ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK

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3 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK for B.A./B.S.W./B.A. (HRD) Semester I and II of MANGALORE UNIVERSITY (An Imprint of Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd.) BANGALORE CHENNAI COCHIN GUWAHATI HYDERABAD JALANDHAR KOLKATA LUCKNOW MUMBAI RANCHI NEW DELHI INDIA USA GHANA KENYA

4 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK by Laxmi Publications (P) Ltd. All rights reserved including those of translation into other languages. In accordance with the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. Any such act or scanning, uploading, and or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the copyright holder s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained from the publishers. Printed and bound in India Typeset at Excellent Graphics First Edition: 2015 NEL ENGLISH LANG TEXTBOOK-UNI ISBN Limits of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties. The advice, strategies, and activities contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. In performing activities adult supervision must be sought. Likewise, common sense and care are essential to the conduct of any and all activities, whether described in this book or otherwise. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable or assumes any responsibility for any injuries or damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website if referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers must be aware that the Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. All trademarks, logos or any other mark such as Vibgyor, USP, Amanda, Golden Bells, Firewall Media, Mercury, Trinity, Laxmi appearing in this work are trademarks and intellectual property owned by or licensed to Laxmi Publications, its subsidiaries or affiliates. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, all other names and marks mentioned in this work are the trade names, trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. & Bangalore & Chennai , & Cochin , Published in India by Branches & Guwahati , & Hyderabad , & Jalandhar & Kolkata (An Imprint of Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd.) 113, GOLDEN HOUSE, DARYAGANJ, NEW DELHI , INDIA Telephone : , Fax : , info@laxmipublications.com & Lucknow & Mumbai , & Ranchi C 8726/014/05 Printed at: Mittal Enterprises, Delhi

5 PUBLISHER S NOTE Our constant endeavour is to take one step closer to the arch of excellence so that the seekers of excellence are inspired to strive to achieve and not yield. We recognize the need to put the students at par with their global counterparts both qualitatively and quantitatively. The goal is to make the students cultivate effective powers of expression and comprehension to draw out their latent creativity. The aim of this book is: to nurture sensitivity towards works of Literature to develop the powers of critical thinking through a grounding in literary criticism and appreciation, and to create an awareness of the interdisciplinary possibilities of English studies. We are glad to publish this English language Textbook which has been designed for the BA/BSW/BA(HRD) level students for their I and II Semester under the Mangalore University. The book features: Long Answer Questions; Short Answer questions; Annotation questions; Comprehension and grammar exercises so as to enable students to clear out excellently in their graduation course and further fit themselves for post graduate studies in literature that require advanced literary skills as also to acquaint them with a broader and more sensitive understanding of human and societal relations and their inherent issues and problems. Publisher

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7 CONTENTS Publisher s Note iii Prose SEMESTER I 1. Half-a-Rupee Worth 3 R.K. Narayan 2. The Apostle of the Unwanted 17 Khushwant Singh 3. Building Self-Confidence 27 Norman Vincent Peale 4. A Job Well Done 31 Ruskin Bond 5. On Saying Please 40 A.G. Gardiner Poetry 1. The Seven Ages of Man 45 William Shakespeare 2. Where the Mind is without Fear 49 Rabindranath Tagore 3. Up-Hill 52 Christina Rossetti 4. The Stolen Boat Ride 55 William Wordsworth 5. No Men are Foreign 60 James Kirkup

8 vi ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK Prose SEMESTER II 1. Three Questions 67 Leo Tolstoy 2. My Visions for India 73 Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 3. Concerning Dates 83 E.V. Lucas 4. Dangers of Drug Abuse 97 Hardin B. Jones 5. My Greatest Olympic Prize 108 Jesse Owens Poetry 1. Matilda 123 Hilaire Belloc 2. Ozymandias 126 Percy Bysshe Shelley 3. On Killing a Tree 134 Gieve Patel 4. Money-Madness 139 D.H. Lawrence 5. Mending Wall 142 Robert Frost

