Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/786

 744 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. got a smattering of Bengali and becamean appren- | tice in the office of an indigo-planter at Sakai on | a monthly pay of Rs. 3. Here he fell in love with | a low-caste woman of ill fame. Her name was | Aksaya Patini, and she was commonly called Aka Vai. This woman had organised a party of kavi- | walas for whom songs and speeches were now composed by our poet. This made him very un- popular at home, and on one occasion in an open competition of extempore verse-making he was lashed by the taunts of a rival kaviwala. The mother and uncle of Dacarathi insisted on his leaving his mean occupation, associated as it was, with an ignominious passion. Dag¢u could not withstand the importunities of his relations, least of all, of his mother; for inspite of the low calling that he had adopted, he was a good Brahmin and his family enjoyed con- siderable respectability in the neighbourhood. Dacu left the party of saviwalas, and became the author and inventor of a peculiar kind of doggerel— Panchali, Called Pancha. These Panchalis took for their main subject those incidents in Krisna’s life which in the popular belief of Bengal were indispensable to songs. But Dacgu adopted other subjects also favoured by the moderns, and possessing contem- porary interest. Such for instance are his poems on Widow marriage, on the Lily and the Bee, and other subjects. The popularity of these poems, which he made it his profession to recite and sing, was immense throughout the country, and though he had started by charging only Rs. 3 a night, for reciting and singing one of his Panchalis, he was able to lll ............ in