16 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



of those of the past generation in East and West alike, and 

 from which both are too slowly escaping. Indeed in those 

 days games which in later years have become so popular, 

 at length even in many schools compulsory, were still 

 contraband. The master strongly disapproved of cricket, 

 even in the boys' free afternoon hours, as ' a waste of time/ 

 which should be given for the preparation of lessons. But 

 the boys there as everywhere spontaneously carrying out 

 this needed scholastic revolution were too clever for their 

 pedagogue. They got the village carpenter to shape them 

 rough bats and stumps ; and from the juice of an india- 

 rubber tree, slowly rolling and modelling it, they managed 

 a pretty fair ball. .For a field they chose a broad road- 

 crossing, at a quiet place well off the main way between 

 village and school : they posted a scout at each of the 

 approaches from these, and so played with fearful joy ; till 

 sometimes the alarm was given of the suspicious master's 

 coming. But the boys were ready for him : the stumps 

 were pulled, and all dived into the nulla-bed, where they 

 had already collected a store of dry leaves ; among these 

 they lay concealed till the danger had passed, and, happier 

 than ' the babes in the wood/ they could come out to resume 

 their game. 



The schoolbooks too were already more or less acquiring 

 the European standard, their cram-trade type, and so 

 could be of little interest to the children : still, although 

 more slowly, the young Jagadis did really learn to read for 

 himself at home. Thanks to the good early start given by 

 the Jatras, the old popular plays mentioned above, he 

 grew more and more interested in the stories of the ' Maha- 

 bharata' and ' Ramayana/ In the latter the character of 

 Rama, and still more the soldierly devotion of his brother 

 Lakshmana, impressed him ; but ' the characters were 

 mostly too good, too perfect/ It was the old warriors of 

 the ' Mahabharata/ more rudely virile and strenuous, with 

 their defects and qualities, at once human and superhuman, 

 who made more appeal to the imagination of the boy, and 



