HSC English First Paper-Unit Fifteen -Tours and Travels
Unit Fifteen: Tours and Travels
Lesson 1: Travelling to a Village in
Bangladesh
1. Warm up activity:
□ In a group
discuss the last journey yon made out of your village/town/city.
□ Now share
the following introduction with a friend.
Bangladesh, despite a fast paced urbanization,
still remains predominantly rural Bow many villages are there now? Sixty four
thousands or more? Have the villages changed muck aver the years? How did they
respond to the onslaught of urbanization or march of development or growth in
education? Write dawn your answer. In the following extract, we will see a
Bangladeshi village and the villagers through the eyes of an English professor
from England who taught in Dhaka university twice-first between 1947 and 1951
and again in 1972.
2. Read the text below and answer the questions
that follow:
We set out on the evening of July 21st. Food was scarce
in the village so Abdul packed a suitcase with two loaves and some tea and tins
of milk, cheese and jam. We travelled Intermediate class in a cross country
train not uncomfortably crowded, through a country of shadowy loveliness. It
was a moonlit night of broken soft clouds; the land was mostly under water,
with paddy and coco-palms growing from it, and a few raised cart-tracks and
groups of cottages islanded among clumps of bushes, all reflected among
shadows.
Here and there was the red glow of a cooking fire
or the lantern of a fisherman's boat in open water. At dawn we reached
Sonaimuri, a small canal-side station among wide fields, from there we had
eight more miles by country boat, some of it along the canal, some of it across
the flooded paddy fields. I was looking forward to that tranquil water-journey
in the early morning, and tranquil it must have been, for I fell instantly
asleep and knew no more till we reached the landing-ghat at Khorshed's house,
in a blaze of sunlight. It turned out that his letter saying that he was
bringing me was still on its way, but they rallied to the crisis and gathered
round to make me welcome, though as none of them spoke any English they could
only stare and laugh and offer me coco-nut juice.
Khorshed set me up a camp, a wooden bed, chair and
table in a thatched bamboo outhouse. It was a lovely spot among bamboo and
coco-palms, facing a tank where fireflies wove intricate dances at night. He
put his own bed beside it for protection, and there I stayed, holding permanent
court from dawn to bedtime. Within village memory-and that went back for some
two centuries, I was the first European to go there: it was too remote even for
a District Commissioner to pass through. Also since I was a woman, the women
could come (at different times from the men) to look at me without losing their
characters. People kept coming and coming: only the rains and the fact that few
of them were rich enough to have boats prevented them from coming from ten
miles round. When he saw that they would not stop coming Khorshed fixed some
curtains round the bed so that I could crawl behind them when I was tired of
being looked at, like a zoo animal into its sleeping hut. Even then the little
hut would fill up with women and children. Children followed when I went out,
and when Khorshed remonstrated a small boy pleaded, "Don't send us away!
After she's gone not even a strange bird will come to the village." I
stood up to the celebrity for the two days we had planned, but it was enough.
[A.G Stock, Memoirs of Dacca University 1947-1951,
1973]
3. Put T (true) or F (false) beside the following
statements based on the above extract.
a. The author carried some food with her because
she disliked local food.
b. She travelled to Sonaimuri by train.
c. She lived in a tent during her stay in the village.
d. She was the first European to visit the village.
e. Khorshed's father had a brick-built house.
4. Answer the following questions briefly:
a. When and why did the author fall asleep during
her journey?
b. What trees and insects are mentioned in the
passage?
c. Why did the small boy plead, "After she's
gone not even a strange bird will come to the village"?
d. Why was there a "crisis" when the
author arrived?
e. Why did the women visit her?
f. Find three evidences which suggest that the
narrator enjoyed her visit.
g. Why does the narrator compare herself to a
sleeping zoo animal?
h. What is the general tone of the passage?
5. Write a short paragraph describing your first
visit to a place away from home.
