Chapter 8: Education
Manu Chand was preparing a large number of goods to be brought and sold on the way back. The trade within Bengal had almost stopped in the past two years due to the constant attacks from the Maratha Bargis. So there was much to be taken to Bombay.
Vir wanted to go around with Manu to take in the sights of Bengal. He had been to Bengal in his past life but the difference of two centuries would have changed many things.
"It still isn't safe enough for you to travel outside. Although the peace treaty has been signed, Marathas aren't a race to be trusted not to go back to looting." Madhab had stopped Vir from following his father to travel.
He could only wait at home while reading the books brought from Bombay. He was provided with a large room with great furnishings and most importantly a table right next to a large window.
After a few weeks of going around buying goods for trade and meeting his relatives, Manu was ready to back. Manu couldn't meet his father who lived in Patna though. It was a long distance away and the road there was still very unsafe.
"Make sure to study well. Don't inconvenience or offend others. And make sure to write to us often." Manu spoke with some emotion as he was parting with his son.
Vir just shrugged, "You've been saying the same thing for the past few days."
Manu hit Vir on the back of his head lightly and spoke scoldingly, "Don't act cheeky either. And make sure to take care of yourself. We will probably see each other in a few years."
Vir looked on until the large ship disappeared from sight, lost in his thoughts. But he was interrupted by a voice, "Already missing your father? You're still a kid after all. With you acting all adult-like all the time I almost forgot."
Vir looked up at Swarup's smirking face. The chubby man could be mistaken for a naïve and cheerful guy if one didn't know about his identity.
"Uncle, what happened about the thing I asked for?" Vir asked with a straight face, ignoring Swarup's earlier remarks.
Swarup frowned and muttered, "Tch. No fun teasing the kid."
When Vir kept staring at him, Swarup cleared his throat and answered, "The factory has already been set up. You will get 40% of the profits earned from selling the pens as discussed in your father's presence."
"Thank you, uncle. I will go in now, I shouldn't keep a busy man occupied." Vir left with a sarcastic remark. Swarup was always leisurely even though he did a lot of work.
"What a sharp tongue, heh." Swarup chuckled while looking at the tiny kid who had made fun of him.
This kind of light banter had been happening in an increasing frequency over the few weeks since Vir had arrived. Swarup also enjoyed it quite a bit. The child would tease and make fun of him but never to the point of disrespect. It was just like a relationship between brothers.
Most of his nephews were either too scared of him or too childish to speak proper sentences. In this situation, the addition of Vir into the household was quite refreshing for him. Swarup had even seen the stiff Madhab smiling a few times at the kid's jokes.
….
In the evening, Madhav and Swarup Chand were sitting down for dinner with Vir. All three of them sat on the floor on some cushions and were waiting for the dinner to be served. Vir was sitting opposite the two of them like a student being questioned by his teachers.
"So why didn't you just use Sanskrit? A lot of scholars use Sanskrit if not Persian. It would've been easier." Swarup asked what he had been curious about.
"The problem is that only scholars and intellectuals use Sanskrit these days. The spoken language among the common people is a mix of each regional language with Sanskrit, Persian, Prakrit, and a few other languages. And since Sanskrit is already a complete language with set rules, making changes to it would be met with more difficulties." Vir answered.
The two adults thought about it for a while and agreed with Vir's reasoning.
"Yeah, the Sanskrit scholars will start a riot if you try to change anything. It should be fine since it is similar to so many northern languages and you're even using the Devnagari script with influence from Sanskrit grammar."
"But it would be difficult to make people accept it no matter how hard you work on it. There are definite advantages in standardizing the language at a big-picture level but humans don't usually move to change if there is no immediate personal benefit." Madhab gave a realistic opinion.
Vir nodded, "I am not expecting it to be immediately put into effect. And I don't mean to make people use it as a primary language if they don't already speak it either. It is just something I am thinking of doing over my lifetime."
It wasn't lost on Vir that having a language accepted by such a massive population as a primary or secondary language was a task that would take a long time. So this was one of the things that he had put under his long-term plans.
At least it was comforting to know that a large part of the common populace in the north spoke Khariboli or some dialect similar to it. So it shouldn't take a literal lifetime.
Swarup looked out the door toward the connected room where his brothers and cousins were sitting around waiting for dinner and grumbled, "A kid who isn't even three is already making grand plans for his life while some fully grown guys can't even plan for their day."
The usually serious Madhav joined in with a sigh, "He is truly a nature's wonder. But at least he was born to our family. I don't even want to imagine this child growing up in a rival family."
The dinner ended on a cheerful note with the brothers discussing the language and grammar that Vir was working on.
After dinner, when the atmosphere was still nice, Vir spoke to the two adults "I have something to ask of you two."
