[The book "Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist" was launched at the Bangalore Lit-Fest on 3 Dec 2023.]
[Shevlin Sebastian] Welcome dear friends for this interaction with Sudipto. We'll be starting this interaction with Keerti Ramachandra, who is one of the finest translators from vernacular to English and one of the finest editors. She has edited Sudipto’s first and current book and Sudipto will be presenting the first copy to her.
[Keerti Ramachandra] I’d just like to say how much I enjoyed reading this book because it was a subject, I knew nothing about. I barely got 35 out of 100 when I studied physics in college in the first year… But his first book, which has remained with me, The Ekkos Clan, was also marvellous, because he dealt with, apart from many other things, Linguistic Palaeontology… and it was so close to my heart because language is something I deal with, I work with, I love. It’s my passion, it’s my profession… Working with Sudipto was very easy. I would insist that he came personally, and explained to me every experiment, every aspect of Jagadish Chandra Bose’s work, because only then would I be able to edit, in the sense, make it easy for the reader to understand… And, dealing with me was like dealing with the lowest common denominator, and therefore the book has come out extremely well… He does so much research and so much reading. There’s so much material in him that I think he can write 100 books on any subject and I wish him all the very best. I hope this book really goes a long way and I hope The Ekkos Clan is revived… and you do lots of other things as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sudipto.
[Shevlin] A brief intro of Sudipto: he’s a writer and a musician, who also happens to be an engineer, having done his undergrad at IIT Kharagpur. Regarding his background, Sudipto himself wants to talk about it.
[Sudipto] I have a sort of ancestry, which is interesting, and I take extreme pride in its historical aspects. It so happened that in 1947, at the stroke of midnight, the Bengal Province was partitioned, and overnight around 10 million people were rendered homeless. And, over the next many decades: 10 million is one crore, and, just for the perspective, World War II created 15 million refugees and the Bengal partition alone created around 10 million – my father happens to be one of those 10 million people, who gradually trickled into India over the next many years… My father – he was around seven years old – he alone, with his elder brother, who was around 14 years old, and another elder sister, who was nine years old, somehow managed to come to India after a 14-day-ordeal, which included waiting for a ferry for seven days… And, he landed up in Calcutta with broken ribs, [marks of] which he still has as a memento of his past. But that is not unique because there are around 10 million stories like that, which you, none of you, might have heard. The Bengalis, who moved to India from Bangladesh, happen to be the single largest displaced community in the world, more than the Jews. And the reason you don’t know this is what I am proud of: none of these 10 million people actually resorted to violence, and that is the reason I’m here. I believe, I am the chalta-firta-jeeta-jagta saboot of what happens if one generation sacrifices and doesn’t take to violence. I think, apart from being an Indian, being a Bengali, being a Bangalorean, being a musician, the identity, [in] which I take maximum pride is this: I’m the son of somebody who didn’t become a terrorist but who could have become one. (applause)
[Shevlin] That’s super that. This aspect of the migration, it has been described beautifully in Sudipto’s remarkable first novel, which I’ve read. It’s called The Ekkos Clan. It has also been brought out by Niyogi Books, who have brought out this book. So, Sudipto, should we start?
[Sudipto] Before that, [I should say] how I know Shevlin. So, you know, my first book was about the Bengal partition, which, I think, nobody knew [much about] outside Bengal. And, as I said, that we have not been conspicuous is actually the [real] achievement, because we never resorted to violence and only if you are violent do people know of you, right? So, I am proud that we [and our partition story] are not known. It so happened that I went to Cochin for a book event, and then I was wondering. I knew that outside Bengal nobody knew of the Bengal partition. So, I was wondering what I should talk about there.
And then, Shevlin comes [to me] and speaks to me in a Bengali, which is even more correct than what my son, who was born and brought up in Bangalore, speaks. He said in fluent Bangla that the chapters on the Bengal partition were very well written. I got the first Mallu I’d come across who speaks Bengali better than my son – I knew of other connections between the Bongs and Mallus, like fish and communism. (laughter) So, that’s about Shevlin. He has stayed in Calcutta more than me Since then, for the last, I think, 10 years, we have been friends.