6. Explain the significance of the statement -
"I stood up to the celebrity for the two days we had planned but it was
enough." What feeling is implied here-amusement or mild annoyance?
7. What do the following phrases mean in the
passage?
not uncomfortably crowded; knew no more; rallied to
the crisis; tired of being looked at; looking forward to; a blaze of sunlight;
of broken soft clouds; fireflies wove intricate dances; clumps of bushes;
holding permanent court; kept coming and coming.
8. Find the antonym for the following:
a. gather
b. weave
c. intricate
d. permanent
e. remote
f. remonstrate
g. tranquil
9. Join the pair of sentences in each line to make
one sentence using the expressions given in the bracket.
a. He made fixed a tent. He wanted me to get some
sleep, (so that)
b. None of them spoke English. They welcomed me.
(though)
c. It was dark. He lit a lantern, (as)
d. I was a woman. Women visited me freely, (since)
Lesson 2: Arriving in the Orient
1. Warm up activity:
Discuss the following questions in pairs.
□ Have you ever travelled by boat, launch or
steamer along a river? Write down your experience in 500-600 words.
□ Before the beginning of air travel, people
travelling between continents had to do so by ships. What do you think were the
pleasures and the dangers of those journeys?
During the colonial era (1757-1947) the English
came to India in great numbers in search offortune. Many young women in quest
of husbands also travelled to India.
George Orwell (1903-1950) spent a part of his early
life in Burma (now Myanmar), -then an English colony-serving as a police
officer. In the following extract taken from his Burmese Days (1934), we get
the picture of the journey of a young English woman Elizabeth, across the sea
by ship and her arrival in Burma. She has a typical colonial mind-set, and
fantasizes a glorious life in India. Her attitude to the colony is also
characteristic of the colonizers psyche that liked the land and the landscape
but was dismissive of the people-called 'natives'-and their way of life.
2. Now read the text and answer the questions that
follow:
Elizabeth spent thirty pounds on summer frocks and
set sail immediately. The ship, heralded by rolling porpoises, ploughed across
the Mediterranean and down the Canal into a sea of staring, enamel-like blue,
then out into the green wastes of the Indian Ocean, where flocks of flying fish
skimmed in terror from the approaching hull. At night the waters were
phosphorescent, and the wash of the bow was like a moving arrowhead of green
fire. Elizabeth 'loved' the life on board ship....
She was going to love India, she knew. She had
formed quite a picture of India, from the other passenger's conversation; she
had even learned some of the more necessary Hindustani phrases, such as 'idher
ao,' jaldi,' 'sahibta^ etc. In anticipation she tasted the agreeable atmosphere
of Clubs, with punkahs flapping and bare-footed white turbaned boys reverently
salaaming; and maidans where bronze Englishmen with little clipped moustaches
galloped to and fro, whacking polo balls. It was almost as nice as being rich,
the way people lived in India.
They sailed into Colombo through green glassy
waters, where turtles and black snakes floated basking. A fleet of sampans came
reaching out to meet the ship, propelled by coal-black men with lips stained
redder than blood by betel juice. They yelled and struggled round the gangway
while the passengers descended. As Elizabeth and her friends came down, two
sampan-wallahs, their prows nosing against the gangway, besought them with
yells.
"Don't you go with him, missie! Not with him I
Bad wicked man he, not fit taking missio!"
"Don't you listen him lies, missie! Nasty low
fellow! Nasty low tricks him playing. Naaty native tricks!"
"Ha, ha! He is not native himself Oh no! Him
European man, white skin are same, missie. Ha ha I"
"Stop your bat, you two, or TU fetch one of
you a kick," said the husband of Elizabeth's friend-he was a planter. They
stepped into one of the sampans and woe rowed towards the sim-bright quays. And
the successful sampan-wallah turned and discharged at his rival a mouth fill of
spittle which he must have been saving up for a very long time."
