The temple does not face the street. It turns inward, as though whatever it guards is not meant to be seen in passing. Renko-ji stands quietly in Tokyo, its wooden bones darkened by years of incense and weather, its steps worn smooth by feet that have arrived carrying questions heavier than luggage. There is no grand announcement at the gate, no insistence on reverence. The bell waits. The courtyard listens.

The Unseen Witness arrived in the late afternoon. He was older now, his gait slower, his breath measured not by urgency but by care. He carried no documents, no letters, no proof of who he had once been. Only memory, folded and refolded until the creases no longer showed.

The air smelled of moss and smoke. Somewhere within the temple grounds, a bell rang, low and unhurried, its sound expanding outward, thinning as it travelled, settling into places the ear could not fully follow. The Witness paused, allowing the sound to pass through him, as he had learned to do long ago.

He had not planned this visit. Some journeys announce themselves in advance, marked by dates and reasons. This one had arrived quietly, like a thought that refuses to be dismissed. He had found himself standing at the gate without quite knowing when the decision had been made.

Inside the temple, a monk swept fallen leaves into a neat pile. The motion was practised, almost meditative. Each stroke of the broom produced a soft, rhythmic sound, bristles against stone, a counterpoint to the distant city hum that never entirely disappeared.

The Witness removed his shoes. The floor was cool beneath his feet, grounding. He walked slowly, aware of each step, each breath. Along the wall hung photographs, modestly framed. Faces looked out from another time, their expressions fixed somewhere between confidence and expectation. He stopped before one of them. Subhas Chandra Bose.

The image was familiar and unfamiliar at once. The lines of the face he knew well, the gaze direct, unyielding. And yet here, in this quiet space, the image felt less like a declaration and more like a question.

He had carried India differently from others. Not as a petition, but as a summons. Where many sought freedom through negotiation, he insisted on dignity through action. He had broken from comfort, from consensus, from the safety of familiar alliances, choosing exile over obedience, uncertainty over submission. He gave the freedom movement a vocabulary of resolve when patience alone began to feel like acquiescence. Through the Indian National Army, through his call to organise, to prepare, to act, he reminded a colonised people that freedom was not only a moral right, but a responsibility that demanded sacrifice, discipline, and courage. Whether one agreed with his methods or not, he altered the grammar of resistance, expanding what Indians believed themselves capable of imagining and attempting.

The Witness closed his eyes. Memory arrived not as sequence, but as sensation. The smell of cold wool in Calcutta. The pressure of steel walls beneath the sea. The sound of engines warming at dawn. A radio crackling into life in a village far away. Young men lifting into the sky, their courage louder than their voices. He had seen so much without ever being seen himself.

A soft footstep approached. The monk stood a respectful distance away, hands folded. He did not ask questions. He simply waited. “They say,” the monk said finally, his voice gentle, “that the ashes here belong to a man who did not accept the ending offered to him.” The Witness opened his eyes. “They also say,” the monk continued, “that endings are a habit of history, not of people.” The Witness nodded. He had learned this truth slowly, over years. History required conclusions, neatness, labels. People did not.

He moved toward the small altar. There was no grandeur to it. Just an urn, simple, unadorned. Incense sticks burned nearby, their smoke rising and dispersing without hurry. Offerings lay at the base, flowers, folded paper, coins from many countries. The Witness knelt. He did not pray. Prayer implied certainty, an address, a recipient. What he felt now was something quieter, a listening that had no object. He allowed the silence to settle around him, not as absence, but as presence.

The bell rang again. Its sound seemed to gather the space, drawing together past and present, belief and doubt. The Witness remembered another silence, deep beneath the sea, where breath had been counted and faith measured in restraint. He remembered how Bose had listened then, not for reassurance, but for alignment.

He remembered the last time he had seen him. It was not dramatic. No final words. Just a figure receding into purpose, into yet another beginning disguised as an ending. The Witness had understood even then that whatever followed would not belong to clarity.

Time passed differently inside the temple. Outside, Tokyo moved on, trains arriving and departing, lives intersecting briefly and parting again. Inside, the air remained steady, holding its quiet. The monk returned, carrying a small cup of tea. He placed it beside the Witness without comment. The tea was warm, slightly bitter, grounding.

“You are not the first to come,” the monk said softly. “And you will not be the last.” The Witness almost smiled. He thought of all the others, known and unknown, who had stood where he stood, each carrying their own version of the story. Some arrived convinced of survival, others resigned to loss. Some wanted proof. Others wanted permission to doubt. What united them was not belief, but need. The need to place memory somewhere that would not demand resolution.