[Shevlin] I was born and brought up in Calcutta. So, I’m a half Bong, and I’m a Malayali, and my children call me Baba in tribute to my Bong roots.
[Sudipto] Also, you would have noticed that he introduced me as Shudipto, not Sudipto. That’s a typical Bong thing.
[Shevlin] Yes, Shudipto was Bengali. Okay, so, Sudipto, my first question is: how did you get the idea to do a biography of Dr JC Bose?
[Sudipto] An interesting anecdote: Yesterday, I was there at the bookstore. I was trying to set up my books, and then somebody saw this book, and then he spoke in Hindi to his friend, “Dude, who’s this Jagadish Chandra Bose?”
His friend said, “Wasn’t there someone by the name of Chandra Shekhar Bose?”
“Idiot, that’s Subhas Chandra Bose and Chandra Shekhar is Azad.”
“That’s fine, but who’s this one?”
So, I believe, that’s why I wrote the book.
I’m keeping aside his scientific achievements, which…, I don’t want to go into [in detail]. But, just to give you a snippet: he is modern India’s first scientist and, now we know, he’s a co-inventor of radio, which Marconi… well, I don’t want to go into that [now]. He’s a co-inventor of radio and, also, had set up one of the first practical working wireless solutions in the world in the Presidency College in Calcutta. He also holds the patent for the [world’s] first semiconductor device. A semiconductor device is… [to put it simplistically] the chip that you see in all electronics. Wireless and semiconductors are something which drive our life today from the morning, when you wake up, till the time you sleep, in your phone, in your office, in your car…, everywhere. So, this guy in India, he and his work, creates the foundation for both Wireless and electronics, which is [made of] semiconductor devices.
But that is not something which attracted me. What attracted me was his life, which appeared to be more interesting than fiction. First of all, he’s a scientist but then he’s also an avid hunter. I mean, how many scientists do you know, who, at the age of 19, go to the Himalayas and hunt tigers? He was a hunter. He was a horse rider. He was a professional sculler – rowing in England is called sculling. He used to do professional sculling in Cambridge. Also, he was caught in a storm while doing deep sea rowing.
And, more interestingly, there are two important women, western women, in his life other than his own wife – one was a very rich American widow socialite, Mrs Sara Bull, and the other was an Irish revolutionary nun, called Margaret Elizabeth Noble, who was christened Sister Nivedita [by Swami Vivekananda]. Both these women were disciples of Swami Vivekananda who came to India to love India and to serve India. These two women play a very important role in Bose’s life. So, his life is “pati patni aur woh do” [husband wife and the other two]. (laughter) And, these three women were also on very good terms [with each other]. How these three women played a big role in his life is again a story of how the West and East can blend together – two Western women and an Indian scientist, who is also a spiritualist…
Finally, what attracted me is that, if I have to plagiarize from Charles Dickens, the timeline of my bio – [that] is 1890 to 1910 – is the best of the times and also the worst of the times. The geopolitics of the world was going through tectonic changes, which finally formed the 20th century. World War I was going to happen in some time and there were [already] signs of that; India’s Swadeshi Movement was going to happen, and I think Bose’s life is entwined with all these things. So, I believe, it had all the characters and features of fiction; just not any villain – if you put the British as a villain that’s a different thing, but otherwise it had all the elements…
[Shevlin] Okay, next question is: what is the research that you did?
[Sudipto] Well, I went to Bose Institute in Calcutta and Shantiniketan: Tagore [and Bose] had a very good relationship… A lot of archives are available online – I had to pay the subscription but all the 100-year-old archives of the New York Times or the Times London were available. So, it’s mainly, I would say, online, some free and some paid subscriptions.
[Shevlin] Did you speak to the descendants of Bose?