This was the Orient. Scents of coco-nut oil and
sandalwood, cinnamon and turmeric, floated across the water on to Mount Lavinia
where they bathed in a lukewarm sea that foamed like Coca-Cola. She came back
to the ship in the evening, and they reached Rangoon a week later.
North of Mandalay the train, fuelled with wood,
crawled at twelve miles an hour across a vast parched plain bounded at its
remote edges by blue rings of hills. White egrets stood poised, motionless,
like herons, and piles of drying chillis gleamed crimson in the sun. Sometimes
a white pagoda rose from the plain like the breast of a supine giantess. The
early tropic night settled down, and the train jolted on, slowly, stopping at
little stations where barbaric yells sounded from the darkness. Half-naked men with
their long hair knotted behind their heads moved to and fro in torchlight,
hideous as demons in Elizabeth's eyes. The train plunged into the forest, and
unseen branches brushed against the windows. It was about nine o'clock when
they reached Kyauktada, where Elizabeth's uncle and aunt were waiting with Mr.
Macgregor's car, and with some servants carrying torches. Her aunt came forward
and took Elizabeth's shoulders in her delicate, saurian hands.
"I suppose, you are our niece Elizabeth? We are so
pleased to see you," she said, and kissed her.
Mr. Lackersteen peered over his wife's shoulder in
the torchlight. He gave a half-whistle, exclaimed, "Well, I'll be
damned!" and then seized Elizabeth and kissed her, more warmly than he
need have done, she thought. She had never seen either of them before.
3. Answer the following questions:
a. How did the waters of the Indian Ocean look like
during the night?
b. What frightened the flocks of flying fish?
c. Why did Elizabeth think that she would like
India?
d. What is polo? Who played the polo?
e. What did the sampanwallahs fight for?
f. Where did Elizabeth go from Rangoon?
g. Did Elizabeth enjoy her stay in Colombo?
4. Put T (true) and F (false) beside the following
statements based on the above extract.
a. Elizabeth unwillingly undertook the sea voyage.
b. Her companions were unfriendly.
c. Before she got into the Indian Ocean she sailed
across the Mediterranean.
d. The Indians lived a glamorous life.
e. The train journey to Kyauktada was a long one.
5. Discuss the following questions in pairs :
a. What picture of the sea do you find here?
b. The narrator is rather critical of the local
people. What evidence do you find of the narrator's disapproval of the local
people?
c. Narrate the competition between the
sampanwallahs.
6. Choose the right words from the box to fill the
blanks in the sentences given below:
floated anticipation
ploughed skimmed crawled gleamed
a. The ship…………. through the Mediterranean.
b. The fish…………. in terror from the approaching
hull.
c. In…………. she imagined the agreeable atmosphere.
d. The black snakes…………. basking.
e. The train…………. at twelve miles an hour.
f. Piles of drying chilli…………. crimson in the sun.
7. What colours and spices have been mentioned in
the passage?
8. Give synonyms of the following words:
a. delicate
b. warmly
c. discharge
d. lukewarm
e. hideous
f. supine
g. parched
9. The narrator has on several occasions compared
one thing with another using the word 'like'. For example, sea foam has been
compared to Coca-Cola.
Find five more examples from the text where the
word 'like' has been used for comparison.
Lesson 3: Imaginary Travel
1. Warm up activity:
□ Discuss any
travel account that you have read in English or Bengali and the places it describes.
Imagine you are walking in a street in London or New York. How is your
experience different from that of walking in the roads or streets of your town
or city?
Travel can be imaginary as well. Authors would
sometimes make imaginary voyages to strange places and draw pictures of people
and places, manners and morals. Jonathon Swift's (1667-1745) Gulliver's Travels
(1726) is an example of imaginary travel. Swift created a fictional traveller
named Lamuel Gulliver, a ship doctor who visited the lands of the Lilliputs and
Brobdingnags and the island of Laputa. These are all fictitious places
inhabited by imaginary people. The travels here, however, carry a seious
purpose. They reveal truths about human nature. For example, even today human
life is poisoned by evils such as racism, religious extremism, bigotry etc.
