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It was five past midnight when Debashis Chattopadhyay stepped out of the Victorian mansion of the India House at the 65, Cromwell Avenue, Highgate North London. The feather-like snowflakes softly settled on his overcoat, that frigid December night, as he tried to brush them away with his glove-covered palm while firmly clutching the overcoat’s waist-belt with the other, as if preventing something from falling from under his coat.
The chilly breeze lashed on his face, temporarily numbing his exposed nose and nudging him to hail for a cab. Within minutes a cab screeched to a halt and Debashis hurriedly dashed into its rare seat and instructed the driver to head towards Dorchester. He felt his chest, as if he were a doctor self-examining the throb of his heart and only after he had heard the feeble susurrant sound under his coat did he breathe easy.
It was now half past twelve and he had to meet Shyam Naik at four the next morning. Although he had four hours at hand, he knew, he had to scrupulously finish his part in this relay race without affording any error or taking a misstep, lest the truth be untold-forever.
For him and Naik this last leg was the most crucial one to expose the truth, ignite a movement and inflame a revolution but at quarter past four, outside a dimly lit Iranian Cafe on one of Dorchester’s deserted streets, with the rains mercilessly thrashing down and Naik nowhere in sight, Debashis knew their plan had been tampered with & that he was now alone in this mission to deliver his precious baton to its final destination.
He punctiliously took out the journal, covered by the false dust wrappers of The Pickwick Papers, from under his coat and ran his fingers randomly over the words one last time-
Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of love they bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through their veins but also by the common homage they pay to their great civilization, their Hindu culture.
He shut it quickly lest the rain drops made the ink-written words to weep and dilute their power. Penned by his mentor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and banned from publication throughout the British empire, in this journal, on the Indian War of Independence, lay the collective & crystallized sentiments of a nation desperate to etch out an identity of its and assert its presence as one Hindu state.
After numerous failed attempts of publishing it in London and India, Savarkar had finally entrusted Debashis & Naik with the responsibility of smuggling it into Holland where Madame Bhikaiji Cama had obtained the publication rights.
Now onboard the steamboat to Amsterdam with the Dorchester docks slowly fading behind the thick December mist and the rappelling waters of the English Channel, Debashis stood determinedly on the deck with his arms firmly clasping his overcoat and his lips curling upwards to give a slight sardonic grin.
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The chilly breeze lashed on his face, temporarily numbing his exposed nose and nudging him to hail for a cab. Within minutes a cab screeched to a halt and Debashis hurriedly dashed into its rare seat and instructed the driver to head towards Dorchester. He felt his chest, as if he were a doctor self-examining the throb of his heart and only after he had heard the feeble susurrant sound under his coat did he breathe easy.
It was now half past twelve and he had to meet Shyam Naik at four the next morning. Although he had four hours at hand, he knew, he had to scrupulously finish his part in this relay race without affording any error or taking a misstep, lest the truth be untold-forever.
For him and Naik this last leg was the most crucial one to expose the truth, ignite a movement and inflame a revolution but at quarter past four, outside a dimly lit Iranian Cafe on one of Dorchester’s deserted streets, with the rains mercilessly thrashing down and Naik nowhere in sight, Debashis knew their plan had been tampered with & that he was now alone in this mission to deliver his precious baton to its final destination.
He punctiliously took out the journal, covered by the false dust wrappers of The Pickwick Papers, from under his coat and ran his fingers randomly over the words one last time-
Hindus are bound together not only by the tie of love they bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through their veins but also by the common homage they pay to their great civilization, their Hindu culture.
He shut it quickly lest the rain drops made the ink-written words to weep and dilute their power. Penned by his mentor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and banned from publication throughout the British empire, in this journal, on the Indian War of Independence, lay the collective & crystallized sentiments of a nation desperate to etch out an identity of its and assert its presence as one Hindu state.
After numerous failed attempts of publishing it in London and India, Savarkar had finally entrusted Debashis & Naik with the responsibility of smuggling it into Holland where Madame Bhikaiji Cama had obtained the publication rights.
Now onboard the steamboat to Amsterdam with the Dorchester docks slowly fading behind the thick December mist and the rappelling waters of the English Channel, Debashis stood determinedly on the deck with his arms firmly clasping his overcoat and his lips curling upwards to give a slight sardonic grin.
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