UNIT I
UNIT I PROSE (2 Hours)
Portrait of a Lady - Kushwant singh
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
by Khushwant Singh
Introduction:
Kushwant
Singh, journalist and writer is a prolific writer in English and has written on
Indian themes. His first novel was
‘Train to Pakistan’ written in 1956 which dealt with partition troubles. In this essay he speaks about his memories
regarding his grandmother. He thinks about
his past school and college days when his grandmother was with him. The
greatness of her grandmother was brought out in this essay in a very simple
manner.
Description
of Grandmother:
She
was old and wrinkled for the 20 years that Kushwant Singh had known her and she
had once been young and pretty. She even
had a husband that was hard to believe by him.
The grandfather’s portrait hung above the mantel piece in the drawing
room. She looked terribly old, short,
fat with a stoop (slightly bend). She had criss-cross of wrinkles running from
everywhere to everywhere on her face.
She hobbled (walking with an injured feet) around the house with one
hand resting on her hip to balance the stoop.
She was very religious often telling her beads and prayers.
Good
Friends:
The
author and his grandmother were good friends who use to wake him up every
morning and got him ready for the school.
His parents left him under the loving care the grandmother and left to
the city to up bring their standards of living.
She bathed him, fetched him the wooden slate and fed him the stale
chapattis with little butter and sugar spread on it. They both went to school together, and the
school was a part of the temple. The
priest taught alphabets and prayers to the children who came to school, while
the grandmother would be in the temple reading the scriptures.
Kushwant
Singh left the Village:
When
his parents were comfortably settled in the city they took Kushwant Singh and
grandmother to their city house. He
joined the English school and travelled by motor bus. The author and the grandmother shared the
same room in the city. As years went on,
for some time the grandmother made him ready for his school and when he returns
back he use to tell about the lessons being taught in the school. She was unhappy about it, since there were no
teachings about prayer and God. Later he
joined the University and the relationship began to worsen up. She use to sit all alone at her spinning
wheel throughout the day and in the afternoons she would sit on the verandah
feeding the sparrows with bread crumbs which were very friendly with the old
lady.
Abroad
journey:
The
author decided to go abroad for further studies and he was sure that the
grandmother would be upset and he will be away from her for five years. She came to leave him at the railway station
and never showed any emotions of sadness.
Her lips moved in prayer, her fingers busy telling the beads. He was surprised when his grandmother kissed
his forehead before the journey could start and cherished it thinking that he
will be seeing her for the last time.
Final
moments of Grandmother:
When
he returned after his higher education she was at the station to receive the
author. She comforted him and chanted a
prayer. Later in the same evening, the
family members saw a sudden change in the behavior of the grandmother. She called women from the neighborhood,
started beating a drum and began to sing of the homecoming of the warrior. The next day she was ill and the doctor examined
and said she will be alright, but the grandmother said that the end has
come. She lay on bed telling her beads,
suddenly the rosary fell down and they knew she was dead.
The
family members started preparing for her cremation. The author was amazed to see thousands of
sparrows gathered where the body had been kept.
Before cremating her, the author’s mother threw bread crumbs to the
sparrows but no one took notice of the bread.
Conclusion:
Later,
they carried the grandmother’s corpse (dead body) to the cremation
ground. All the sparrows flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper
swept the bread
crumbs into the dust bin.
Mother Terasa - John Frazar
Mother Teresa
- John Frazer
Introduction
John Frazer is an English architect, and influential teacher and writer
on architect. In this essay Frazer talks
about a great women Mother Teresa who devoted her life to do to service for the
poor people, who has been described as ‘the lady of the slums, the champion of
the poor, the apostle (messenger) of the unwanted, the angel of mercy, the
gently mother’.
Birth of Mother Teresa
She was born in Yugoslavia of Albanian parents (26 August 1910 – 5
September 1997), and she received training as a nun (sister in church) in
Dublin, Ireland and came to Kolkata in 1929 as a teacher. She collected orphan
children and taught them hygiene (Cleanliness).
In 1946, she decided to devote her life to the service of poor and those
who suffered from diseases. She started
missionaries of charity.
Lady of the slums
Mother Teresa came to Kolkata slums and she walked into the dirty slums
wearing a white sari. She had only five
rupees with and yet she felt she could help the sick and the poor. She knocked on the dirty house doors where
the children were ragged (who wears torn clothes), and barefooted (no
slippers). She gave education to them
under trees. She is a best know woman in
India. Though poor, Mother Teresa in
like Himalaya in wealth. Her asset
(property) includes 7500 children in 60 schools 9, 60,000 patients in 214 dispensaries
(clinics) 47, 00 leprosy people in 54 clinics 1,600 orphaned or abandoned
children in 20 homes and 3, 400 dying people in 23 homes. This is her real asset.
About her
She established the Catholic order (organization) in 1950. The Jawaharlal Nehru Award was given to her
service to humanity without distinction of caste, creed (religious belief) and
nationality. She is nearly 150 cm
tall. She is calm and straight forward,
who is always capable of good laughter with visitors. She is hard to deal with when it comes to
helping the needy. She has a good
listening capacity but there was some objection to the Pope inviting her to
open slums in Rome. She only travels by
third class ticket and do menial service too.
She is very humorous (Funny), integrity (good), and fortitude (bold in
taking pain)\
She is Simple
Mother Teresa’s help to the poor is a sign of simplicity. She will not worry about others those who
discourage her. She helps others and
gives room to the poor’s and diseased people though there is no place for her
in her room.
