Page 26 - All India Magazine Feb-2025

Student days
From my earliest childhood I have not stopped observing
things. When I was very young I was chided for never speaking. It
was because I spent my time observing. I passed my time observ-
ing, I registered everything, I learnt all I could, I did not stop learn-
ing. Well, I can still feel surprised. Suddenly I find myself looking at
such twisted, insincere and obscure movements that I tell myself,
"It is not possible. Can such a thing exist?" Indeed, things which
still come to me, day after day, "It is not possible! In the world
things happen in this way?" And yet I have seen a great number
of people, I began being interested in people when very young, I
have seen many countries, done what I recommend to others; in
every country I lived the life of that country in order to understand
it well, and there is nothing which interested me in my outer being
as much as learning.
CWM 6: 166

Once in my life I took an exam (I forget which one), but I was just
at the age limit, that is I was too young to sit at the time of the
regular exam, so they had me sit with those who had flunked the
first exam (I sat at that time because it was autumn, and then I was
old enough). And I remember, we were a small group, the teachers
were greatly annoyed because their holidays had been cut short,
and the students were for the most part rather mediocre, or else
rebellious. There I was, observing all that (I was very young, you
understand, I don't remember how old, thirteen or fourteen), ob-
serving the whole thing: a poor little girl had been called to the
blackboard to do a mathematical problem, and she didn't know
how to do it, she kept stammering. Me (I wasn't being questioned
just then), I looked and smiled — oh, dear! The teacher saw me and
was quite displeased. As soon as the girl was sent back, he called
me and said, "You do it." Well, naturally (I loved mathematics very

26 All India Magazine, February 2025