Gulliver during his visit to the land of the Lilliputs—who are humans, only
about six inches tali-discover how strongly prejudiced the Lilliputians are
about certain things and how these help nurse hatred and foment fratricidal
war. Gulliver, a man of average height, gets a new insight into the pettiness
of human nature when he arrives at the land of Lilliputs who are small not only
in size but also in their thoughts and perceptions.
2. Now read the following passage and answer the
questions that follow:
One morning, about a fortnight after I had obtained
my Liberty, Reldresal, Principal Secretary (as they style him) of private
Affairs, came to my House, attended only by one Servant. He ordered his Coach
to wait at a Distance and desired I would give him an Hour's Audience; which I
readily consented to, on Account of his Quality, and Personal Merits, as well
as of the many good Offices he had done me during my Sollicitations at Court. I
offered to lie down, that he might the more conveniently reach my Ear: but he
chose rather to let me hold him in my Hand during our Conversation.
He began with Compliments on my Liberty; said, he
might pretend to some Merit in it; but, however, added that if it had not been
for the present Situation of things at Court, perhaps I might not have obtained
it so soon. For, said he, as flourishing a Condition as we appear to be in to
Foreigners, we labour, under two mighty Evils; a violent faction at home, and
the Danger of an invasion by a most potent Enemy from abroad. As to the first,
you are to understand, that for above seventy Moons past, there have been two
struggling Parties in this Empire, under the Names of Tramecksan, and
Slamecksan, from the high and low Heels on their Shoes, by which they
distinguish themselves.
It is alleged indeed, that the high Heels are most
agreeable to our ancient Constitution: But however this be, his Majesty hath
determined to make use of only low Heels in the Administration of the
Government, and all Offices in the Gift of the Crown; as you cannot but
observe; and particularly, that his Majesty's Imperial Heels are lower at least
by a Drurr than any of his Court (Drurr is a Measure about the fourteenth Part
of an Inch). The Animosities between these two Parties run so high that they
will neither eat, nor drink, nor talk with each other. We compute the
Tramecksan, or High-Heels, to exceed us in Number; but the Power is wholly on
our Side.
We apprehend his Imperial Highness, the Heir to the
Crown, to have some Tendency towards the High-Heels; at least we can plainly
discover one of his Heels higher than the other; which gives him a Hobble in
his Gait Now, in the midst of these intestine Disquiets, we are threatened with
an Invasion from the Island of Blefuscu, which is the other great Empire of the
Universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his Majesty. For as to what
we have heard you affirm, that there are other Kingdoms and States in the World
inhabited by human Creatures as large as yourself, our Philosophers are in much
Doubt; and would rather conjecture that you dropt from the Moon, or one of the
Stars;
because it is certain, that an hundred Mortals of
your Bulk, would, in a short Time, destroy all the Fruits and Cattle of his
Majesty's Dominions: besides, our Histories of six Thousand Moons make no
Mention of any other Regions, than the two great Empires of Lilliput and
Blefuscu. Which two mighty Powers have, as I was going to tell you, been
engaged in a most obstinate War for six and thirty Moons past. It began upon
the following Occasion. It is allowed on all Hands, that the primitive way of
breaking Eggs before we eat them, was upon the larger End; But his present
Majesty's Grandfather, while he was a Boy going to eat an Egg, and breaking it
according to ancient Practice, happened to cut one of his Fingers.
Whereupon the Emperor his Father published an
Edict, commanding all his Subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller
End of their Eggs. The People so highly resented this Law, that our Histories
tell us, there have been six Rebellions raised on that Account; wherein one
Emperor lost his Life, and another his Crown. These civil Commotions were
constantly fomented by the Monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled,
the Exiles always fled for Refuge to that Empire. It is computed that eleven
Thousand Persons have, at several Times, suffered Death, rather than submit to
break their Eggs at the smaller End. Many hundred large Volumes have been
published upon this Controversy: But the Books of the Big-Indians have been
long forbidden, and the whole Party rendered incapable by Law of holding
Employments.