This immediately interested the Chand brothers. So far, almost everything Vir has said and done has been very interesting. So they were curious about this request.
Swarup asked right away, "What is it?"
"I wanted to ask for a loan and your help to find some artisans to set up a factory."
Vir's bold declaration of starting a factory with their help stunned the two men. But since it was related to business, the atmosphere quickly turned serious.
Madhab spoke in a business-like tone, "If you want us to provide loans and even find artisans for you, we need to first know about what you are going to produce."
"I want to produce paper. Since we are already producing pens, we should also make paper. I think the demand for paper will continue to increase in the future so setting up a factory is a good investment. If we can improve the production process it'd be even better."
Sawrup nodded. They were aware of the increasing demand for paper. There was news that some of the merchants around Kashmir were already starting to export paper to the Europeans. So they had already been investing in a couple of paper factories.
Understanding the market and its trends was a fundamental skill a merchant needed to have. If possible, a merchant should always be ahead of those trends. Seeing how the young Vir was accurately seeing the trend and trying to capitalize on it, Swarup was very impressed.
Madhab and Swarup turned to each other at the same time and from each other's eyes they could read the same thoughts. Swarup suddenly laughed out loud, startling the noisy room on the other side.
"Yes. This is it. A merchant should be like this. What kind of artisans do you need? For the paper factory, we can just take over one of the ones we are investing in and loan it to you." Although Swarup was making decisions arbitrarily, Madhab was just smiling and nodding.
'I had prepared a whole monologue with an elevator pitch on why they should give me the money and help me but this is it? This was way too easy. I can't tell if they are visionaries with an eye for business or just stupidly throwing away money at anything interesting.'
"Thank you, uncle. I want to take a look at the paper factory first and see how things are done there. If I can see anything that can be improved I'll ask your help." Vir explained.
'I can start other projects with the money I earn from selling pen and paper.'
….
Vir focused on preparing the textbooks for the schools he was planning to establish. By milking every last drop of memory from his past life and using the books he got in Europe as a basis for the level of scientific development of the period he wrote appropriate textbooks.
The process of writing the books was not very easy though. The issue of having to write about scientific concepts and mathematical theorems that had no words in any Indian language caused headache to Vir. But in the end, he opted to use the English words by transliterating them.
In this way, he was preparing books on Hindustani, science, mathematics, social studies, agriculture, and logic. Other common subjects of the times would also be added later.
Hindustani language would be taught using the grammar book that the scholars had written back in Bombay. It was going into print soon. Although Manu only wanted to print 100 copies, Vir had convinced him to print 200 of them.
The science textbook was divided into physics, biology, chemistry, and astronomy. Vir decided to only teach basic concepts and theories for primary education and leave the rest for higher education.
Same as the science textbook, mathematics was also divided into two parts. Basic arithmetics, geometry, and statistics were taught as primary education and the rest was left for higher education.
Social studies would encompass a lot of things including a brief history, geography, economics, and most importantly ideological education. Vir planned to use this subject to plant a seed of nationalism and enlightenment in the children's minds.
Additionally, the kids would also be taught about the societal evils of the times like the Sati practice. This subject would thus be more about societal reform.
Agriculture was the main occupation for a large majority of the population at the time. Vir planned to teach the agricultural methods from the West, China, and whatever he could remember from the future through this subject.
It would also work in attracting more students. Peasant parents are more likely to send their kids to a school that teaches about farming.
Finally, logic is a subject that was prepared to teach the kids how to think scientifically, and logically. Instead of accepting things as it is, they will be taught to ask questions and understand the nature of things logically and scientifically.
For social studies and logic, Vir had to wrack his brain to come up with stories to convey the lessons more effectively. He wanted to create interesting stories so that they would propagate far and wide with his lessons. But ultimately, Vir settled for just good enough.
After books, what he needed most were teachers to teach those books to students. And to hire, gather, and train the teachers he would need quite a bit of money. Not to mention the cost required to sponsor the schools they would be running.
During this time, the infrastructure for the education in the Indian subcontinent was much more developed than rest of the world. There was usually at least one school in all towns and large villages.
These schools were run through the donations of the locals. The interest in schooling the male child was quite high at this period with a lot of children below the age of 15-16 being sent to schools. Girls were usually schooled at home.
It was unfortunate that most of the education they provided was religious and philosophical with very little emphasis on science and mathematics. If all those schools began teaching the curriculum developed by Vir, the progress it could bring was unprecedented.
But Vir was in no hurry. He couldn't do anything even if he was in a hurry since Bengal was devastated due to the Maratha invasion, the situation had yet to calm down. And from what he knew of history, the turmoils in Bengal were yet to end.
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