Ketaji, is till date one of India’s most revered figures and notable freedom fighters. He was the commander of a team of people, dedicated to basically making sure that all the colonizers finally knew who the fuck they were dealing with. Despite this, his life and achievements are shrouded in the mystery of his demise.
His biographically recorded date of death is August 18th, 1945 and the cause was supposedly a plane crash in Formosa. But many believe- and rightfully so- that he did not really meet his end in that fateful crash. There are multiple theories that have come up over the years, including ones that said that he faked his own death to the enemy forces, so he could continue to pursue the freedom struggle, and others that said that the other leaders of the struggle had betrayed him and imprisoned him in a Soviet gulag. While all these theories have faced through investigation, there is one that quite possibly might be what really happened.
So, after years of trying to get a hold of records and official reports (seriously, I had to actually beg once, it was NOT pretty), we have amalgamated the evidence, and these are the facts:
Ketaji was never really in the crash. In fact, the plane did not even take off with him. The night before the departure, he had received a threat that said that he would never step foot on Indian soil ever again. Official records say that the threat was dismissed as a foolish prank, but according to Ketaji’s personal records recovered from his office, we discovered a note written in the form of a poem in Hindi. (Don’t ask me how this guy had the time to write an actual haiku with a death threat in his other hand). The holders had never placed any importance on the poem, but we were able to see that Ketaji had hidden his true intentions in that piece of paper.
Following the clues, we saw that while Ketaji did come to the airport that day and boarded the plane, he had managed to get a person on the plane staff that could easily disguise himself to look exactly like Ketaji. Once entering the plane Ketaji excused himself to the bathroom where he exchanged clothes with the staff member and escaped from the employee exit of the plane. When the plane crashed, ‘Ketaji’ was severely burned and could not be identified by face. This worked in everyone’s favor.
After escaping the airport with his only, most trusted aide, Chotu, he fled the country. Sources have confirmed that from there, he went to the Fiji Islands, whereupon hearing the events that had transpired the day of the flight, Ketaji apparently lost all faith in the cause. He went into a downward spiral and opened a small shack on the beach (talk about a mid-life crisis).
Ketaji, lived a quiet existence until at the shack one day, he met a distressed young person named Mark. They became good friends, and over their time together, Ketaji always repeated one thing that he had learned over the years, to always know everything about everyone. Apparently, Mark got into some trouble later in life for stealing information? Clearly he took Ketaji’s advice way too seriously.
