Suresh Biswas

Col. Suresh Biswas (Bengali: সুরেশ বিশ্বাস) (1861 - 22 September 1905) was a famous 19th-century adventurer from India.

Life

Suresh Biswas was born in 1861 in Nathpur in Nadia district in West Bengal. A Christian convert, Biswas had travelled to England as a stowaway at age fifteen. After he arrived in England he drifted through several occupations, before becoming an animal trainer in a circus in Kent. He travelled with the circus to Hamburg. After that, he migrated to Brazil (probably one of the first Indians to do so), and fought valiantly in the Brazilian army (late 19th century).

He was made a Lieutenant in the army (and a Colonel too, later). In spite of showing remarkable courage during the upsurge of rebellion he was not properly felicitated simply because of racial discrimination (he was after all a non white Hindu Asiatic in the white dominated catholic Brazil).

Colonel Biswas however settled down in Brazil as he was enchanted by the natural beauty of the country. He died there in 1905.

Trivia

Not too many written records remain of the legendary adventurer, but he was mentioned in Satyajit Ray's novel "Chhinnamastar Abhishap" (Trans: The Curse of the Goddess), featuring the famous fictional detective, Feluda. Famous Bengali Comics strip creator Mayukh Chowdhury created a Bengali comics named 'Bangadesher Ranga' on him featuring him in the midst of the jungles in Brazil.

References

• The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal by John Rosselli, Past and Present, No. 86 (Feb., 1980)
• "The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of race in Colonial Bengal" by Indira Chowdhury-Sengupta from The Concept of Race in South Asia edited by Peter Robb, 1995 Oxford Press
• Upendra Krishna Banerji, Karnel Suresh Bishvas, (1900; second edition, Calcutta 1909-10) - biography of Colonel Suresh Biswas

External links

• A Life of Mythic Proportions - Mid-Day