Lost Addresses (A Memoir of India 1934-1955)

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, 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 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. She is a multifaceted personality- a professor, writer, research, broadcaster, social worker and politician. Born in Dhaka on 26 December 1930, Krishna Bose (nee Chaudhuri) taught English from 1955 to 1995 at a women’s college of Calcutta, where she became the Principal. She joined politics in 1996 and was elected Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) three times from the Jadavpur constituency in Great Calcutta. From 1999 to 2004 she chaired the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs. Krishna’s late husband, Netaji Subhas Bose’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose was a freedom fighter in his youth and later a renowned paediatrician. Krishna has published many books in Bengali, and a memoir of her political life in English.