3. Answer the following questions:
a. In the extract, who comes to visit Gulliver's
house? What is his official position?
b. What does he tell Gulliver about his liberty?
c. Who are Tramecksan and Slamecksan ? What is the
difference between them?
d. How long is a Drurr?
e. How many people died in the war on breaking
eggs?
f. Why did the heir to the throne hobble?
4. Some words have been capitalized in the above
extract though they are not capitalized in standard English. Do you have any
ideas why?
5. Choose any two lines from the text and rewrite
and punctuate them in standard English.
6. What are the two causes of division among the
people here? How serious are they? Do you see any reflection of contemporary
politics in the extract? Is the narrator critical of the Lilliputians? Has he
chosen to laugh at them? Why and how does he ridicule them?
7. What is factionalism? What evidences of
factionalism do you find here? What are the bad effects of factionalism?
8. Give the contextual meanings of the following
words:
a. disquiet
b. heir
c. conjecture
d. foment
e. quell
f. animosity
9. List 5 noun words and 5 adjectival words from
the extract. Now make sentences of your own with them.
Lesson 4: The Wonders of Vilayet
1. Warm up activity:
□ Discuss in a group any journey you have made to a
village/town/city.
□ What significant changes have taken place in
Bengal (today's Bangladesh) in the field of language and culture since the 19th
century?
□ Can you find examples of travel writing in
English? What are those?
As countries differ, so do their ways of life and
living: How did the people in India and England lay out their houses in the
eighteenth century? In the following extract from The Wonders of Vilayet (Vilayet
is England in Persian), we get an enchanting picture of the parks, gardens and
houses in London including the Queen's Palace. The author also makes references
to houses and housing materials used in Bengal at that time. Can you identify
some of the significant differences that the author points out? Mirza Sheikh
Ttesamuddin, the author of the travelogue visited England in 1765 and recorded
his experiences in Persian, the official language of India during the Mughal
reign. The book, Shigurf Name-e-Vilayet, was translated into Bangla by the late
Professor ABM Habibullah. Dr. Kaiser Huq, Professor of English at Dhaka
University and a poet translated the book into English.
2. Now read the text below and answer the questions
that follow:
The exterior of the King's palace is neither
magnificent nor beautiful. The outer walls are not even plastered. It could
easily be passed off as the multi-storied residence of a merchant of Benares.
All the mansions in the city are of this sort, but the Queen's palace is very
handsome. I was told, however, that the interior of the King's palace is very
elegant, and that the suites of rooms and the chambers of the harem are painted
an attractive verdigris.
The King's garden, which is outside the city, is
very old. It has pleasant walks, lawns, and neatly arranged beds of various
shapes - triangles, squares, hexagons and octagons. These are planted with
varieties of flowers, green plants, and fruit trees such as the apple,
gooseberry, peach, pear, filbert, etc. The garden also uses a special method to
grow Indian fruits like the muskmelon, watermelon, cucumber, orange and
pomegranate, and Indian flowers like the rose, henna, marigold, tuberose and
the cock's-comb flower.
The cold weather in Europe doesn't allow one to
grow Indian Suits and flowers in the open. A special kind of house is
constructed for the purpose, three sides of which are of brick, while the
fourth, which feces south, is made of glass-plates that keep out the cold air
but let in the sun's rays. In the cold season stoves are lit in the house for
heat, and fruit and flower seeds are sown in troughs filled with mould. The
heat of the stoves and the warmth of the sunlight combine to aid the growth of
Indian plants. European gardeners grow Eastern fruits in this manna- and make a
very good profit, charging as much as five rupees for a pomegranate and three
for a musk-melon.
