United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When I sat for the examination in English literature the following day, my first glance at the questions caused tears of gratitude to pour forth, wetting my paper. The classroom monitor came to my desk and made a sympathetic inquiry. "My guru foretold that Romesh would help me," I explained. "Look; the very questions dictated to me by Romesh are here on the examination sheet!
"The Bengali examination is usually easily passed by our Bengali boys," Romesh told me. "But I have just had a hunch that this year the professors have planned to massacre the students by asking questions from our ancient literature." My friend then briefly outlined two stories from the life of Vidyasagar, a renowned philanthropist. I thanked Romesh and quickly bicycled to the college hall.
A few classmates had gathered around to listen to the tutoring. "Romesh is advising you wrongly," one of them commented to me at the end of a session. "Usually only fifty per cent of the questions are about the books; the other half will involve the authors' lives."
Romesh Dutt, who published abridged translations of the two poems in the late nineties, says of the Mahabharata that the great war which it tells of "is believed to have been fought in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ"; and of the Ramayana, that it tells the story of nations that flourished in Northern India about a thousand years B. C. Is believed by whom, pray?
He spent several hours of that afternoon and of succeeding days in coaching me in my various subjects. "I believe many questions in English literature will be centered in the route of Childe Harold," he told me. "We must get an atlas at once." I hastened to the home of my Uncle Sarada and borrowed an atlas. Romesh marked the European map at the places visited by Byron's romantic traveler.
Word Of The Day