to view BA 2nd Year Text Book (English)

31 Pages·2012·0.22 MB·English

“Words in Waves”
(English textbook for B.A. Second Year)
KARNATAKA SAMSKRIT UNIVERSITY
Pampa Mahakavi Road, Chamarajpet
Bengaluru - 560018. Ph: 080-26701303
i
“Words in Waves”
(English textbook for B.A. Second Year)
Chief Editor
Prof. Padmashekhar
Vice-Chancellor
EDITORIAL
Editor & Compiler
Dr. Vinay P.
Assistant Professor Karnataka Samskrit University is upon the mission to
Vice-Principal, Samskrit Degree Evening College
render Sanskrit learning and comparative research studies in
BOS Members: all branches of Samskrit and related areas. Under the bough of
Dr. B.S. Raghottamachar the Varsity, several graduate and post-graduate programmes
Sri Ravi Joshi are being run successfully. As the norms go, a Language Paper
is being incorporated in the graduate level, with the English
Published by being an option. It is with this view that the textbooks of English
KARNATAKA SAMSKRIT UNIVERSITY for First Year, Second Year and Optional English at graduate
Pampa Mahakavi Road, Chamarajpet level is being prepared and presented herewith. It is with great
Bengaluru - 560018. Ph: 080-26701303 pleasure and satisfaction that we are placing the “Words in
Website: www.ksu.ac.in Waves” before your hands. It is aimed to give an introduction
e-mail: [email protected]
to all facets of English literature to a student earnest to go into
further details. I thank the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Padma Shekhar
First Impression: 2015 for all the support and encouragement. I also thank the
Copies: 1000 Registrar Prof. M.K. Sridhar for his guidance and support. I thank
the members of Board of Studies for their discerning choice of
Pages:
material prescribed for study. I thank Dr Vinay, Assistant
Paper Used: 70 GSM Maplitho
Professor, Vice Principal of Samskrit Evening College for using
Price: Rs. his erudition and neat editing of the work together with
© : Reserved relevant summaries, introductions and notes. I thank
Mr. M. Ganesh for typesetting and neat layout of the book. I
thank the staff and students of the Varsity, and all those who
Printed at have made the books see the light of the day.
Dr. Veeranarayana N.K. Pandurangi
Director, Academics
Karnataka Samskrit University
ii iii
CONTENTS
01 Dead men’s path 01
02 Kunwar singh 09
03 Solving Problems 20
04 Court Scene from `Merchant of Venice’ 25
05 Daffodils 48
06 Coromandel fishers 51
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Dead men’s path
Author : Chinua Achebe
Introduction
Chinua Achebe (born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe; 16 November
1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor,
and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) was
considered his magnum opus, and is the most widely read book
in modern African literature.
Raised by his parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in South-Eastern
Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for
undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world
religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing
stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for
the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) and soon moved to the
metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention for Things
Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer
at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966),
and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in
English and defended the use of English, a "language of
colonisers", in African literature. In 1975, his lecture An Image
of Africa: Racism in Conrad's as "Heart of Darkness" featured a
famous criticism of Joseph Conrad as ‘a thorough-going racist’;
it was later published in The Massachusetts Review amid some
controversy.
When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967,
Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted
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as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The war ravaged
the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he
appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid.
When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he
involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to
frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed. He
lived in the United States for several years in the 1970s, and
returned to the U.S. in 1990 after a car accident left him partially
Dead Men’s Path
disabled.
A titled Igbo chieftain himself, Achebe's novels focus on the
traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and
the clash of Western and traditional African values during and Michael Obi’s hopes were fulfilled much earlier than he had
after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral expected. He was appointed headmaster of Ndume Central
tradition, and combines straightforward narration with
School in January 1949. It had always been an unprogressive
representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also
school so the Mission authorities decided to send a young and
published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay
energetic man to run it. Obi accepted this responsibility with
collections. From 2009 until his death, he served as David and
Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana enthusiasm. He had many wondergul ideas and this was an
Studies at Brown University in the United States. opportunity to put them into practice. He had had sound secondary
school education which designated him a `pivotal teacher’ in the
official records and set him apart from the other headmasters in
the mission field. He was outspoken in his condemnation of the
narrow views of these older and often less-educated ones.
