In due course Bhagat Singh started going to the Primary School of the village along with his brother, Jagat Singh who was 6 year older. Bhagat was very close to his brother.
By nature boy Bhagat was not caste or class conscious. He had a natural flair to befriend others. There was very old tailor in the village who used to stitch the clothes of Bhagat as well. For Bhagat even the age was immaterial. As he was very close to that tailor he always referred to him as ‘My friend’ although the tailor was the contemporary of Sardar Arjun Singh, his grandfather.
Bhagat was bright in the studies. The teachers also recognised it. Whatever he missed in the class he could easily make it up by fast study at home or outside.
His mind was a wanderer. His heart was never in the class. He loved breeze, flying birds, open sky, clouds, trees and streams.
Elder brother always worried for his Bhagat. Whenever he noticed Bhagat missing from his class he knew for sure where to find him. His Bhagat would be sitting outside the school building staring at the playground and the trees younder.
“What are you doing here?” Jagat would ask.
“Watching the ground.”
“What is there to look at in the empty ground?”
Bhagat would reply philosophically, “Brother, the open ground is freedom. I would love to be free like it, always open to sunshine, rain, winds, birds, squirrels and playful kids.”
Jagat would stare at his brother wondrously. Bhagat loved his brother and confided things of his heart to him. Sadly, Jagat died at the age of only eleven.
Bhagat felt very lonely. Even God was not fair to his family, he would feel.
Nevertheless, inspite of all the bunking of classes, Bhagat passed exams with no problem. Thanks to his information and book receptive mind.
As Bhagat’s family belonged to freedom fighter elders it had a small library of books on revolutions and freedom struggles besides a file which contained compilation of newspaper clippings related to political events, militant activities and British atrocities. Bhagat found the file very educative and interesting.
He completed the primary education soon after Jagat’s death. Sardar Kishan Singh shifted to Navakot town with his family. He had some landed property there. Over the years Kishan Singh Singh’s family had grown sizably. He had sired four more sons and three daughters. So, Kishan Singh was now extra careful about getting invol-ved in active politics. Too much was at stake. He must stay out of jail for the sake of more than a dozen dependents namely old parents, wife, eight children and two helpless wives of his brothers.
It was a tradition in Sikh families to send their children to Khalsa schools and college. But Sardar Arjun Singh and Kishan Singh preferred to enroll Bhagat Singh in D.A.V. school. Khalsa educational institutions were run by lackeys of the British. The teaching staff accordingly was also of the mindset, slavish to the colonial rulers and their culture. It was not acceptable at all to the family of freedom fighters. In contrast D.A.V. institutions were fiercely nationalistic and stood for the freedom of the motherland.
For this act the pro-British elements of the Sikh society ridiculed Sardar Kishan Singh and he was treated as a black sheep. But he wouldn’t care.
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