Beyond Words -SSLC English

Adventures in a Banyan Tree

Adventures in a Banyan Tree’ by Ruskin Bond is about a boy who spends his free time in a banyan tree. The banyan tree and its surroundings; the creatures in and around the house, the serene beauty of nature, etc. are dealt with in the story. Life in the banyan tree, views from the tree, the fight between the cobra and the mongoose and the friendship between the grey squirrel and the white rat are some of the main events in the story.

• The magnificent old banyan tree was a favourite of the boy.
• The boy felt happy to climb the banyan tree.
• He builds a small platform halfway up the tree where he can sit and read books.
• The boy becomes friends with a grey squirrel.
• The squirrel becomes familiar enough to take food from the boy’s hands.
• During the spring season, different kinds of birds flock to the branches of the tree.
• One afternoon while sitting on the platform, the boy witnesses a fight between a mongoose and a cobra.
• The mongoose is an aggressive and clever fighter.
• The cobra is also a skilful and experienced fighter.
• The mongoose moves swiftly and strikes with the speed of light.
• The cobra attacks back.
• The mongoose jumps neatly to one side, moves in, bites the cobra and moves away.
• A myna and a crow try to intervene in the fight.
• In between, the crow is killed by the cobra.
• Finally, the mongoose kills the cobra and drags it into the bushes.
• The boy narrates the fight to his grandfather.
• Grandfather feels happy to know that the mongoose won the fight.
• The white rat and the grey squirrel become good friends.
• When the boy searches for the grandmother’s knitting, he finds three white baby squirrels in a hole in the tree.
• Grandfather tells the boy that the rat is the father as the rat and the squirrel are related to each other.

The Snake and the Mirror

The Snake and the Mirror is a humorous story by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, narrating the story of a homoeopathic doctor and his encounter with a snake.

• The homeopath is engaged in a discussion about snakes with his friends.
• He recalls an incident.
• Years ago he was staying in a rented house, which was not electrified.
• He sits in his room reading.
• He looks at the mirror and admires himself.
• He decides to grow a thin moustache to look more handsome.
• He also decides to marry a fat lady doctor, who has a lot of money and a good medical practice.
• He hears some sounds from above.
• Suddenly he hears a dull thud as if a rubber tube had fallen to the ground.
• A fat snake wriggled over the back of the chair and landed on his shoulder.
• The terrified doctor sits like a stone image in the flesh.
• The snake sees its reflection in the mirror.
• It starts admiring its beauty and slithers down towards the mirror.
• The homeopath ran for his life.
• The next day he returns to his room and finds his belongings robbed.
• The thief leaves only one thing behind - the doctor’s dirty vest.

Project Tiger

Project Tiger is an extract from ‘Childhood Days’, a memoir by the renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray. It tells us how he managed to shoot the scenes of a film with a tiger as a character. The memoir reveals the stress and strain involved in the process of filmmaking.

• Hollywood is famous for making films using animals.
• Animal actors earn the same amount of money as the real film stars.
• Animal actors also have stand-ins.
• Alfred Hitchcock makes a film with hundreds of ravens in it.
• The narrator, Satyajit Ray, needs a tiger for a scene in his film.
• He meets the Bharat Circus manager and Mr Thorat, the ringmaster.
• They agree to provide a tiger for shooting.
• The lorry arrived with two well-fed tigers near the bamboo grove at Notun Gram.
• The tiger jumps out of the cage and prances around, scaring the villagers.
• The shooting was a failure as the camera failed to work properly.
• Reshooting was decided at Boral.
• The tiger did its part well.
• The shooting was successful.

My Sister’s Shoes

In the screenplay, ‘My Sister’s Shoes’, the problems faced by a boy after he loses a pair of shoes of shoes, is the central theme of the film. The theme has a universal prominence and hence the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998. Ali loses the only pair of shoes of his little sister Zahra and their attempts to hide the news from their poverty-stricken father and their bedridden mother. The film explains the pathetic living conditions of the people in Iran.

• Ali takes Zahra’s shoes repaired from the cobbler.
• He then goes to the bakery and buys Nan.
• He proceeds to a vegetable shop to buy potatoes.
• He keeps the packet of shoes in the small gap between the two boxes.
• A junk collector picks away the packet for junk, by mistake.
• Ali searches for the lost packet of shoes but does not find it.
• He tumbles down the boxes of vegetables.
• Akbar chases Ali off the shop.
• Unhappily, Ali returns home.
• Ali tells Zahra that her shoes were lost.
• They communicate by writing in their notebook.
• Zahra expresses her displeasure.
• Zahra threatens she will complain to Father.
• Father and Mother discuss mother’s health.
• Ali tells Zahra not to tell Father about the lost shoes.
• Ali tells Zahra to use his shoes.

The Best Investment I Ever Made

The anecdote ‘The Best Investment I Ever Made’ by A J Cronin describes an interesting episode in the life of the narrator. It highlights the fact that the word ‘investment’ gives different ideas to different people. Here ‘the best investment’ and the gain of the investment are priceless. The story is about investing some money not to gain profit but for a better purpose. This story gives us a beautiful lesson about humanity.

