in a state
of wonder and subdued excitement.”^11
The next evening, Subhas and Sisir had the first of many daily con-
fabulations to perfect their plan. Though it was quite normal for a
nephew to visit an ailing uncle, they found an additional excuse to ac-
count for the frequency of the visits: Sisir, who was good at operating
the radio, was ostensibly helping Subhas listen to foreign radio broad-
casts. In fact, Subhas was closely following the course of the war by lis-
tening to news and analysis from London, Berlin, Moscow, and Rome.
After the German Blitzkrieg, France lay prostrate, Britain was reeling
under bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, and the German- Soviet pact
signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov in 1939
was still holding fast. Bose saw Britain’s dif fi culty as India’s opportunity
to break free, but his first challenge was to fig ure out how, exactly, to
take advantage of the international crisis.
After discussing various possible ways of exiting from 38/2 Elgin
Road, Subhas and Sisir decided to drive out, in the most natural fash-
ion, through the main driveway and gate. There were two cars to choose
from: an American Studebaker President registered in the name of Si-
sir’s mother, Bivabati, and a German car called the Wanderer registered
in Sisir’s name. The American vehicle was larger and more powerful,
but too easily recognizable as Sarat’s car. Subhas and Sisir deemed the
Wanderer more suitable for their journey. They decided that Subhas
would be in disguise and that the exact date of the escape would de-
pend on arrangements to be made in the North- West Frontier Province
(NWFP).