NETAJI ... 2

At the age of five Subhas went to school, a missionary school (Protestant European School) at that where he could master the language of the British masters. It is interesting to note that the pupils there were lengthily taught the Bible along with British history and geography instead of that of India, Latin instead of Sanskrit and Western music instead of Indian. It was but obvious that these missionary schools were primarily meant for European and Anglo-Indian children and they aimed to turn them into British end-products with little affinity to anything Indian, though they operated well within the Indian heartland. This sense of alienation of the British-Indian system of education following the minutes of Macaulay never let the British integrate themselves with the Indian culture nor allowed the free flourishing of the children of the land and the cultural divide inevitably fostered in sensitive Indian minds a reaction later regarding the efficacy of the foreign systems operating within our beloved Motherland. And this in turn grew in momentum to ferment feelings for freedom from the British yoke.

In 1909 Subhas joined the Ravenshaw Collegiate School in Cuttack. Here he came to learn at length his mother-tongue Bengali and also some Sanskrit. Here Subhas met his boyhood idol Beni Madhav Das who was the headmaster of the school. The latter evoked in him a sense of ethical idealism and it was a touching farewell that he bade the boys when he took his leave off them on being transferred. Beni Madhav Das left an indelible impression on Subhas for life. He learnt to appreciate Nature in a new light, his aesthetic eye opening up and stirring him to his depths even as he embarked upon the stormy phase of adolescence.