udging them on to a more
enthusiastic appreciation.

He was a devoted admirer of my father. A hymn had been set to one of his
tunes, "For He is the heart of our hearts." When he sang this to my
father Srikantha Babu got so excited that he jumped up from his seat and
in alternation violently twanged his _sitar_ as he sang: "For He is the
heart of our hearts" and then waved his hand about my father's face as
he changed the words to "For _you_ are the heart of our hearts."

When the old man paid his last visit to my father, the latter, himself
bed-ridden, was at a river-side villa in Chinsurah. Srikantha Babu,
stricken with his last illness, could not rise unaided and had to push
open his eyelids to see. In this state, tended by his daughter, he
journeyed to Chinsurah from his place in Birbhoom. With a great effort
he managed to take the dust of my father's feet and then return to his
lodgings in Chinsurah where he breathed his last a few days later. I
heard afterwards from his daughter that he went to his eternal youth
with the song "How sweet is thy mercy, Lord!" on his lips.

(11) _Our Bengali Course Ends_

At School we were then in the class below the highest one. At home we
had advanced in Bengali much further than the subjects taught in the
class. We had been through Akshay Datta's book on Popular Physics, and
had also finished the epic of Meghnadvadha. We read our physics without
any reference to physical objects and so our knowledge of the subject
was correspondingly bookish. In fact the time spent on it had been
thoroughly wasted; much more so to my mind than if it had been wasted in
doing nothing. The Meghnadvadha, also, was not a thing of joy to us. The
tastiest tit-bit may not be relished when thrown at one's head. To
employ an epic to teach language is like using a sword to shave
with--sad for the sword, bad for the chin. A poem should be taught from
the emotional standpoint; inveigling it into service as
grammar-cum-dictionary is not calculated to propitiate the divine
Saraswati.

All of a sudden our Normal School career came to an end; and thereby
hangs a tale. One of our school teachers wanted to borrow a copy of my
grandfather's life by Mitra from our library. My nephew and classmate
Satya managed to screw up courage enough to volunteer to mention this to
my father. He came to the conclusion that everyday Bengali would hardly
do to approach him with. So he concocted and delivered himself of an