Once, Satyaprakash did not go to the school for several days. The father inquired, ‘Why don’t you go to study nowadays? Do you think I have assumed responsibility for your entire life?’
‘My fines and fees have piled up. When I do go I am shunted out of the class.’
‘Why are there dues? Don’t you take money every month?’
‘There are collections every other day. I gave the fee money away as donations.’
‘And what are the fines for?’
‘For not paying the fees.’
‘Why did you donate the money!’
‘When Gyanu paid I followed.’
‘So you’re jealous of Gyanu?’
‘Why would I be jealous of Gyanu? We are different at home, outside we are considered together. I don’t want to say that I don’t have any money.’
‘Why? Are you ashamed of saying it?’
‘Yes, it will bring you a bad name.’
‘Right! So you’re protecting my honour! Why don’t you admit that studying is not agreeable to you any more? I don’t have so much money that I can let you study in the same class for three years and also spend on you every month. Gyan is much younger than you but just one class junior. You’ll surely fail this year and he will surely pass and be your classmate in the next class. Won’t your face be blackened then?’
‘My Fortune surely doesn’t have Knowledge for me.’
‘What is in your Fortune?’
‘To beg.’
‘Then go and beg. Out of my house!’
Devapriya also joined in and said, ‘He’s so shameless! And he even talks back!!’
Satyaprakash retorted, ‘Those who have it in their destiny to beg are the ones who become orphans in their childhood.’
Devapriya was furious. ‘I’ve tolerated these obnoxious insults so far but I can’t stand these scathing taunts any more.’ Devaprakash supported her. ‘He is shameless. I’ll withdraw his name from the rolls tomorrow. If he is destined to beg, then let him beg!’5
The next day Satyaprakash prepared to leave home. He was almost sixteen now. It was intolerable for him to live at home after all the taunting. So long as he was not physically strong and had the incapability that comes with adolescence, he continued to live at home tolerating disdain, insult, callousness and reproach. Now that he was capable, why would he continue to live in bondage? Self-pride, like hope, is long-lasting.
It was an afternoon in the summer days. Everybody in the house was sleeping. Satyaprakash tucked his dhoti in his armpit, picked up a small bag in his hand and was about to leave quietly through the sitting room, when Gyanprakash saw him ready to set out and asked, ‘Where are you going, brother?’
Satya replied, ‘I am leaving. I will take up a job somewhere.’
‘I will go and inform my mother.’
‘Then I will leave quietly without you knowing.’
‘But why will you leave? Don’t you love me at all?’
Embracing his brother, Satyaprakash said, ‘I don’t want to leave you and go, but it is shameful to live where nobody cares about me. I’ll work a job worth five or ten rupees somewhere and feed myself. What else am I capable of?’
‘Why does mother dislike you so much? She keeps telling me not to meet you.’
‘What other than my misfortune can explain this?’
‘You don’t put your heart into studies.’
‘When my heart refuses how can I do it? Since nobody cares, I also think, damn it, at most I will be kicked! So what!’
‘Will you forget me? I will write letters to you, and do call me to visit you.’
‘I’ll post letters to your school address.’
Gyanprakash started crying. ‘I don’t know why I feel such great affection for you.’
Satyaprakash consoled him. ‘I will always remember you.’
Saying this, he embraced his brother once again and left the house. He did not have a cowrie with him, yet he was going to Calcutta.6
It is futile to write an account of how Satyaprakash reached Calcutta. The youth have great audacity in their hearts. They can build castles in the air and row boats on the dry ground. They do not care about difficulties, and have unlimited self-confidence. Reaching Calcutta was not a difficult feat to achieve. Satyaprakash was a wise young man. He had decided beforehand what he would do and where he would live in Calcutta. There were scribing implements in his bag. In a big city, the issue of livelihood was easy as well as difficult—easy for those who could work manually and tough for those wielding a pen. Satyaprakash considered manual labour to be lowly. He lodged in a dharmashala. Later, after inspecting the prime areas of the city, he sat down in front of a post office with his writing implements and started the business of scribing letters, money orders and so on for illiterate labourers. In the first few days, he could not earn enough to even fill his belly but gradually his profit increased. He spoke to the labourers with such humility and wrote their news with such clarity that they felt elated by just listening to the letters. The unlettered get the same thing written twice or even thrice. Their condition is similar to that of patients who do not tire of narrating their pain and suffering to the doctor. Satyaprakash would explain the letters to the labourers in great detail and thus charm them. When one of them left satisfied, he would return with many of his fellows. Within a month, Satyaprakash started earning as much as one rupee a day. He left the dharmashala and rented a small room outside the city for five rupees a month. He ate once a day, cleaned his utensils himself and slept on the floor. He felt no regret or misery for his state of exile and never remembered the people at home. He was satisfied with his situation. It was only the affectionate words of Gyanprakash that he could not forget. This was the only light in the darkness around him. The last few moments before
