Sandipan Pathshaala, Sandipan's village school

Sandipan Pathshaala                                By  Tarashankar Bandopadhyay

When one’s dreams of establishing oneself make the worries about food and clothing seem less, it is the same as walking on the earth with eyes fixed on the skies. The very real obstacles presented by the earth are completely forgotten.

There is a story that tells of an astronomer who fell into a well by chance while he was walking on a dark night with his eyes on the stars in the sky. The person who rescued him was not satisfied with doing just that but gave him some priceless advice. He said, dear Sir, learn what the earth has to say first, and then commune with the sky.

Sitaram knows this famous Western story, he read it as a child and still remembers it.

His father does not know the story, he never studied English, even the little Bengali he knows is equal to not knowing any at all, but he tells the story nevertheless in a different way. He says,

‘Son, do not look up. Look at the ground. Do not try to calculate how many people are better off or more honoured than you, the fires of unhappiness will never go out; instead if you count the number of people who are worse off than you, and less recognized than you, at least this will allow you to spend your days in peace if not happiness.’

Their family adviser says,

‘Child, there is no difference between desire and fire. Just like the flames of fire, desire is also directed upwards. Even if you try to direct it downwards, it instantly turns around and raises its head upwards. But when it is extinguished, life is like burnt wood, like a pile of ash and coals.’

These words touched Sitaram deeply. But he still does not accept them. Like other farmers’ sons he went to study at the local high school. When he grew disappointed at being unable to learn English there, he eventually went to the Normal School in Hooghly, where he failed twice before returning home with his head hanging low in shame. But the fire of ambition had taken hold in his heart at some point, he wanted to work. He wanted to be an officer. To be known as a man of learning in society. But his father Romanath said,

‘No, stop dreaming. We are farmers; our family trade has been farming since the beginning of time. This is how we have been feeding our children and giving them a livelihood in the name of the Lord without a worry in the world. You want a job at the expense of all that! And if it was a job worth talking about! Alas!’

He had been removing the grass at a base of a lime sapling with a spade in his right hand, and smoking a hookah which was in his left hand; while he spoke, both hands were still, now he left his words incomplete as he started doing both things again.