Childhood
Dwarakanath Tagore is a descendant of Rarhi Brahmins of Vandyopadhyay(Sandilya gotra) division. He was the second son of Nilmoni Thakur (employed in the Calcutta Police) from his first wife Menaka. Menaka was the younger sister of Alakasundari, wife to Rammoni's elder brother Ramlochan, who was childless. Soon after his birth in 1794 Dwarkanath was informally adopted by Ramlochan and Alakasundari and formally adopted in 1799.
His early education and upbringing was within the family house (Thakur Bari), but at age 10 in 1804 he was admitted to Sherbourne's school on the Chitpur Road and become one of Mr. Sherbourne's favourite pupils.
On 12 December 1807, Ramlochan died leaving all his property to his adopted son Dwarkanath who was then a minor. This property consisted of zamindari estates governed by the complicated Regulations of Permanent Settlement introduced by Lord Cornwallis in 1792. The Zamindars were the rulling authority of a certain sub-division or region under The British Rulling Authority in India and they(Zaminders) had the authority to collect tax or to rule their fellow residents inside the territory of their Zamindaris on behalf of the British Government in India. Therefore to participate in the Zamindari, left by his adopted father Ramlochan Takhur as the forth-coming Zaminder successfully, Dwarkanath left school in 1810 at the age of 16 and apprenticed himself under a renowned barrister at Calcutta Robert Cutlar Fergusson and shuttled between Calcutta and his estates at Behrampore and Cuttack.
On 7 February 1811 Dwarkanath was married to Digambaridevi (then 9 years old). Dwarkanath's family fortune took a decided turn for the better once she entered his house, also bearing him one daughter and 5 sons before her death in January 1839.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“She that but little patience knew,
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Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers’ touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The quickness with which all the “stuff” from childhood can reduce adult siblings to kids again underscores the strong and complex connections between brothers and sisters.... It doesn’t seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we’ve traveled. Our brothers and sisters bring us face to face with our former selves and remind us how intricately bound up we are in each other’s lives.”
—Jane Mersky Leder (20th century)
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—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)