9 Semester I

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11 PROSE HALF-A-RUPEE WORTH R.K. Narayan SUBBIAH sold rice at the market gate. In his shop you found, heaped in the wicker baskets, all varieties of rice from pebbly coarse rice to Delhi Samba, white as jasmine and slender as a needle. His shop was stuffy and dark, but there was no place on earth like it for him. He loved every inch of it. He liked the smell of gunny sack, he liked the smell of rice and husk, and he loved the warm feel of rice in his basket when it arrived fresh from the mill. Through good times and bad times he flourished. There were days of drought when paddy did not come up and the rice mills were silenced; when people looked hollow-eyed and seemed at the point of falling dead on the roadside. But even then he did not close his shop. If he did not find stuff for 20 baskets, he scoured the countryside and filled at least two baskets, and sold them. There were times when the harvest was so rich that he could hardly accept a quarter of the grain that was offered; when it seemed a fool s business to be selling rice. If you sold rice all day and night you could not hope for a profit of even ` 50 at the end of the month. They called it depression in the trade. The God of Harvest seemed a most eccentric and difficult patron. His bounty was as unacceptable as his parsimony. But Subbiah survived all the ups and downs in the harvest and trade. Rice was in his blood. He had served as a sort of unpaid shop assistant when his father sat at the sloping desk and counted cash. Those were days when Subbiah loathed the rice bags which hemmed him in at the shop; he longed for the crowded streets, cinemas, football matches, and wrestling tournaments, which he glimpsed through the crowded shopdoor. But his father more or

12 4 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK less kept him chained to the shop and discouraged all his other interests in life, saying, Young fellows after ten should be horsewhipped if they are not to become brigands. He practised this theory of child-training with such steadfastness that in due course the little man had no eyes for anything in life except rice and no head for anything except the price of grain, and he dreamt of rice and thought of rice and spoke of rice. When his father died he filled his place so nicely that nobody could notice the difference: most people thought that the old man was still there counting cash. Business prospered. Subbiah kept five cows and buffaloes at home, whose milk, curds and butter, he and his wife and five children consumed day and night and became rotund and balloon-like. He owned a few acres of land in a nearby village, and he went there once in six months to survey his possessions and to make sure they were intact. He lent money at an exorbitant rate of interest to desperate persons, and thus acquired dozens of houses; and their rents poured into his savings bank account every month. He became swollen with money. He sent his children to a school, bought them brocaded caps and velvet coats, and paid a home-tutor to shout at the top of his voice to them everyday under a lamp in the hall. He loaded his wife with heavy gold ornaments and draped her in gaudy Banaras silk; he added on to his house two more stories and several halls and painted all the walls with a thick blue oil paint, and covered them with hundreds of pictures of gods in gilt frames. All day he sat by his iron safe and kept shoving into it money, watching with one eye his assistants measuring out rice into gunny sacks; it was a completely satisfying and tranquil existence, the only break from rice-selling and coin-counting being the hours of sleep. There seemed to be no reason why it should not go on till eternity the same set of activities and interests, going on and on, money piling up and rice coming in and going out, then one or the other of his sons to acquire his shape and appearance and continue the work. This seemed, for all practical purposes, a region beyond life, death, and change. It might have been so but for the war. It frightened him. It seemed at first to be the end of all things. But after the first shock was over, it seemed not so bad after all. His profits piled up as never before Saigon and Burma ceased to

13 HALF-A-RUPEE WORTH 5 send rice and it meant the stock he held was worth its weight in gold. People flocked into his shop at all hours, and the door of the iron safe could hardly be pushed in. He bought the big house next to his for a godown and then the next one and the next; and he bought a dozen more villages. He loaded more gold on his wife and daughters and increased his own girth. War seemed, on the whole, a very beneficial force till Food Control came in. For the first time in his life he was baffled and worried. He could not see how anyone had the right to say what he should sell and for how much. He raved night and day to a set of his admiring friends and assistants: Sircar, what do they know of this business? Let them content themselves with tax-collection, catching thieves, and putting up drains. What do they know of the rice business? His greatest joy was when someone or other remarked, The Food Department is a hoax. The Government is making a mess of things... He agreed heartily with them and implored, Can some educated persons like you make representations to the Government in the assemblies?... It s disgraceful. He soon found that he could still survive but only needed a new garb to go under. By waiting before officials, and seeing people, and filling up forms, he was soon allowed to continue his business as a Fair Price Grain Depot. He groaned unhappily when he learnt that he should surrender all the rice that his peasants laboriously cultivated in his village fields. The whole thing seemed to him atrocious. They have to fix the price for my produce! They have to give me permission to take what I myself produce! The scheme seemed to him extremely tyrannical. But he accepted the position without much outward protest. But his cunning brain was already at work. No cunning brain has ever worked and failed to produce results. He slept little and lost the taste for food. All through the dark nights his mind dwelt on the problem. Finally it emerged with a solution. He said to himself, I still have my rice in the fields, and I still have the bags in my godown. If I can t use my wits and keep my hands on these I might as well perish. After all what does the Government want? To have things in nice shape on paper; that they shall have. It involved some intricate work, but it was worth it. He retained all the rice he wanted, for sale and personal use, but out of sight

