MY THREE YOUNGER SONS.
Jit, Victor, and Hitty.
Mr. B. Ghose was appointed Rajey’s private tutor. Oh, how I felt that first parting! I knew that Rajey must be trained for the duties of his position, yet I dreaded giving him over to others. As I bade him farewell at the Calcutta railway station, I was amazed to see how “grown-up” he had suddenly become. He was self-possessed and quiet, yet how loving. As I kissed him, trying to be calm and cheerful, I felt the child was taking his first real step in life. I see him now, the dear face, the loving eyes. There was such perfect understanding between us that a look was sufficient to tell me of what Rajey was thinking, and it is the mother’s triumph over death that the love between us still exists and that he is nearer than ever to me now.
I heard that on the night of his arrival Rajey felt the cold exceedingly and was quite ill. “Won’t you go to bed?” asked Mr. Sen, the late Dewan who went with him. “No … no …,” replied the child firmly, “it might hurt Colonel Lock’s feelings.” Rajey was so considerate. He never liked to inflict pain upon any one.
Rajey was very popular at Mayo College. He studied well, and entered into all kinds of sports with zest. His hobby was engines and engineering. He was wonderfully clever in anything connected with mechanics; he used to say: “When I am grown up, I will be an engine-driver. I will get Rs.20 pay and I will give Rs.18 to Hookmi (a favourite servant) because he is so much older than I, and I will keep Rs.2 for myself.” He was also very fond of playing at fighting and building forts. He built one in our Calcutta Palace garden and another in the Cooch Behar Palace garden which still exists.
In 1894, Rajey was removed from Mayo College, and I knew I had to face a longer separation from my first-born. It was very difficult at the time of my son’s education to know how the young Kumars and future rulers of India were to be trained and where. Some said an English education would not be good for these boys. Others said everybody under the British Empire should learn English and be educated in England if possible, as it fitted them for work of any sort in life. There was much discussion on the subject. The Maharajah decided on education in England, because he had great faith in the discipline of the great English public schools.
When I heard that it was decided Rajey should go to England to complete his education, I thought I would speak about it to the Lieutenant-Governor Sir Charles Elliott. I opened my heart to him and said that it was not right to take young Raj-Kumars away from their country and people. “I believe in home influence. I do not like the idea of Rajey’s going such a great distance away from all of us; and he such a homely boy.”
But Sir Charles Elliott told me: “There is no college in India like an English public school; it will do your son good, and you will not regret having sent him.” I told him: “It will be very hard for the boy when he returns from England to be content with the people of Cooch Behar, who are so backward.” And I also said: “How can you expect the boy to keep well in the Cooch Behar climate after being out of it for so many years? It may not agree with him when he comes back.”
Somehow nobody took much notice of my remarks and suggestions. But strangely enough when Lord Curzon was Viceroy I heard remarks made by him “that the Cooch Behar boys were too English, and it was hard on them to have been sent away from Cooch Behar when they were so young.”