Krishnarao was the sole earning member of the Gokhale family. His demise was bound to put the family in financial troubles. The prospects of starvation began to stalk the family. Satyabhama did not know how to feed the family. They could no more stay at Kaltuk or the two brothers at Kolhapur. But where to go and how to make both ends meet was the big questions facing the entire family.
Krishnarao’s brother, Anantrao was living at their ancestral village. He was in some service getting a small salary which hardly was enough to take care of the needs of his family. But he could not ignore the helpless family of his dead brother. It was his moral duty to extend whatever help he could. He, Anantrao was a conscientious man.
He brought his widowed sister-in-law and her children to Tamhane village to live with him irrespective of whatever problems they would face. Govindrao’s wife was also with them.
After a few days the family decided that Govindrao should stay back at the village and do some job to augment the income of his uncle who was shouldering the entire burden. It was also decided that Gopalrao (Gopal Krishna) should go back to Kolhapur and complete his studies to realise the dream of Krishnarao.
Gopalrao did not like it. He wanted to stay back and help his brother in taking care of the needs of their mother and four sisters. But the family did not agree. They said that at least one of the brothers must get properly educated as a tribute to their father.
Govindrao and his wife insisted that Gopalrao must go and concentrate on his studies alone and not worry about the family.
With a heavy heart Gopalrao alias Gopal Krishna Gokhale returned Kolhapur to resume his studies.
Meanwhile, Govindrao looked around for a job. It was no easy task. After a lot of approaches and recommendations he landed a job which paid only fifteen rupees a month.
He knew the minimum expenses required to keep his younger brother at studies. He would have to spare a larger part of his salary for the education of Gopalrao. It would cost more when he would go up in classes.
Govindrao decided to send eight rupees every month to his brother. That left only seven rupees for the rest of the family to live on. He explained the situation to his mother and the sisters. His wife already knew it. The members of the family assured Govindrao that they would make every possible sacrifice to make Krishnarao’s dream come true.
It was very difficult for seven people to survive on seven rupees only. Their’s was infact a beggarly life. But no one was complaining.
As far as Govindrao was concerned he was determined to go through the severest of the tests to see his brother become a scholarly person of big degrees. He would let nothing come in the way of Gopalrao’s education.
gopal krishna’s struggle
Gopal Krishna knew with what spirit of sacrifice his brother Govindrao was financing his education. The latter was sending him the greater part of his salary inspite of having a wife in addition to responsibilities of taking care of the mother and the sisters.
But for a student eight rupees was not enough. Half of it went to the canteen for feeding him a whole month. The rest, four rupees barely covered the expenses of fees, books and the stationary. New clothes were an unaffordable luxury.
Hence, Gopal Krishna’s life was very very simple. He would spend every pie (the lowest value coin of old currency system, equivalent to the half paisa of current system) carefully. A tiny mis-spending could spell financial disaster for Gopal Krishna. Once he happened to do that and to compensate it he had to read books all night in the street under a lamp post.
Infact, Gopal Krishna was penalising himself for the mistake he had committed in losing two annas unnecessarily.
The factual story was as under :
One day a friend suggested to him that they go to see drama. Gopal Krishna declined considering his financial position which did not allow him any over spending. The friend informed that he had already bought the tickets. Gopal Krishna thought that if he did not go the poor fellow’s ticket for the drama which had already been bought would go waste. So, he went to see the play with him under the impression that it was a treat from his friend.
They liked the play. It was an interesting and educative drama. Gopal Krishna was glad and thankful to his friend. But he was shocked when the friend asked him to shell out two annas (12.5 Paise) the cost of the ticket.
Had the friend made it clear it the very beginning that he would be bearing the cost of his ticket he would have refused point blank to see the play. But it was now water under the bridge. Nothing could be done. For the shoe string budget of Gopal Krishna two annas amount was a big drain.
He paid the money to his friend without any protest. He reasoned that it was his own fault. He should have made his friend clearly spell the financial status of the tickets for the play. So, he had to pay the fine.
To recover the loss he did not buy oil for his lamp for that night and studied his books in the light of a lamp post.
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