[Sudipto] There is no descendant of Bose. He didn’t have any children. I mean, his [only] girl child died during birth and he didn’t have anybody. He had nephews, though. I couldn’t figure out any direct descendant of Bose. In fact, the Bose Institute also doesn’t know of anybody who can claim to be his [direct] descendant, so his royalties don’t go to anybody. So, there is no descendant.
[Shevlin] Okay, so if you [were] growing up in Calcutta like me the only way you remember J C Bose is because there’s an AJC Bose Road. There’s no other way you remember him. So, my next question is: why do you think Bose is not as famous as, say, Rabindranath Tagore or Satyajit Ray?
[Sudipto] That’s also one of the very interesting things. In the 1920s, Bose was so popular… I’ll just give one incident: he was a member of the League of Nations, which later became the United Nations. He was the Indian representative of the League of Nations and [the] other members in his committee were Einstein, Nobel Laureate, Hendrik Lorentz – he was also Nobel [Laureate] – and then Mary Curie: there are five-six people, who are all Nobel Laureates. The first time he went to Geneva to attend one of the League of Nations's functions, it was so crowded that even Einstein had to jostle for a seat. Einstein was so damn impressed with this guy…
So, from that [level of] popularity, [to] now “Chandra Bose kaun hai,” I believe, a lot of things would have happened. One is, what I feel, is his extra dependence on these two women, who contributed a lot to his life as long as they were alive. They did everything for Bose, being his publicist, being his editor… So, I think, that when they died, Bose, for the rest of his life, which is almost 30 years after the death of Mrs Sara Bull and Sister Nivedita, somehow stayed a confused person.
He didn’t have any disciple. So that is also another reason [why his legacy didn’t survive]. And, finally, I think his writings, his scientific papers, became a little spiritual. However, it is not that his experiments were forged. He used to do a tremendous amount of experiments but his language became spiritual. He used to quote verses from the Rig Veda, from the Upanishads. He was extremely influenced by this one verse from the Rig Veda, which in Sanskrit goes like this: ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadanti, which means, there is only One and the wise call it in various ways. So, his entire life was in the search of this One… Einstein also spent the last 30 years of his life searching for One Unified theory, which will combine quantum mechanics, electromagnetic waves and gravity. He died in [the] search of this.
Bose also became too spiritual and the scientific community never liked that. Even today, the moment you talk about the Rig Veda, people will brand you either as a bhakt or a right hand – sorry, what [do] they call, right-wing? (laughter) Whatever. That was the case then, too. So, the moment he started quoting the Rig Veda, chalo, isko kuchh nahin ata, [lo, he knows nothing]. So, I think, all these were reasons why he was lost, and it’s, I think, up to people like us to resurrect him.
[Shevlin] One of the most remarkable things about the book is that Sudipto [has] humanized some legendary figures, and one of them is Swami Vivekananda. I was a member of the Ramakrishna Library in Golpark. There, you know, Swami Vivekananda was really deified. But Sudipto writes about Swami Vivekananda as someone who loses his temper. He gets angry. So, that is one of the more remarkable things, how you humanized legendary figures.
[Sudipto] I think the problem with, not only the Bongs, even in [the rest of] India is [that] anybody who becomes famous, you actually make him a prophet and the moment you make somebody God you actually kill that personality. So, Vivekananda, the moment you think of him as a God, there’s nothing to learn from a God. Only you can learn from humans. In most of the Bengali literature and also in [the] South, Vivekananda is so damn popular that if you say something which the Ramakrishnaites might not like, they’ll become wild. But I myself studied in Ramakrishna Mission my whole life. I thought that a very analytical literature about their personal life [is needed]. It’s not possible that Vivekananda was a God, right? I mean, he was a human being. He had virtues and vices. So why not talk about that. Though it’s a biography I tried to get under the skin of all the characters, mainly Tagore, Jagadish Bose, and Vivekananda – these two [personalities: Tagore and Vivekananda] are very closely related to Bose. I don’t know if people might like it, and, again, some real bhakts might get a little angry.
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