“We shall make a good job of it, shan’t we?” he asked his
young wife when they first heard the joyful news of his promotion.
“We shall do our best,” she replied. “We shall have such
beautiful gardens and everything will be just modem and
delightful….” In two years of married life she had become
completely infected by his passion for “modern methods” and
his denigration of “these old and superannuated people in the
teaching field who would be better employed as traders in the
Onitsha market.” She began to see herself already as the admired
wife of the young headmaster, the queen of the school.
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The wives of the other teachers would envy her position. Nancy’s dream-gardens came to life with the coming of the rains,
She would set the fashion in everything….Then, suddenly. It and blossomed. Beautiful hibiscus and allamanda hedges in
occurred to her that there might not be other wives. Wavering brilliant red and yellow marked out the carefully tended school
between hope and fear, she asked her husband, looking anxiously compound from the rank neighbourhood bushes.
at him.
One evening as Obi was admiring his work he was
“All our colleagues are young and unmarried.” he said with scandalized to see an old woman from the village hobble right
enthusiasm which for once she did not share. “Which is a good across the compound, through a marigold flower-bed and the
thing,” he continued. hedges. On going up there he gound faint signs of an almost
disused path from the village across the school compound to the
“Why”?
bush on the other side.
“Why? They will give all their time and energy to the school.”
“It amazes me,” said Obi to one of his teachers who had
Nancy was downcast. For a few minutes she became
been three years in the schoo, “that you people allowed the
skeptical about the new school; but it was only for a few minutes.
villagers 10 make use of this footpath. It is simply incredible.”
Her little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband’s
He shook his head.
happy prospects. She looked at him as he sat folded up in a
“The path,” said the teacher apologetically, “appears to be
chair. He was stoop-shouldered and looked frail. But he
very important to them. Although it is hardly use, it connects the
sometimes surprised people with sudden bursts of physical energy.
village shrine with their place of burial.
In his present posture, however, all his bodily strength seemed to
have retired behind his deep-set eyes, giving them an extraordinary “And what has that got to do with the school?” asked the
power of penetration. He was only twenty-six, but looked thirty headmaster.
or more. On the whole, he was not unhandsome.
“Well, I don’t know,” replied the other with a shrug of the
“A penny for your thoughts, Mike.” said Nancy after a shoulders. “But, I remember there was a big row some time ago
while, imitating the woman’s magazine she read. when we attempted to close it.”
“I was thinking what a grand opportunity we’ve got at last “That was some time ago. But it will not be used now,” said
to show these people how a school should be run.” Obi as he walked away. “What will the Government Education
Officer think of this when he comes to inspect the school next
Ndume School was backward in every sense of the word.
week? The villagers might, for all I know, decide to use the
Mr. Obi put his whole life into the work, and his wife hers too.
schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the inspection.”
He had two aims. A high standard of teaching was insisted upon,
and the school compound was to be turned into a place of beauty. Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at the
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two places where it entered and left the school premises. These I would suggest your constructing another path, skirting our
were further strengthened with barbed wire. premises. We can even get our boys to help in building it. I don’t
Three days later the village priest of Ani called on the suppose the ancestors will find the little detour too burdensome.”
headmaster. He was an old man and walked with a slight stoop. “I have no more words to say,” said the old priest, already
He carried a stout walking -stick which he usually tapped on the outside.
floor, by way of emphasis, each time he made a new point in his
Two days later a young woman in the village died in childbed.
argument.
A diviner was immediately consulted and he prescribed heavy
“I have heard,” he said after the usual exchange of cordialities,
sacrifices to propitiate ancestors insulted by the fence.
“that our ancestral footpath has recently been closed….”
Obi woke up the next morning among the ruins of his work.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Obi. “We cannot allow people to make
The beautiful hedges were torn up not just near the path but right
a highway of our school compound.”
round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the
“Look here, my son,” said the priest bringing down his school buildings pulled down….That day, the white Supervisor
walking-stick, “this path was here before you were born and came to inspect the school and wrote a nasty report on the state
before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends
of the premises but more seriously about the “tribal-war situation
on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us
developing between the school and the village, arising in part
by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to
from the misguided zeal of the new headmaster.”
be born….”
Summary
Mr. Obi listened with a satisfied smile on his face.
