Michael Madhusudan Dutt

Madhusudan was born with rock-like determination. He proved himself to be a student of exceptional gifts, and his teachers and professors with no difficulty recognised in him a fast-blossoming intellectual figure. When his boyhood was just commencing to bud into adolescence, countless coloured images rocketed in the sky of his imagination for a swift flare-up into fame.

From his adolescence he was consumed with the desire to be an out-and-out Englishman. According to him, Bengal, nay the whole of India, was sadly wanting in the capacity of appreciating a genius, whereas the free thinking of foreigners could evaluate real merit…

To our joy, Madhusudan realised his mistake. He wrote to his friend Gour from France: "If there be any one among us anxious to leave a name behind him, and not pass away into oblivion like a brute, let him devote himself to his mother-tongue. That is his legitimate sphere — his proper element."