A Mere Ten Words

A Mere Ten Words

1988 2 February 11 A Mere Ten Words (287) Ten words a night may seem very few, but spread over a period of eight years, they were sufficient to turn him into a writer of the English language who could elicit praise from native writers and critics of the English language.

Maulvi Lutfullah, whose autobiography, written in English and published in London by Smith, Aldeia and Company in 1857, had never set foot in an English school. Born in 1806 in Dharanagar, an old town of Malwa, he lived the life of an ordinary tutor, teaching Hindi, Persian and Marathi to British employees of the East India Company. He had over a hundred students, and contact with them over a period of time kindled an interest in him to learn their language. He soon began on a course of intensive self-instruction and, in a matter of eight years, gained a mastery of the English language.

In his book, he writes that in the course of these eight years, never a night went past without his learning at least ten new words and studying a few pages of Goldcrest’s books before finally going to sleep.

Ten words a night may seem very few, but spread over a period of eight years, they were sufficient to turn him into a writer of the English language who could elicit praise from native writers and critics of the English language. Alaister Welk, the Englishman who wrote the foreword to his book, expressed a sense of wonder at the expressiveness with which an Indian could write such a lengthy book in a tongue completely alien to him. How did Maulvi Lutfullah develop the talent to write such a book? The answer lies simply in his sheer determination and unstinting hard work.