Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/518

1925] Review forced a transparent mask upon him without consulting his wish or convenience. Masks do not necessarily hide sinister motives. If the highwayman wears a mask, a harmless Pierrot or a Columbine also finds it useful. My readers must have perceived that I am nothing but an innocent Pierrot out for a little fun and amusement which the frailty of some grey-headed and grey-bearded persons sometimes affords.

To persist in errors is a privilege of old age, but to clear the atmosphere of suspicion and gloom is equally the duty of youth. Babu Ramananda triumphantly demands—“May we also enquire why a few years ago a certain Englishman was appointed a professor of an oriental language and used to draw Rs. 500 a month without doing any lecturing or other work?” The Englishman in question was Col. Ranking who had translated a well-known and important Persian work into English, and served as a Lecturer in Persian at Oxford before he was employed by the Calcutta University on a salary of Rs. 500. It is an absolute lie to say that he did no lecture work. His lecture hours were not shown in the time-table because he did not stay in India during the summer months. “It is true that these questions were asked more than once in previous issues of the Modern Review without eliciting any reply.” The reason however is very simple. Babu Ramananda often refused to publish the contradictions sent to his journal, and there is no wonder that the defenders of the University did not care to waste their time in writing a contradiction which they feared would not be published. Moreover, they have their professional duties to perform. University scandal serve to fill up the gaps in his editorial pages which Babu Ramananda may otherwise find difficult to fill up, but Ajax finds it to his cost that a contradiction deprives him of his hard earned leisure.

As for the University Minutes, the analogies given by Babu Ramananda are not on all fours with the matter under discussion as he himself admits. Yet he gives them. The reason may be two-fold; either he knows that his case is