My big brother was five years older than me but only three grades ahead. He'd begun his studies at the same age I had but he didn't I like the idea of moving hastily in an important matter like education. He wanted to lay a firm foundation for that great edifice, so he took two years to do one year's work; sometimes he even took three. If the foundations weren't well-made, how could the edifice endure? I was nine, he was fourteen. He had full right by seniority to supervise and instruct me. And I was expected to accept every order of his as law. By nature he was very studious. He was always sitting with a book open. And perhaps to rest his brain he would sometimes draw pictures of birds, dogs and cats in the margin of his notebook. Occasionally he would write a name, ? word or a sentence ten or twenty times. He might copy a couplet out several times in beautiful letters or create new words which made no rhyme or reason. I wasn't really very keen about studying. To pick up a book and sit with it for an hour was a tremendous effort. As soon as I found a chance I'd leave the hostel and go to the field and play marbles or fly paper kites or sometimes just meet a chum--what could be more fun? But as soon as I came back into the room and saw my brother's scowling face I was petrified. His first question would be, 'Where were you!' Always this question, always asked in the same tone and the only answer I had was silence. I don't know why I couldn't manage to say that I'd just been outside playing. My silence was an acknowledgement of guilt and my brother's only remedy for this was to greet me with indignant words. 'If you study English this way you'll be studying your whole life and you won't get one word right! Studying English is no laughing matter that anyone who wants to can learn. You've got to wear out your eyes morning and night and use every ounce of energy, then maybe you'll master the subject. And even then it's just to say you have a smattering of it. Even great scholars can't write proper English, to say nothing of being able to speak it. End I ask you, how much of a blockhead are you chat you can't learn a lesson from looking at me? You've seen with your own eyes how much I grind. No matter how many shows and carnivals there may be have you ever seen me going to watch them? Every day there are cricket and hockey matches but I don't go near them. I keep on studying all the time, and even so it takes me two years or even three for one grade. So, how do you expect to pass when you waste your time playing like this? Why waste our dad's hard-earned money?' Hearing a dressing-down like this I'd start to cry. My brother was an expert in the art of giving advice. He'd say such sarcastic words, overwhelm me with such good counsel that my spirits would collapse, my courage disappear. I'd think, 'Why don't I run away from school and go back home! Why should I spoil my life fiddling with work that's beyond my capacity? 'But after an hour or two the cloud of despair would clear away and I'd resolve to study with all my might. I'd draw up a schedule on the spot. How could I start work without first making an outline, working out a plan! In my timetable the heading of play was entirely absent. Get up at the crack of dawn, wash hands and face at six, eat a snack, sit down and study. From six to eight English eight to nine arithmetic, nine to nine-thirty history, then meal-time and afterwards off to school. A half hour's rest at 3.30 when I got back from school, geography from four to five, grammar from five to six, then a half hour's wall; in front of the hostel, six-thirty to seven English composition, then supper, translation from eight to nine, Hindi from nine to ten, from ten to eleven miscellaneous, then to bed.