9
A Life Immortal
Let us all try to be brave at the loss of one of the bravest of men.
His will be done.
—sisir kumar bose to Bivabati Bose, August 27, 1945In late August 1945, Emilie was sitting in the kitchen at her Vienna
home with her mother and sister. While rolling some wool into balls,
she was as usual listening to the evening news on the radio. Suddenly
the newsreader announced that the Indian “quisling” Subhas Chandra
Bose had been killed in an air crash at Taihoku (Taipei). Her mother
and sister stared at her in stunned silence. She slowly got up and
walked to the bedroom where her little daughter Anita was fast asleep.
She knelt beside the bed, she recalled many years later, “And I wept.”^1
On the afternoon of Friday, August 24, the superintendent of Ly-
allpur Jail in Punjab came to see his young prisoner Sisir Kumar Bose
in his cell. “I am really very, very sorry,” he said, handing Sisir that
morning’s Tribune newspaper. Sisir saw his uncle’s photograph and the
“terrible news” of his death in an air crash on the island of Formosa
(Taiwan). Having used up his week’s quota of letters, he waited until
Monday, August 27, to write a stoic letter to his mother about trying to
be brave at the loss of one of the bravest of men. Throughout the week-
end, he had worried about his father. “I shall anxiously await news
about you all at home and particularly about father’s health,” he wrote