On January 23, 1950, Emilie Schenkl wrote to me ahead of my wedding:
“Specially glad I was to hear about your wedding. Well my dear, you can imagine that I wish only the best for you and your future husband. May god bless you both and give you all the happiness which you both desire. I am only sorry that I cannot be present at the occasion and give you my good wishes personally. So you must take them in writing from me. But I shall be with you on that day in my thoughts all the same. God bless you, my child.”
Anita and Emilie
My husband, Dr Sachis Ray, and I went to live in Vienna in January 1951 as my husband was going to pursue his postgraduate studies there. I had already met my aunt, Emilie Schenkl, and cousin Anita when I had travelled to Europe with my parents Bivabati and Sarat Chandra Bose, my brother Sisir and my sister Chitra in the winter of 1948. But Sachis was meeting them for the first time.
To my great happiness, Aunty (as we called Emilie) and Sachis got along famously from the beginning. Sachis and I travelled to Europe by ship, the Strathnaver, which docked at Tilbury in England. We went to London first, and after a few days, travelled to Vienna via Paris by train.
My brother, Sisir, was already in Vienna, working at the Kinderklinik as a paediatrician. Aunty and Sisir were waiting on the station platform to receive us when we reached. She had booked a hotel room for Sachis and me, and so, we took a taxi there. The four of us ended up talking through the night, catching up on all that had happened over the last few years! The next day, Sachis and I went across to Aunty’s flat in the 18th district. Aunty, her mother whom we called Omama and Anita were very warm and welcoming, and soon, we settled down to life in Vienna thanks to the love and care they extended to us.
Aunty had been looking for a flat for Sachis and me to move into. We chose one on Waldeckgasse 3/1 which was near her place. Aunty took us to the shops to buy furniture and utensils and helped us to set up our home. What would we have done without her!
In June that year, my son Ashis was born. During my stay at the hospital after his birth, Aunty would visit me everyday after work, and later, helped me in every possible way to settle in when I returned home with the baby. When Ashis was a little older, it became customary to wheel him down in his perambulator from our apartment in Waldeckgasse to Aunty’s flat on Ferrogasse 24. Sachis would join us there after his work at the hospital, and we would all spend the evenings together.
Emilie’s mother, Sachis Ray, Anita and Emilie with baby Ashis in Vienna in 1951
On arrival at her place, Sachis, in his limited German, would ask Omama for some coffee, and she was always ready with it and her freshly baked cakes! Omama did not know any English, so, initially there was a communication gap, but the barriers were soon overcome and we became one happy family.
It was possibly because of the warm family feeling with which Aunty wrapped us together that I never really missed my home in Calcutta. Thanks to her, we soon made Vienna our home and began to enjoy life there. Aunty would sometimes suggest, “Why don’t we go out for a drop” (of wine), and so, Aunty, Sachis and I would go to a heuriger for the evening, leaving Anita and Ashis in the care of Omama. I still remember those enchanting evenings with so much nostalgia.
With winter approaching, we decided to move in with our friends Duglore and Otto Mayrhofer as their flat had central heating and was large enough for all of us. Aunty was very sad when we left her neighbourhood and moved in with the Mayrhofers in Kolingasse.
In spring the next year, the Mayrhofers invited Sachis and me to Vienna’s famous Spring Ball. The Mayrhofers had a child who was around Ashis’ age, and were going to leave him behind that evening to attend the Ball. Sachis and I were not very comfortable about leaving Ashis behind in the flat unattended. But as Ashis was now a little older and settled into a pattern of sleeping through the night, we decided to leave him behind as well. The Spring Ball turned out to be a grand affair. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. When I was relating the events of the evening to Aunty the next day, she asked me where I had left Ashis. When she heard that we had left him unsupervised in the apartment, she was very unhappy that we had done something so irresponsible. What would have happened if he had woken up! I really didn’t have an answer to that. “How will I face your mother if anything had happened to him? You could have left him with me. Never do something like this again. Remember, I am your mother here.” Aunty’s words have stayed with me. That day, I realised the depth of her feeling towards us, and taught me how to value our relationship.
Netaji’s birth anniversary celebration in Vienna
On January 23, 1952, Sachis and I organised a function to celebrate the birth anniversary of my uncle, Subhas Chandra Bose, at our home in Vienna. Sachis, who was very enthusiastic, decorated the flat and we invited the Indian community in Austria to attend. It was a simple but dignified function, and Aunty appreciated our efforts in putting it together. We had bonded as a family, and this bond held us together till her last days.
We left Vienna in 1952 to relocate to England. After that, we returned to settle in India. I went back to Vienna almost three decades later, and stayed with Aunty for ten days in her flat in Bastiengasse. Those were lovely days. Aunty would cook for us, and we would go to the park near her home, sit on a bench and relive the good old days. She would say, “Don’t take another thirty years to come back…….then I will be gone.” In the 1990s, she moved in with her daughter and son-in-law, Anita and Martin, in their home in Augsburg, in Germany. I met her there again, and we revived our memories of the wonderful times spent together.
Anita and Sachis Ray
Over the years, Aunty forged close family bonds with my siblings, cousins, and later, with my children, nieces and nephews. This might not seem unusual. But if it is seen in the context of a European transcending all cultural and geographical barriers and reaching out to her relations in India without ever having visited the country, it stands out as special. But more importantly, it should be remembered that she developed these meaningful and profound relationships in the absence of her husband, Subhas Chandra Bose. That makes it truly unique. She also inculcated this family feeling in her daughter, Anita, who has been nurturing this tradition with great love and care, and like her mother, has established herself as an integral member of the family.
Roma Ray is Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's niece and daughter of barrister and politician Sarat Chandra Bose.
