Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/78



, as desired by his parents, brought Ramtanu to Chetla in 1826. But anxious as he was to give his brother an English education, he did not find it easy, for his salary of thirty rupees a month, together with what he made by helping people in their lawsuits, barely enabled him to make both ends meet. There being no English school at Chetla or Kalighat, it was necessary that Ramtanu should be lodged somewhere in Calcutta; but who was to take care of him, and whence was the money for his board and education to come? These questions puzzled Kesava. For a time he was compelled to put them aside, and to give his brother as good a home education as he could. Possessing a good knowledge of Persian and Arabic, he taught him these languages. English handwriting too was attended to so well, that in after years, when Ramtanu Babu was praised for his penmanship, he attributed it to the care and skill with which his brother had taught him to write.

But this was an arrangement with which Kesava could not long remain satisfied. He could give very little time to his brother; and besides that he had to spend the greater part of the day in his office, leaving the boy in the companionship of the servants, who were by no means fit to associate with him. The moral atmosphere of places like Kalighat was tainted, and Chetla was not free from the infection. It is a known fact that places of Hindu pilgrimage are full of corruption. Vicious characters of