Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/86



We give here an incident that happened at the time when Ramtanu presented himself for admission into the Hare School. Mr Hare, at the time of enrolling him, asked him his age, and he said it was thirteen years. Mr Hare said it was twelve. The boy contradicted him, and maintained that he was thirteen years old; but Mr Hare did not believe it, and so put down twelve years as the boy’s age in the admission-book. This occurrence shows how well acquainted the English gentleman was with Bengali customs. He knew that here in India, a boy entering the thirteenth year of his life was said to be thirteen years old, and not twelve, as he really was. Even now the illiterate of this country in this way increase their age by one year in each case.

At the time of which we are speaking a sufficient number of teachers was not available, and so instruction was in the lower classes given by monitors. When our hero belonged to the seventh class his monitors were two boys of the first class, Jadava and Aditya by name. The recollection that he in after years had of these two young men was not at all creditable to them. The one he remembered not only as a great thrasher, but also as a glutton, threatening or cajoling the well-to-do among the boys into presenting him with edibles; the other as the man who had cheated Dakhinaranjan Mookerjee of 700 rupees under the pretext of starting a school.

Ramtanu got on well at the school, but this in no way lessened Kesava’s anxiety for him, but rather increased it. Gaur Vidyalankar’s lodging, where he resided, was not a fit place for him. Vidyalankar was himself profligate; and his co-lodgers, almost all of whom held him in great respect, imitated him in his favourite vices. Sometimes they surpassed him in profligacy. They were all foppish in their modes of living, and idle in the extreme. Not one of them would stir even when required to cook a