The Witness rose slowly. He bowed, not to the urn, but to the space itself. To the discipline of holding without claiming. To the courage of not knowing. As he turned to leave, his reflection caught briefly in the polished wood of a pillar. Older, thinner, nearly transparent. He realised then that he had been fading for some time, dissolving into the role he had chosen long ago. Witnesses are not meant to linger forever.

Outside, dusk had settled. The temple bell rang once more, its sound folding into evening. The Witness put on his shoes and stepped back onto the path. Fallen leaves crunched softly beneath his feet, a small, ordinary sound that anchored him firmly in the present. He walked away without looking back.

Somewhere, far beyond the temple grounds, debates continued. Books were written. Arguments sharpened and softened. The question of what happened to Subhas Chandra Bose remained suspended, pulled between evidence and desire, fact and faith. In official records, it was stated that he perished in an aeroplane crash near Taihoku in August 1945, his body cremated, and the remains enshrined at Renko-ji Temple in Tokyo, which has quietly held an urn believed by many to be his ever since.

Yet other voices persisted. Some historians and researchers argued that the plane crash narrative was incomplete, pointing to inconsistencies and gaps in the records and suggesting that he might have survived only to vanish into obscurity, perhaps seeking refuge beyond the gaze of the world. Others claimed he had gone underground entirely, assuming a new life or identity, a figure whispered about in distant places and times, a testimony to how myth can grow alongside memory.

Still more theories found traction in the spaces between official archives and public imagination. Some believed he had been spirited away to the Soviet Union, his final days spent in a distant land he once considered an ally, his fate known only to those who held power and silence in equal measure. Others pointed to sightings and claims that he lived later as a hermit in northern India, a man called Gumnami Baba whose quiet presence drew curious glances and quiet reverence, a figure between fact and folklore.

Even his own family remained deeply engaged in the mystery, with voices urging the scientific testing of the remains held in Tokyo, hoping that DNA might finally turn speculation into something closer to truth. And as political and cultural interests intersected with personal longing, some argued that global and domestic agendas had brushed against this story, manipulating memories as readily as they had rewritten histories.

The Witness knew now that the question itself had become a shelter. As long as the ending remained open, the journey could not be closed. For some, the absence of certainty was a wound; for others, it was a loom on which they wove meaning. And amid it all, the silent courtyard of Renko-ji stood as a quiet testament to a life that refused to be confined to chronology alone.

That night, in a small room overlooking a narrow Tokyo street, the Witness lay down to rest. He listened to the city settling, the distant murmur of voices, the soft rattle of a passing train. The sounds did not disturb him. They reassured.

Before sleep took him, he thought of the letter that was never delivered. Of the voice that travelled through static. Of the sea that carried resolve in darkness. Of the young men who learned to fly without guarantees. All of it connected, not by chronology, but by intention.

In the morning, the Unseen Witness would be gone. No one would remark upon it. No record would be made. His room would be cleaned, his presence erased with polite efficiency. That was as it should be. History would continue its work of shaping conclusions. But somewhere, beneath that effort, something quieter would persist. A shadow at a temple. A bell whose sound never fully disappeared. And a dream that did not require proof in order to endure. The shadow lengthened as night deepened. And the world, listening in its own imperfect way, carried on.

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Author’s Note

This story brings to rest a series of six works drawn from lesser known moments, silences, and contested intersections in the life and times of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian freedom movement. Each piece was written to stand on its own, yet to listen quietly to the others, bound not by chronology alone, but by intention.

These stories do not seek to resolve history, nor to flatten its contradictions. They are offered instead as acts of attention, to what was spoken, what was withheld, and what continues to echo beyond evidence. If the series leaves questions unanswered, it is because some truths endure precisely by remaining open, carried forward by memory rather than proof.

I am grateful to the readers who chose to linger, to listen, and to become witnesses themselves. The journey does not end here. It only steps aside, allowing the bell to fade in its own time.

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Other stories in this series of six stories sorrounding the life and time of Netaji Subhash Changda Bose:

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Copyright © 2026 TRISHIKH DASGUPTA

This work of fictionised history, written by Trishikh Dasgupta, is the author’s sole intellectual property. It draws inspiration from documented events, unresolved questions, and the enduring silences surrounding the life and fate of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian freedom movement. While this story can be read and experienced independently, it also forms the sixth and final part of a six story narrative arc, where each piece stands alone yet together traces Netaji’s journey from intent to action, from voice to voyage, and finally into memory and myth. Some characters, incidents, places, and facts may be real, while others are imaginatively reinterpreted.

All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including printing, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the author at trishikh@gmail.com or get in touch with Trishikh on the CONTACT page of this website.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trishikh Dasgupta

Adventurer, philosopher, writer, painter, photographer, craftsman, innovator, or just a momentary speck in the universe flickering to leave behind a footprint on the sands of time... READ MORE

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These stories are Free, but there are other books of mine that you can buy: