Page 30 - Demo

What of the implication that he was abnormal and eccentric?The Maharaja showed the court that he had consulted two competent doctors, one of whom was the Principal of the Medical College in Vizag, and both certified that he was free from any mental disorder. The picture that the Court of Wards had sought to show, of someone who was practically a lunatic, of someone who %u2018is so erratic that the minors, if permitted to associate with him, are likely to be contaminated%u2019 was comprehensively shattered. Ayyar and the Court of Wards felt their narrative slipping away. The judge asked him, putting aside the current imbroglio, why he wouldn't agree to have them educated at the best of schools abroad? The Maharaja eloquently argued his point: %u201cOf the children, the two boys are being educated at school in Vizagapatam and each of them has a whole-time graduate tutor and the two girls are being taught by Roman Catholic European Nuns, and I am enhancing the knowledge of the four to the extent I can. I see no sense in the children being separated from their countrymen and in their having no manner of education in their language. India is not a barbaric country; it has schools and colleges, some of which are as good as the best of them in England.%u201d Agreed, interjected Ayyar but what reason could he have against sending the children, if good schools were obtainable here or in England? The Maharaja brought in an apt comparison: %u201cJust as black bears cannot survive in the Arctic regions and white bears can, my children may not be able to 20