In the Preface, the author writes, “I do not claim that it is a complete biography of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. The life of such a person cannot be compiled in a few hundred pages.” Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) was a remarkable intellectual, straddling physics, botany and biology. He was a teacher and a researcher. Because of his discovery of the crescograph and other experiments in spite of the lack of proper laboratories, one could call him an inventor too. The debate about the Nobel Prize will rage on. Most Bengalis will know, though not perhaps others, that he was among the pioneers in writing Bengali science fiction. Yet, there are no good biographies of Bose and his life and times — the subtitle of this volume. Yes, there is the one published by Patrick Geddes in 1920. Given the year of publication and the fact that it was written by a contemporary, that’s hopelessly outdated. In 1983, the Publications Division, under the ministry of information and broadcasting, had brought out a simple version written byVisvapriya Mukherji. Although that was never meant to be a detailed biography, in writing style, it was far superior to the present one. That leaves the one published by Kunal Ghosh in 2022 and the current one by Meher Wan. Both Kunal Ghosh and Meher Wan have similar backgrounds. Both are scientists and have worked in IITs. If that’s afilter, they are eminently qualified to write such a biography.

A second filter should be an ability to write decent English. Sample the following. “That was when Jagadish realized that if he died in the sea, what would happen to his body? Will these people take his remains to England? Will his soul find rest without reaching London? Do these people even believe in the Spirit?” (p 71); “When dreams die untimely, regrets and excuses, buried in the ashes of time, come to the door as an uninvited phoenix to read the mourning.” (p 76); “When Jagadish met the director regarding the reply to this letter, the director clearly told him that a lot of pressure is being put on him. He can give Jagadish an appointment in higher education, but it will not be permanent and Jagadish cannot claim later that his job should be made permanent.” (p 89) — such language and expressions make the book a pain to read. Having said this, a biography may still be worth a read if it unearths new material, notwithstanding the disclaimer about it not being complete.

Writing even an incomple­te biography requires some research. First, there is nothing in this volume that is unknown, including the archival material at Bose Institute. Second, several pages in the book are about Bhagawan Chandra Bose, Jagadish Chan­dra Bose’s father. (This is how he officially spelt his name. In deference to Bengali pronunciation, the switch to Bhagban Chandra Bose by the author seems arbitrary.) While parental influence was strong, do we need so many pages on the father, and not the son? Third, several pages are reproductions of the es­say J.C. Bose wrote on the ori­gin of Bhagirathi. (The English translation is given, readily available on the internet. By the way, no translation can capture the emotiveness of the original Bengali.) Fourth, several pages are reproductions of the science fiction story, English translation again. (This too, is readily available.) Fifth, writing a biography requires some probing, even if it is not heavy research. For instance, why not have a list of Acharya Jagadish Chandra’s books, if not papers? More importantly, with a title like ‘The Scientific Sufi’, surely there was a need to explore the relationship with Sister Nivedita. Tagore, or the desultory mention of bauls, does not suffice.

This is a lazy mishmash of a book. It is best avoided.

THE SCIENTIFIC SUFI: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE

By Meher Wan, Viking, ₹499