Michael Obi is a young reform-minded educator living in
“The whole purpose of our school,” he said finally. “is to
Nigeria, January 1949. He is tasked with reforming Ndume
eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require
Central School, a place known for its unprogressive or
footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach backwards ways.
your children to laugh at such ideas.” Michael and his wife, Nancy, arrive at the village with the
intention of forcing it into the modern age. Their two goals are
“What you way may be true,” replied the priest, “but we
to enforce a high standard of education and to turn the school
follow the practices of our fathers. If you reopen the path we campus into a place of beauty.
shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the One evening Mike observes an old woman walking along a faint
hawk perch and let the eagle perch.” He rose to go. footpath that crosses the compound. After consulting with some
members of the faculty, Michael learns that the school had
“I am sorry,” said the young headmaster. “But the school
attempted to close the path in the past and met with strong
compound cannot be a thoroughfare. It is against our regulations. opposition from the nearby village. Afraid of giving a poor
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impression to the Government Education Officer scheduled to
visit, Michael places a fence across the path and tops it with
barbed wire. Three days after the fence is put up, Michael meets
with the village priest, who explains the importance of the path
and its relationship with the villagers' animist beliefs. Michael
insists that the path remains closed and explains that the
purpose of the school is to abolish such ancestral beliefs.
Two days later a young woman in the village dies in childbirth.
KUNWAR SINGH
A diviner recommends heavy sacrifices to appease the spirits
who are insulted at having the footpath blocked. In the night the
Jim Corbett
flowers and hedges are torn up and trampled to death and one
of the school buildings is torn down. When the Government
Introduction
Education Officer arrives, he gives Obi a bad review and writes
"a nasty report" on the "tribal-war situation developing between Edward James "Jim" Corbett (25 July 1875 – 19 April 1955) was
the school and the village." a legendary British hunter and tracker-turned-conservationist,
author and naturalist, famous for hunting a large number of
man-eating tigers and leopards in India.
Corbett held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and
was frequently called upon by the government of the United
Provinces, now the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and
Uttarakhand, to kill man-eating tigers and leopards that were
preying on people in the nearby villages of the Garhwal and
Kumaonregions. His hunting successes earned him longstanding
respect and fame in Kumaon. Some even claim the locals
considered him a sadhu (holy man).
Corbett was an avid photographer and after his retirement
authored Man-Eaters of Kumaon, Jungle Lore, and other books
recounting his hunts and experiences, which enjoyed critical
acclaim and commercial success. Later on in life, Corbett spoke
out for the need to protect India's wildlife from extermination
and played a key role in creating a national reserve for the
endangered Bengal tiger by using his influence to persuade the
provincial government to establish it. In 1957 the national park
was renamed Jim Corbett National Park in his honour.
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bad luck. So we continued on our way. We had started when
the stars were paling, and near Garuppu I fired at a chital stag
and unaccountably missed it. Later Har Singh broke the wing of
a pea fowl, but though we chased the wounded bird as hard as
we could it got away in the long grass, where we lost it. Thereafter,
though we coimbed the jungles we saw nothing to shoot, and
KUNWAR SINGH towards the evening we turned our faces towards home.
`Having fired two shots, and being afraid that the forest
guards would be looking for us, we avoided the road and took a
Kunwar Singh was the first to visit me that day of days
sandy nullah that ran through dense scrub and thorn-bamboo
when I was given my first gun. He came early, and as with great
jungle. As we went along talking of our bad luck, suddenly a
pride I put the old double-barrelled muzzle-loader into his hands
tiger came out into the nullah and stood looking at us. For a long
he never, even by the flicker of an eyelid, showed that he had
minute the tiger stared and then it turned and went back the way
seen the gaping split in the right barrel, or the lappings of brass
it had come.
wire that held the stock and te barrels together. Only the good
`After waiting a suitable time we continued on our way,
qualities of the left barrel were commented on, and extolled; its
when the tiger again came out into the nullah; and this time, as it
length, thickness, and the years of service it would give, And
stood and looked at us, it was growing and twitching its tail. We
then, laying the gun aside, he turned to me and gladdened my
eitht-year-old heart and made me doubly proud of my possession again stood quite still, and after a time the tiger quietened down
by saying: `You are now no longer a boy, but a man; and with and left the nullah. A little later a number of jungle fowl rose
this god gun you can go anywhere you like in our jungles and cackling out of the dense scrub, evidently disturbed by the tiger,
never be afraid, provided you learn how to climb trees; and I will and one of them came and sat on a haldu tree right in front of us.
