Long before ‘Saiyaara’, there was ‘Ullaskar and Leela’: A love story burned by revolution, bound by forever

Kolkata: Before there was ‘Saiyaara’ — the haunting song of love lost to destiny — there lived a tale even more powerful, more painful, and more forgotten. The story of Ullaskar Dutta and Leela Pal was not fiction. It was forged in the fires of India’s freedom struggle and buried quietly beneath its more famous pages.

They met as young students at Presidency College around 1907–08. He was Ullaskar — fiery, brilliant, and soon to be infamous for his role in the Alipore Conspiracy. She was Leela, daughter of freedom fighter Bipin Chandra Pal, sharp-witted and tender-hearted. They fell in love. They got engaged. And then, the world turned.

In 1908, Ullaskar was arrested for revolutionary activities. By 1909, he had been sentenced to death. Though the sentence was commuted, he was exiled to the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andamans — a place designed to break bodies and erase minds.

Between 1910 and 1911, Ullaskar was subjected to brutal torture — electric shocks that fractured his sanity. And yet, through his delirium, one image kept him anchored: Leela. Her voice, her memory, her light — flickering through the darkness.

When he was finally released in 1920, he returned to find she had married and was later widowed and paralysed. Society had turned its back on her. But he did not. Ullaskar married her quietly, defying whispers and poverty, and moved with her to Silchar, Assam. There, away from glory and gaze, he cared for her till her last breath.

He died in 1965, one of Bengal’s many unsung heroes, not just of the revolution, but of love. Their story isn’t part of schoolbooks. But it should be.