Ramaswami: The Manbendra Nath Roy or MN Roy we know of, was born on the campus of Stanford University in the United States at the age of 29. Until then, he was Narendranath Bhattacharya, who had left India to travel across the world, participating in movements. When he left India in search of arms to fight the British, it is said, he assumed a new name to dodge the police and CID in India. Reminiscing in his memoir, Roy says that the day after he landed in the US, newspapers carried headlines such as “Mysterious Alien Reaches America: Famous Brahmin Revolutionary or Dangerous German Spy?”