now tell you a story to show how necessary it is for us men who As the bird alighted on a branch in full view of us, Har Singh said
shoot in the jungles to know how to do so. he would shoot it and so avoid going home empty handed. He
added that the shot would frighten away the tier, and before I
`Har singh and I went out to shoot one day last April, and
could stop him he fired.
all would have been well if a fox had not crossed our path as we
were leaving the village. Har Sigh, as you know, is a poor shikari `Next second there was a terrifying roar as the tiger came
with little knowledge of the jungle folk, and when, after seeing crashing through the brushwood towards us. At this spot there
the fox, I suggested we should turn round and go home he laughed were some runi trees growing on the edge of the nullah, and I
at me and said it was child’s talk to say that a fox would bring us dashed towards one while Har Singh dashed towards another.
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My tree was the nearer to the tiger, but before it arrived U had `We had to go slowly, for Har Singh was holding the pugree
climbed out of reach. Har Singh had not learnt to climb trees in position, and on the way night came on and Har Singh said he
when a boy, as I had, and he was still standing on the ground, thought it would be better to go to the hospital at Kaladhungi
reaching up and trying to brasp a branch, when the tiger , after than to our village; so I hid the guns, and we went the extra three
leaving me, sprang at him. The tiger did not bite or scratch Har miles to the hospital. The hospital was closed when we arrived,
Sing, but standing on its hind legs it clasped the tree, pinning Har but the doctor babu who lives near by was awake, and when he
Singh against it, and then started toi claw big bits of bark and heard our story he sent me to call Aladia the tobacco seller, who
wood off the far side of the tree. While it was so engaged, Har is also postmaster at Kaladhungi and who receives five rupees
Singh was screaming and the tiger was roaring. I had taken my pay per month from Government, while he it a lantern and went
gun up into the tree with me, so now, holding on with my bare to the hospital hut with Har Singh. When I returned with Aladia,
feet, I cocked the hammer and fired the gun off into the air. On the doctor had laid Har Singh on a string bed and, while Aladia
hearing the shot so close to it the tiger bounded away, and Har held the lantern and I held the two pieces of flesh together, the
Singh collapsed at the foot of the tree. doctor sewed up the hole in Har Singh’s stomach. Thereafter the
doctor, who is a very kind man of raw years and who refused to
`When the tiger had been gone some time, I climbed down
take the two rupees I offered him, gave Har Singh a drink of
very silently, and went to Har Singh. I found that one of the tiger’s
very good medicine to make him forget the pain in his stomach
claws had entered his stomach and torn the lining from near his
and we went home and found our womenfolk crying, for they
navel to within a few fingers’ breadth of the backbone, and that
thought we had been killed in the jungle by dacoits, or by wild
all his inside had fallen out. Here was great trouble for me. I
animals. So you see, Sahib, how necessary it is for us men who
could not run away and leave Har Singh, and not having any
shoot in the jungles to know how to climb trees, for if Har Singh
experience in these matters, I did not know whether it would be
ahd had someone to advise him when he was a boy, he would
best to try and put all that mass of inside back into Har Singh’s
not have brought all that trouble on us.’
stomach, or cut it off. I talked in whispers on this matter with Har
Singh, for we were afraid that if the tiger heard us it would return I learnt many things from Kunwar Singh during the first few
and kill us, and Har Singh was of the opinion that his inside should years that I carried the old muzzle-loader, one of them being the
be put back into his stomach. So, while he lay on his back on the making of mental maps. The jungles we hunted in, sometimes
ground, I stuffed it all back, including the dry leaves and grass together, but more often alone-for Kunwar Singh had a horror
and bits of sticks that were sticking to it. I then wound my pugree of dacoits and there were times when for weeks on end he would
round him, knotting it tight to keep everything from falling out not leave his village-were many hundreds of miles square with
again, and we set out on the seven-mile walk to our village, myself only one road running through them. Times without number when
in front, carrying the two guns, while Har Singh walked behind. returning from a shoot I called in at Kunwar Singh’s village, which
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