Her first big venture (risk) was a home for the very poor sick and dying
people. She stared it when she saw an
old woman being bitten by rats dying in the streets. She went and complained to the Municipal
authorities to provide place for the poor.
Later she was offered a vacant pilgrim hostel by side of Hindu temple,
and the placed named Nirmal Hriday. The
sick and the dying are treated in Nirmal Hriday.
Peace Prize
The missionaries of charity run ten schools in Kolkata with strength of
around 2500 students. Milk and bread are
provided to the children. This First
International Pope John XXIII Peace Prize went to Mother Teresa in January
1971. She used the prize money of Rs.
one lakh to start a leper colony in West Bengal. This was followed by the Templeton Foundation
Prize for progress in Religion.
Conclusion
The prize money of Rs. 6,46 lakhs was presented to Mother Teresa by
Prince Philip. Many branches of
Missionaries of Charity were established in different parts of world. At the age of 87 she passed away on 5
September 1997. She is known as the
angel of mercy and gentle mother.
The power of prayer - Abdul Kalam
The Power of Prayer is taken from Wings of Fire written by APJ Abdul
Kalam. Kalam belongs to a middle-class Tamil Muslim family of
Rameswaram. The family lived in their ancestral house. After evening
prayers, his father would dip his fingers in the water and pray. The
water would be used to cure suffering people.
His father told Kalam that prayer makes our body a part of the cosmos.
Prayer makes communion of spirit between man and God possible. He
further told him that every human being is a part of a divine Being.
Kalam says that whatever he achieved in his life is through the help of
God. He says that God has graced him with outstanding teachers and
colleagues. There is a divine fire in every one of us, we should give
wings to the fire and glow.
Man in Black - Oliver Goldsmith
In this essay, the author talks of a man who is remorseful of his charitable actions. The man is an obvious philanthropist, but he is ashamed of it. Goldmith lays out the ways, and gives examples,
of how “he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence.”
The man is a charitable man. He cares about others, gives to others, and shares with others, but he pretends to not care about the well-being of others. He is “ashamed of his natural benevolence.” While he pretends to have a disliking for mankind, he’s not very good at pretending to be. The author reveals that his poker face is not up to par. “… While his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature.”
The “Man in Black” is so concerned with the place of the poor, that he complains to the author of how ignorant the countrymen, or wealthy, are to the state of living of the poorer people. He says that the poor only want a few things – food, housing, clothes, and warmth but cannot obtain those things due to the negligence of the fortunate.
The man in black gives a beggar a piece of silver, but when doing so, he appeared “ashamed” to present his weakness to the author; the man has too much pride to show his soft spot for the less fortunate.
When a man with a wooden leg passed the author and the man in black, the author ignored him. The man in black showed much attention to him, but instead of giving him alms, he called him out to be a poser of the needy. But once hearing the sailor’s story of fighting in defense of the country while others “did nothing at home”, the man gave alms to him.
The man in black and the author ran into a woman who was an obvious example of helpless, but he had no money to give her. He became shameful, as it was presented in his face, but once he found a “shilling’s worth of matches”, and placed it in her hands, he was pleased with himself seeing the smile in the woman’s face. This anonymous man, the Man In Black, is a man of benevolence, and is bluntly shameful of it. There is no understanding of why.
The man is one who cannot exhibit generous behavior without being ashamed of it. He wants the world to see him as a man who does not care too much about the well-being of others; much less, the unfortunate. He is the “Man In Black”, because he hides his benevolence. He does not want to be noticed for it. He is, the Man in Black.
In this essay, the author talks of a man who is remorseful of his charitable actions. The man is an obvious philanthropist, but he is ashamed of it. Goldmith lays out the ways, and gives examples,
of how “he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence.”
The man is a charitable man. He cares about others, gives to others, and shares with others, but he pretends to not care about the well-being of others. He is “ashamed of his natural benevolence.” While he pretends to have a disliking for mankind, he’s not very good at pretending to be. The author reveals that his poker face is not up to par. “… While his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature.”
The “Man in Black” is so concerned with the place of the poor, that he complains to the author of how ignorant the countrymen, or wealthy, are to the state of living of the poorer people. He says that the poor only want a few things – food, housing, clothes, and warmth but cannot obtain those things due to the negligence of the fortunate.
The man in black gives a beggar a piece of silver, but when doing so, he appeared “ashamed” to present his weakness to the author; the man has too much pride to show his soft spot for the less fortunate.
When a man with a wooden leg passed the author and the man in black, the author ignored him. The man in black showed much attention to him, but instead of giving him alms, he called him out to be a poser of the needy. But once hearing the sailor’s story of fighting in defense of the country while others “did nothing at home”, the man gave alms to him.
The man in black and the author ran into a woman who was an obvious example of helpless, but he had no money to give her. He became shameful, as it was presented in his face, but once he found a “shilling’s worth of matches”, and placed it in her hands, he was pleased with himself seeing the smile in the woman’s face. This anonymous man, the Man In Black, is a man of benevolence, and is bluntly shameful of it. There is no understanding of why.
The man is one who cannot exhibit generous behavior without being ashamed of it. He wants the world to see him as a man who does not care too much about the well-being of others; much less, the unfortunate. He is the “Man In Black”, because he hides his benevolence. He does not want to be noticed for it. He is, the Man in Black.