Mother's Chronicles - Book Four

17

Brother Manmohan

"Mislike me not for my complexion,

The shadowed livery of the burnished sun!"

"These words, spoken as if from some spontaneous compulsion in a voice low and thrilled that itself seemed to glow, caused all the class of school boys to turn their heads." Thus wrote Robert Laurence Binyon in his Introductory Memoir in Songs of Love and Death, a book of poems by Manmohan Ghose. "At the back of the room, behind the rest, sat a young Indian with thick hair falling about his forehead, and dark lustrous eyes. It was he who had startled us with his impassioned tones. Where had he come from? How had he mysteriously joined us? Perhaps I deceive myself, but to my memory this was my first sight of Manmohan Ghose —an unaccountable apparition from an unknown hemisphere. The legendary East seemed suddenly to have projected a fragment of itself into our little world of everyday things and humdrum studies, disturbing it with colour, mystery, romance. ... It must not be supposed that the words of Shakespeare were spoken out 'of the blue,'

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deliberately challenging an interval of silence. They came with startling aptness, but they came in response to a question. The school was St. Paul's. ... I was then in the seventh form, under the Sur-Master Mr. Lupton, who on this occasion was reading with us the AEneid . . . and on this particular occasion he suggested that livery might be a more sumptuous, Virgilian word than clothes or dress. Could not one of us recall such a use of the word in our classics? He paused for a reply, expecting no doubt that, as usually happened, he would be reduced to supplying the apt quotation himself. But the reply came, and I think he was just a little disconcerted when the Prince of Morocco's appeal vibrated with such intensity of tone through the silent and astonished class room. Its dramatic emotion was something un-English! We were not used to such things."

The 'apparition', Manmohan Ghose, had entered St. Paul's School in the VII form as a Capitation Scholar.

Binyon and Ghose became very close friends as time went on. Their friendship ripened into a lifelong one. And this has paid us a rich dividend. For, through the letters Manmohan wrote to Binyon, we get a wealth of information about the movements of the three brothers in England— all traces of which would have been otherwise obliterated. We shall surely dip into that treasure frequently. Just now let us proceed with Laurence's Memoir.

"He lived in lodgings with his two brothers, but what his actual circumstances were when he came to England, and how he came to be at St. Paul's, I do not think I ever enquired. As to the School, the High Master, a notable and formidable

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personality famous for his prescience in judging of a boy's future capabilities, would at times, for his own reasons, insert a promising pupil into one of the upper forms without notice, and in the middle of the term: hence my unconsciousness of having ever set eyes on Manmohan Ghose till all our heads were turned to the strange new-comer on that particular morning is not so improbable as it may seem. But of Ghose's background I scarcely knew anything. His enthusiasm for literature sufficed my curiosity."

Manmohan was already well versed in Greek and English literature when he joined St. Paul's School, London.

Aravinda A. Ghose and Manmohan Ghose were both admitted to St. Paul's School in September 1884. The original site of the school, which was founded in 1509, was near St. Paul's Cathedral. But as the original building was burned down, the school was moved to South Kensington in 1884, just before the two Ghose brothers joined it. It was within a mile or so from Shepherd's Bush, where ma Drewett had taken lodgings for them, so the two brothers would have travelled to school on foot or by bus.

We do not know if they felt happier at their new environment. London, then the world's biggest city and port, no doubt had better sights to offer than Manchester, with its palaces, museums, abbeys and cathedrals. But in all likelihood, the brothers had little opportunity to admire these, as they spent most of their time in the suburbs, where lines of stiff little houses stretched as far as the eye could see; their cheerlessness, which garish colours vainly tried to hide, became complete when

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London's celebrated fog wrapped everything in a blurred grey-ness. "Miles of soulless brick and faultless macadam" was the cold impression left on young Ara by the proud city.

However, the question remains as to who took the two boys to St. Paul's School in London? It is not known. But may I proffer my own conjecture ? The High Master, Dr. F. W. Walker, about whom Binyon speaks so glowingly, was elected to take charge of St. Paul's in 1876; at the time the school was not flourishing. The choice of the school's governing body fell on Dr. Walker who had distinguished himself in running the Manchester Grammar School. It seems quite plausible, therefore, that Walker and Drewett were quite well known to each other. And, surely, before departing for Australia, Rev. Drewett wanted to leave his wards in good hands, and had arranged for their admission to St. Paul's? And, again, he must have spoken of the brilliance of his youngest ward, Aravinda Akroyd Ghose?

Under the able stewardship of Dr. Frederick William Walker (1830-1910), St. Paul's School began to thrive. His brain, his toil and his devotion made the school an educational institution of renown. He had been the High Master of the Manchester Grammar School from 1859 to 1876, and served St. Paul's from 1876 to 1905.

From St. Paul's, Manmohan went up to Christ Church, Oxford, on a scholarship, joining it in October 1887. He obtained a Second Class in Classical Honour Moderations in 1889. He did not win any prizes or medals. He did not stay to take his final degree in Classics, cutting short his Oxford career in May 1890.

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However, he "migrated to the Delegacy of Non-Collegiate students in January 1893. In December of that year, he took examinations in Classics and History and qualified for B.A. Pass Degree. This Degree was conferred on him on 1 March 1894."

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