Editor: I. Mallikarjuna Sharma Volume 11: 15-31 March 2015 No. 5-6

28 Autobiography of Martyr Ramprasad Bismil (2015) 1 LAW
her. And she performed the marriage of our father there
itself. After staying there for 3-4 months, all of them
came back [to Shahjahanpur], bringing the newly
wed bride along with them, after making her [i.e.
our mother] bid farewell to all her relatives there.
Household life:
After marriage my father got employed in the
Municipality at a salary of Rs. 15/- per month. He
did not receive any high education. My father did
not like this job [in the municipality]. So, after one
or two years he left the muicipal employment and
tried to start an independent business and began to
sell government stamps in the court premises. A
major part of his life was spent in this business of
selling government stamps. After becoming an
ordinary household person, by the income from this
business only, he got educated his children, brought
up and managed his family and in course began to
be counted among the respected persons in his
locality. He used to engage in money exchange too.
He got made three bullock carts, which he was
renting out. My father possessed a handsome, strong and
well-built physique; a lover of physical culture, he used to
regularly participate in wrestling bouts.
A son was born in my father’s family but he
soon died in childhood. One year after this first
son’s demise, this writer [Sri Ramprasad] was born on
the 11 th day of Jyeshta Sukla paksh in the year 1954
vikram [about 11 June 1897 A.D.]. And our grandpa
[and grandma] had with several efforts, like making
salutations to gods-goddesses, searching for, getting
and tying up many talismen, amulets, etc., tried to
protect this endangered physique [of myself]. The
children’s disease syaat (यात) had entered our
house at that time [it seems]. Consequently, within a
month or two of my birth, my physical condition
also began to deteriorate just as it did in the case of
the expired first son [my elder brother] before me.
Somebody advised that a white rabbit be brought and
made to roam on my body for a while and thereafter left on
the ground, and that if I had contracted that disease, the
rabbit was sure to fall down and die, and so whether I got
that disease or not could be proved with certainty. And
elders say that it also happened exactly like that. They did
get hold of a white rabbit and made it walk on my
body for a while and then left it on the ground, and
it is said that the rabbit then convulsed with fits, ran
in circles and then dropped dead. On pondering
about these stories now, I think that in a way this
was quite possible [i.e. not just incredible] too, since
medicines are of three kinds: 1. divine (daivik); 2. human
(manushik); and 3. vampirish (paisachik). In the vampirish
medicines, the blood and flesh of several kinds of animals
and birds are made use of and such use is documented
in the books on [traditional or ayurvedic] medicine.
I may mention here about one very interesting and
surprising experiment in such vampirish medicines. If
any child is afflicted with rickets [jabhokha or sukhe ka rog]
and then if a bat be caught, cut [sliced] and brought before
that child, then even if that child be only one or two
months old, he will catch that bat and begin to suck its
blood and that disease will vanish fast. This is a very
useful medicine, which was apprised to me by a
great man [Mahatma].
[However, Bismil recovered from that affliction
and grew up fairly well.] And when I became seven
(7) years old my father himself taguht me the
Hindi alphabets and then sent me to a maktab 1 of
a Moulvi Saheb to learn Urdu. I also very well
remember that my father used to go to
gymnasium [akhaaDaa] for wrestling bouts and
used to fling down to ground fighters of even
stronger physique – even those who were one and
a half times or so heavier than him [through his
wrestling expertise]. However, after some time, my
father fell in love [friendship] with one Bengali
gentleman [Sri Chatterjee], who was running an
English medicines’ shop. Mr Chatterjee was a
very heavy drinker and addict. He used to drink a
half chatak charas 2 in one gulp; and in his company
my father also started drinking charas due to which his
strong physique totally deteriorated. In ten years his
entire body dried up and became virtually
skeleton-like. This Mr Chatterjee was an alcoholic
too and due to that heavy drinking, his heart/liver
got enlarged and finally he succumbed to that
affliction. Due to my persistent persuasion, my
father finally gave up drinking charas but that was to
happen much later.
* * * (to be continued)
1 A small school; “a special school providing education in
theology, religious history, etc, primarily to prepare
students for the priesthood, ministry, or rabbinate.”
2 An intoxicating drug prepared from the flowers of hemp –
[ganja plant]. 1 Chatak = 1/16 th seer = about 2 ounces.
Law Animated World, 15-31 March 2015
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