Amongst the multitudes of tombs in the City of the Dead in Cairo, there lies buried a lone Indian — an eminent scholar, writer, debonair statesman and a leader of the Indian freedom movement. Who is he? How did he get there?
For a man who used both the lectern and the pen to devastating effect in the cause of the Indian Independence movement led by the likes of Gandhi, Patel and Nehru, very little is known of Syud Hossain. Born to an aristocratic family in Calcutta, he started a career in journalism early in life and became the editor of Motilal Nehru's nationalist newspaper, The Independent. After a brief elopement with Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Hossain, under immense pressure from Motilal Nehru and Gandhi, annulled the marriage and was asked to stay away from the country for a few years. Thus began several years of exile.
Eventually, he landed in the United States where he imparted Gandhi's message far and wide across the country....