L-R: Kazi Nazrul Islam, Subhas Chandra Bose, Dilip Kumar Roy

They belonged to the same age bracket. Bengal's magnificent trio of the 1920s and 1930s--- Dilip Kumar Roy, Subhas Chandra Bose and Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Dilip Kumar Roy was a common friend of Subhas and Nazrul and also their interface. Dilip and Subhas were born the same year within a day apart. They were amongst the top students in matriculation. As brilliant students both went to Cambridge. Bose stood fourth in the civil service examination that qualified him automatically for a post which he gave up believing that the "Best way to end the British government was to withdraw from it”. Dilip, apart from mathematics studied western music and in the process learnt Italian, German and French. Dilip's intellectual sojourn found him in the company of Roman Rolland, Bertrand Russell, Herman Hesse, Georges Duhamel, Fullop Muhler and other luminaries.
We all know about the Rebel Poet.
Dilip's early music was rooted in the moorings of his father DL Roy. He then became a disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, Faiyaz Khan and Hafiz Ali Khan amongst others. He composed and tuned his own music which was a blend of kirtan, Indian classical and western music. He was different from Tagore, Atul Prasad, DL Roy, Rajanikanta and Nazrul as he traveled all over India singing songs he found worthwhile, of which Nazrul and Atul Prasad's songs found special place. In fact, it was Dilip who popularised Nazrul's love songs like “Boshia bijoney”, “Nishi bhor holo jagia', “Eto jol o kajal chokhey”, “Cheona na', Bagichai bulbuli”, “Ke bideshi mon udashi” and Keno diley e kanta”. Many of these songs Nazrul wrote directly in Dilip's notebook. He was Nazrul's “Montuda”. On the other hand Subhas loved music and poetry but as he was directly involved with the national movement with Chittaranjan Das, he was not much seen in the cultural arena though he was in close contact with Dilip.
Dilip Kumar Roy once arranged a meeting to raise funds for the poor in Ram Mohan Library in Calcutta. Nazrul recited “Ei shikol para chhol moder ei shikol para chhol”. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das was in tears while Subhas' face glowed with pride and strength! Subhas once told Dilip that when he was thrown into jail, it was Nazrul's “Karar oi louho kapat” that kept his spirits going. From his jail days in Mandalay, Subhas even wrote to Dilip Kumar in 1925 how much the nation owed to Nazrul.
When in Dhaka, Dilip was always the guest of Satyandranath Bose, the great physicist of the time who was also a very good esraj player. In one of the evening musical programmes, Dilip Kumar heard one Ranu Shome, then a pupil of Ustad Gul Mohammad and a popular teenage singer. An impressed Dilip accepted her as his student as he had Renu Sen who used to live at Tikatully, and whom he had groomed for Atul Prasad's “Pagla hawa, montarey tui bandh”.
On his return to Calcutta, Dilip spoke about Ranu to Nazrul. Some time later Nazrul chanced to be at the Sealdah station with his friends. He saw the Dhaka Mail and on the spur of the moment decided to board it. Soon Nazrul reached Dhaka and checked into Kazi Motahar Hussain's Burdwan house. He got in touch with Ranu and expressed his desire to train her for his songs. Ranu then lived in Banogram with her parents. The family gladly accepted the poet's proposal. Nazrul composed for his new student “Aamar kon kule aaj bhirlo tori”.
However, not too many people were happy about it. The local boys did not like the idea of an “outsider” getting the attention of the young girl. One evening when Nazrul was returning “home”, somewhere near Thatari bazaar, he had an encounter with a group of seven-eight boys with sticks who were clearly in a threatening mood:
“Dilip Ray er taak mathata phatatey parini, ebar tor babri chuler mathata aar aasto rakhbona”
(We could not break the baldy Dilip Kumar's head; but this time we are not going to keep your long haired head intact)
Nazrul Islam retaliated. Grabbing one of their sticks, he swung it like a 'lathial' and the group made good their escape but not before inflicting serious injuries to Nazrul.
Hostility towards Dilip-Nazrul however, was not limited to the jealousy of local mastans only. Competing literary writers of the time ridiculed both Dilip and Nazrul through their various writings for example in Sajonikanto's 'Shoni Barer Chithi”, the well read magazine of the time. They made fun of Dilip and Nazrul. They coined the word “Kanuray” for Dilip while Nazrul was ridiculed with his writing “Ke bideshi bongaobashi (from Banogram) bansher banshi (lathi-stick)”. It is not known whether it was Nazrul's first or last beating in life. But for Ranu it was an incident to remember for good.
In 1928 Dilip left for Sree Aurobindu's ashram at Pondicherry to seek “The ultimate truth”. A disappointed Nazrul wrote “Phiria asho jogi” fearing that Dilip would no more sing his songs. It was in fact the beginning of their dissociation. By the early '30s the magnificent three drifted in different directions. In 1941 Nazrul fell ill, never to come back to normal life; the same year Subhas left India to fight the British, never to return; Dilip chose to live away from Calcutta for the rest of his life and around the same time Ranu gave up singing to ultimately become the famous writer “Protiva Basu” (wife of Buddhadev Basu).

The writer is a music connoisseur and associated with research in science and technology.