The trees along the walks in the King's garden are
arranged very tastefully. By cutting the branches many of them have been shaped
into human forms, so that at night one may mistake them for real people. It
takes many days of work to tailor the trees into these shapes.
The road in front of the Queen's palace is very
broad and charming. On one side is the palace, on the other a pond which is part
of a park. Deer are kept in the park and the walks in it are lined with shady
walnut trees. On Sundays, men and women, old and young, rich and poor, natives
and foreigners, all come here to stroll and amuse themselves. In these
delightful surroundings a heavy heart is automatically lightened Sauntering
courtesans with lissom figures and amorous maidens with the faces of houris
spread a heavenly aura and the visitor's soul becomes a flowering garden.
These fairy-faced ravishers of the heart move with
a thousand blandishments and coquetries; the earth is transformed into a
paradise, and heaven itself hangs down its head in shame at seeing such
beauty.... As soon as I saw this place I involuntarily exclaimed:
If there's a heaven on the face of the earth,
It is this! It is this!
It is this! Brick buildings in Bengal have rooms
with high ceilings and large doors and windows, so that there is a soothing
current of air in hot weather. It is exactly opposite in Europe. There is
extreme cold, frost and snow; the ceilings are low, and the doors and windows
small. The roofs are not flat like the roofs of brick buildings in India.
Wooden beams and planks are used to build the frame of the roof in the shape of
a camel's hump; that is to say, like the slanting thatched roofs of huts in
Bengal. But whereas the latter are slightly curved at the end, both slanted
halves of European roofs are plain. The frame is then covered with tiles of
fired clay or slate. Such roofs last up to two hundred years without repairs,
and if they are still intact when the walls have decayed, can be re-utilised.
The bricks in the walls are laid with mortar prepared from pulverised stones.
Human hair is mixed with the mortar to give added strength to the structure.
Houses may be as tall as seven, eight or nine stories, yet the walls are not
thicker than a cubit. Consequently the entire building quivers if the wind
rises, and strangers may fear for their safety. But there is in reality no
cause for fear, though I myself was at first alarmed. The inside walls, instead
of being plastered, are lined with wooden planks, which are covered with paper
decorated with pretty designs in many colours.
Teak and sal are foreign to Vilayet; houses and
ships are built here with oak and walnut. These are light in colour, very
sturdy and resistant to white ants and other insects. That is why buildings
last so long in this country.
3. Answer the following questions:
a. The narrator was not impressed with the exterior
of the King's palace. Why?
b. What does he say about its interior? How does he
describe the Queen's palace?
c. The author is clearly fascinated by the King's
garden. Why?
d. The narrator mentions a special kind of house
which allowed plants to grow in cold weather. What are these houses called? How
did they work in the narrator's description and how do they work now?
e. How many geometrical shapes does the narrator
mention in describing the beds in the King's garden? Can you describe them?
f. Were Eastern fruits available in London when
I'tesamuddin visited the city? If so, were they produced locally or imported?
4. Write about the differences between the Indian
and the English houses described by the narrator.
5. Why was the narrator so fascinated by the road
and the park in front of the Queen's Palace?
6. What makes the narrator describe the park as a
'heaven on earth'?
7. Describe how the houses in Europe were built
when I'tesamuddin visited it.
8. Find out the differences among the following:
a. house, mansion, palace
b. frost, snow, ice
c. plank, beam, frame
9. Make a list of flowers and fruits the narrator
mentions. How many are
unknown to you? Make a Google search and find out
their pictures, then write brief descriptions of them.
10. Find out the meanings of the following words
and make sentences with them:
a. lissom
b. courtesans
c. aura
d. blandishment
e. curved
d. slanted
g. sturdy
h. quiver
11. Find antonyms for the following words:
a. elegant
b. broad
c. soothing
d. safety
e. thick
THE END
No comments