14 6 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK and out of paper. He had to give away a lot of money to people who were entitled to examine his stock and accounts; but he never grudged this investment. If he passed a ten-rupee currency note on such an occasion, it meant he had screened from prying eyes a hundred or thousand rupees worth of grain. People were prepared to pay any price ungrudgingly? He was the sole master of prices. When he thought of it, he said to himself that all controls and restrictions were really a boon. He reflected philosophically: God arranges everything for the best. He distributed a few annas for charity twice a week, and broke a coconut at the temple on Fridays in appreciation of God s interest in his affairs. Gradually with experience, as his technique developed, he became a master of his situation. At his depot, he measured out rice with a deft hand, so that at the end of a day a considerable quantity accumulated which was nobody s; and then he delayed and opened and closed land reopened his shop in such a manner that people had to come to him several times before they could get any rice out of him: when they had money he had no stock, or when he had rice they had no money. By all this manipulation, he went on accumulating a vast quantity of rice every week; and then of his village harvest only a small portion reached the Food Department. Very soon he converted one of his houses in a back street into a godown and there piled rice bags from floor to ceiling. It was supposed to be a store for paper and rags, which, he gave out, he gathered for the paper mills. Something to eke out my meagre livelihood, he explained. He never sold his rice except in small quantities and to known customers. He took their cash in advance, and asked them to call later. He always threw in doubt: There was a person who had a little rice, I don t know if he still has it. Anyway, leave the cash with me. Sometimes, later returned the money, just to give a realistic touch, with, Sorry, not available, the man said he had it, but you know we can never count on these things nowadays. One evening, as he just closed his shop and started out with the key in his pocket, a person halted before him and said, Oh! You have closed just my luck. Subbiah usually ignored people who spoke to him in the streets; he always avoided such

15 HALF-A-RUPEE WORTH 7 encounters because people sought him only for one object that was to ask for rice. He felt disgusted with all that clamour for rice. Why can t they eat maize or millet instead of asking for Rice, Rice all day when it was not available? Most people could not afford to pay for rice, just as all people could not afford to possess gold. I have another business now; no time to stop and talk said Subbiah. He passed on ceremoniously. The other trotted behind him. He held him by the arm and cried, You must open your shop and get me rice. I can t let you go. Subbiah was stopped by the fervour of the other s speech. My two children are crying for food and my old mother is nearly on the point of collapse. They ve been starving. My ration was exhausted three days ago. I can t see them in that condition any more. Please somehow give me some rice. I have gone round and round the whole town today but I couldn t get a grain anywhere. At home they will be thinking I m returning with something. They will... God knows what they ll do when they see me go back empty-handed. How much do you want? Give me a seer. There are six mouths to feed at home. Subbiah looked at him with disgust. Why couldn t you have come earlier? I was going round, and this is the last place. How much have you? The other held up a half-rupee coin. Subbiah looked at the coin with disgust. You expect to get one seer for this? But it s three seers for a rupee? Isn t it? Don t talk of all that now. You will starve if you talk of controlled price and such other nonsense. He was enraged. People clung to silly notions even when they were starving. If you give another eight annas, perhaps you may get a seer, said Subbiah. The other shook his head dolefully. This is the end of the month, you see; this is all I have. You will get only half a seer, that s the price a man I know will demand.

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