Lost Addresses: A Memoir of India 1934-1955

Krishna Bose was born Krishna Chaudhuri on 26 December, 1930 in Dhaka, to East Bengali parents settled in Calcutta. In December 1955 she married Sisir Kumar Bose, son of the barrister and nationalist leader Sarat Chandra Bose and nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Lost Addresses is Krishna’s story of her childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. It vividly describes Calcutta, Bengal and India in the 1930s and 1940s and the early years after Independence. Krishna’s memories of growing up and coming of age are set in the social, cultural and political milieus of the time. The East Bengal heritage and the life of the Calcutta intelligentsia at its prime feature prominently, but this is no private nor provincial memoir. Bengal, India and the world were then in great ferment and transition. Krishna relives how she experienced World War II, the Quit India movement of 1942, the Bengal Famine of 1943–1944, the Red Fort trials of the Indian National Army (INA) officers in 1945–1946, the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946, and Partition and Independence in Delhi in 1947. Illustrated with old photographs, this memoir is a valuable historical record, told in flowing literary style.

Krishna Bose

“Late Krishna Bose (1930-2020) was 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 was 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 had joined Sisir’s efforts to research and document Netaji’s life and work. Aged twenty, Krishna’s prolific writings include several original books on Netaji.”

Sumantra Bose

Sumantra Bose is the youngest of three children of Krishna and Sisir Bose. He is Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Sumantra received his PhD from Columbia University, New York, in 1998. He is the author of six books.