Even in winter Rabindranath used to get up early in the morning when it was still dark and he shivered with the cold. He practised wrestling with the 'celebrated one-eyed' wrestler. Their wrestling ground was on the north side of the outer room where there was once a greenery. The ground had been prepared by digging and loosening the earth to a depth of one cubit and pouring over it a mound of mustard oil. It was a mere child play for the wrestler to tangle with him. But Rabi's mother did not like this activity because her son's skin was becoming darkened and in holidays she used to scrub him top to bottom and treated him with cosmetics like almond paste, thickened cream, the rind of orange etc. Specially on Sunday morning, there was much rubbing and scrubbing on the veranda,
After coming from the wrestling ground there was a medical student waiting with a skeleton of the human body to teach them the names of the bones which were terribly difficult to remember.
As the clock struck 7, Master Nilkamal appeared to teach him Bengali, Arithmatic, Algebra and Geometry with the help of the black board. In the literature lesson he could quickly jump from Sitar Banabas to Meghnadhbadh Kabya. Along with this he had learned natural sciences. Sometimes Sitanath Dutta came to teach experiments in science with familiar things. Once Hiramba Tattnaratna, the Sanskrit scholar, came and taught them Mugdhobodh Sanskrit grammar, which they had to learn by heart without understanding anything.
After finishing the morning lessons, he had to go to school and returned at half past four. The gymnastic master came then and for about an hour he had to practise with parallel bars. He enjoyed other types of games also, with marbles, with bat-ball (a poor relation of cricket), top spinning, kite-flying-- all the lazy types of games. Football was out of their reach.
