Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/773

 VI. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 731 witty sayings in the play, and as I have said on a previous page, the songs and dances of Hira, the flower-woman, formed by far the most important and attractive features of the Vidyadsundara yatras. Gopala Uriya was born about the year 1819 at Jajpur in Cuttack. When a boy of nineteen he came to Calcutta, and, being very poor, adopted the calling of a hawker,—selling bananas. One evening he was passing along a lane of Bowbazar Street, where Babu Radha Mohana Sarkar, a dis- tinguished noble man, was busy with the rehearsal of a Vidyasundara yatra which he had organised. Gopala was crying ‘good bananas sir,’ and only for fun he was called in before the party, where quesuion upon question was putto him. To the surprise of the jovial company, they found that the lad was remarkably witty, and had an excellent voice. He was at once admitted into the troupe, and soon after began to compose songs himself. Becoming trained in music by the favour of his patron Babu Radha Mohana Sarkar, he organized a party which far outdid the fame of all other Vidya- sundara yatrawalas. He cied about the year 1859. Besides the Vidyasundara yatras, there were the Chandi yafras, the Mansar Bhasan yatras, the Rama yatras and other yatras which had for the subject-matter of their songs mythological stories from the Mahabharata. There are no authentic records from which we may trace the early history of the yatrawalas. Gopala Uriya. Other yatras,