Emilie and Subhas: A True Love Story

by Krishna Bose

Overview
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's relationship with his wife, Emilie Schenkl, is one of the least-known aspects of the leader's life. They met in Vienna in June 1934, secretly married in December 1937 in Badgastein, a spa resort in Austria's Salzburg province, and saw each other for the last time in Berlin in February 1943, two months after the birth in Vienna of their daughter Anita. From 1934 onward, Subhas and Emilie corresponded continuously through letters whenever they were physically separated.
Born in 1910 into a middle-class Austrian family of Vienna, Emilie Schenkl nurtured her husband's memory and cultivated a deep attachment from afar to India all her life, until her death in 1996. She brought up their daughter on her own, working to support herself and Anita. Fiercely self-reliant and very private, Emilie lived a life of great dignity and quiet courage.
Emilie was especially close to Netaji's nephew Sisir Kumar Bose, whom she first met in Vienna in the late 1940s, and after his marriage in December 1955 she also formed a close friendship with his wife Krishna. Krishna knew Emilie personally from 1959 until Emilie's death in 1996. This book, illustrated with forty-eight photographs from archives and family albums, is a unique record of Emilie's life of fortitude and the love story of Emilie and Subhas.

About the Author
Krishna Bose (nee Chaudhuri) is an educator, writer and politician. A professor of English in Calcutta from 1955 to 1995, she was elected Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) three times starting in 1996 from the Jadavpur constituency in Greater Calcutta. From 1999 to 2004 she chaired the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs.
Krishna Bose is an eminent expert on Netaji's life and struggles. After her marriage to Sisir Bose - son of Sarat Chandra Bose, the barrister and nationalist leader who was his younger brother Subhas's closest comrade - she joined Sisir's efforts to research and document Netaji's life and work. Aged twenty, Sisir helped Netaji to escape secretly from India in January 1941 and drove him from Calcutta to the Gomoh rail-head in Bihar on the escape's first leg. While Sisir became a renowned pediatrician as well as the founder and builder of the Netaji Research Bureau at Kolkata's Netaji Bhawan, the former Bose family residence, Krishna's prolific writings include several original books on Netaji.

104 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Sanjida Yeasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

ফ্যাক্ট ভিত্তিক লেখা একেবারে নেই বললেই চলে। সুভাষ আর এমিলিয়ে কে নিয়ে লেখিকার অনেক বিস্তারিত লেখার সুযোগ ছিল, কিন্তু মনে হয়েছে তিনি ব্যক্তিগত /পারিবারিক একটা গোপনীয়তা বজায় রাখার চেষ্টা করেছেন।উপরন্তু এমিলিয়ের নিকট হতে তথ্য আদায়ের সর্বান্তকরণ চেষ্টা তিনি কখনোই করেন নি। যেখানে তিনি নিজেই উল্লেখ করেছেন আরেক গবেষকের নিকট এমিলিয়ে কিছু কথা বলেছিলেন যা তিনি আত্মীয় হিসেবে সুবিধা থাকা সত্ত্বেও জানতে পারেন নি। এমিলিয়ের অনুভূতিকে নিজের মন-মতো অনুমান করে এবং শুধুমাত্র সেটাকে পুঁজি করেই অধিকাংশ বইটা লেখা।

[Aditi Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

My brother had gifted this book to my mother, who in clear terms told me that that this was still her prized possession and that I could not take it as mine. 🙂 What caught my eye when I opened the first page was this – amidst the personal note that son had written to his mother, was a date. 30th November 1934. The date when Subhas Chandra had written his first love letter to Emilie. The very same date, 80 years later, when we (my brother and I) lost our father. Some connection indeed! My emotional quotient had already multiplied. My mind, still capable of some coherent thought, wondered how much more of mush it would have to handle from the heart.

Read the full review here: https://lovewordie.wordpress.com/2017...

[শ্রীতমা তোমায়. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good