I had heard of Boshi (Bashishwar) Sen as a pioneering agriculture scientist who was helped by Sister Nivedita and who had been under the tutelage of Sir JC Bose. I knew that he had set up some sort of laboratory in Almora (my ancestral district) and was married to an American lady who too was a person of no mean accomplishment. But at that time I could not have written more than two or three paragraphs them because of lack of available material. I became interested in gathering more information about this couple but could not get much to even produce a short bio-essay.
About two and a half years back, I chanced upon a voluminous 800 page joint biography and memoirs written by a civil servant of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Girish N. Mehra, who had been very close to this couple, indeed a like a son to them (the couple did not have any children of their own.) Upon reading it I marvelled at the discovery that not only both of them were truly extraordinary human beings and accomplishers of highest order, but completely detached to lures of any name, fame, or stature, and satisfied in their own simple ways. It was like knowing of a great story which you feel needs to be broadcast far and wide.
Nobel Laureates had them as friends, Albert Einstein met them more than once, Tagore stayed with them for a week. Nehru, a close friend, hosted them on several occasions, and Indira Gandhi wrote dozens of letters to her Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Boshi – indeed no trip of hers as PM to the region was complete without stopping at their house. Romain Rolland, Carl Jung, Somerset Maugham, Colonel T.E. Lawrence (the famed ‘Lawrence of Arabia’) found their company gratifying and were even beholden to them in many ways. M.S..Swaminathan considered Boshi Sen as his great predecessor. And Gertrude Emerson was one of the greatest explorers and field geographers of the past century. The nation stood honoured to have both as her citizens and to have conferred Padma awards on both.
Coming to know of all this I tried to absorb the material and thought it might be a good idea to tell their wonderful tale in my own way, albeit in form of a long essay, not an elaborate biography (that had already been done in a wonderfully selfless and loving by Mr Mehra) So I began some work on that and more than half the task was done, but then but the continuity snapped and two years passed by. I felt dismayed at my inability to have completed it – in a way I thought I had let them down – it is strange how while reading and reflecting upon elaborate material on some persons for a prolonged time one begins to have an undeniable bonding with the subject, an intimacy of sorts.
So about a month back (in August ’22) I picked this semi-completed task again and tried to bring it to a final shape.
My debt to Mr Mehra is immense and cannot be expressed in words. Sir, I have only tried to act as a squirrel to further the mammoth task you undertook, a highest labour of love that your enterprise truly was.
Therefore, friends allow me to present to you this extraordinary couple – Boshi Sen and Gertrude Emerson, finest of our countrymen.
Vinayak Lohani
September 2022
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