• Dr A J Cronin narrates the story.
• Cronin was travelling in a ship.
• He noticed a man watching him.
• The man introduced himself as Mr John.
• He recalled an incident that had occurred years ago.
• One night, a police officer came to see the doctor.
• He reported a suicide case of a young man.
• The young man was a clerk.
• He had stolen money for gambling from the office shelf.
• But he lost all the money.
• So he attempted suicide.
• The police officer and the doctor together decided to save him.
• The landlady offered him free lodging.
• The Police did not report the case.
• The doctor offered the money.
• Thus the young man got a chance to return to his normal life.
• He dedicated his life to saving the maladjusted youth thereafter.
• Cronin understood the value of his best investment.

The Danger of a Single Story

In the speech “The Danger of a Single Story” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates how society believes in a collection of stories or narratives. Adichie explains that the danger of the single story is that it ‘creates stereotypes’ and that these ‘stereotypes may be true,’ but ‘they are incomplete….’ To fight the stereotypes created by a single story, Adichie argues that we should strive to find ‘the truth of those stories’.

• Adichie is a Nigerian writer.
• She said that she was a storyteller.
• She claims her as an early reader and writer.
• She read American books at a very young age.
• So her characters were Americans.
• She later started reading African books.
• Then her single story about the fictitious characters changed.
• Her family possessed a servant boy named Fide.
• The only story she knew about Fide was that he was poor.
• Once she visited his home with her mother.
• She was shocked to see their talent.
• She went to America for higher studies.
• Her roommate was shocked to hear her perfect English.
• Her roommate thought that Africans were poor.
• She was ready to patronise Adichie.
• But her single story completely broke when she met her.
• So Adichie says that a single story will create stereotypes.

The Scholarship Jacket

‘The Scholarship Jacket’ is a story by Marta Salinas which speaks about the obstacles the narrator had to encounter in her school days. The school awarded a Scholarship Jacket to a student who maintains the highest grades for 8 years. It tells the story of a young Mexican American girl who faces an injustice at school. It’s a popular short story for students.

• Martha is a student at the Texas school.
• The school presents a scholarship jacket to the class valedictorian.
• Martha dreams of getting the scholarship jacket.
• Rosie her sister had won the jacket.
• Martha was a straight-A student from her first grade.
• She overhears an argument between Mr Schmidt and Mr Boone her two teachers.
• Mr Boone asks Mr Schmidt to falsify the records so that Joann can get the scholarship jacket.
• Mr Schmidt was in favour of Martha.
• He says that Martha deserves the scholarship jacket.
• The Principal informs Martha about a change in the policy.
• She will have to pay fifteen dollars to get the scholarship jacket.
• Martha cries bitterly as she goes back home.
• She informs her grandfather of the policy change.
• She requests her grandfather to give her the money.
• Grandfather refuses to give her the money
• He tells her that if she pays for it then it is not a scholarship jacket.
• The next day, Martha informs her grandfather’s decision to her principal.
• The principal changes his mind.
• He awards the jacket to Martha.

The Never-Never Nest

The one-act play ‘The Never Never Nest’ by Cedric Mount points to the fact that the hire-purchase system enables the low-income group to have things as their heart desires without bothering too much about its ill effects. Jack and Jill are a young couple with a baby. Jack earns only 6 pounds a week. Jill is a housewife! But they go on getting all kinds of luxury items in instalments. The monthly instalments come to more than 7 Pounds. To make up the deficit they take loans which will further increase their financial burden.

• Jack and Jill, a young married couple who had a small baby.
• They are very much interested in buying things in instalments.
• When Aunt Jane visits the couple, she finds them leading a luxurious life.
• Aunt Jane understands that Jack and Jill have everything, but they own nothing.
• Aunt Jane was shocked at the way Jack and Jill lived in debt.
• Aunt Jane was glad that the couple had everything, but she didn’t like the idea of borrowing money to pay the instalments.
• Aunt Jane scolded them and gave them a cheque to make at least one thing completely their own.
• According to Jack and Jill, they had purchased their baby from Dr Martin.
• Finally, the couple become the complete owner of their baby.
• The play brings out the flaws of the buy-and-pay-later marketing system.
• The play is a real satire mocking the life of contemporary society.

Vanka

‘Vanka’ the short story by Chekhov is all about an innocent nine-year-old orphan boy whose sufferings in his workplace led him to write a letter to his grandfather. Through the letter, he requests his grandfather to take him away from that place as he is suffering a lot.

• Nine-year-old orphan boy Vanka is apprenticed to Alyakhin the shoemaker in Moscow.
• He does not go to bed on Christmas Eve.
• He waits for his master and mistress to go to church.
• After they leave, he takes a crumpled piece of paper, a pen with a rusty nib and a bottle of ink and sits to write a letter.
• He begins to write the letter to his grandfather.
• He pours out his sufferings in his letter.
• He writes about the punishment given to him by the master and mistress.
• Vanka also tells him about the behaviour of the other apprentices.
• As he writes the letter, he visualizes his grandfather and his life in the city.
• He also draws a contrast between Christmas in Moscow and the village.
• Vanka requests his grandpa to take him back home.
• Being an innocent child, he also promises to do many things for Grandpa.
• He completes the letter, puts it into an envelope and runs out to post it in the nearest post office.
• He only writes ‘To my Grandad in the village” and then adds the name Konstantin Makarich, on the envelope.
• He goes back to sleep and dreams of his grandfather reading out the letter to the cooks in the kitchen.

The Castaway

The Castaway is one of the most famous stories written by Rabindranath Tagore. The story describes how a person undergoes a great transformation with the change in his class and company. The story is also suggestive of the fact that Indian woman is more considerate, sincere and committed in comparison to their counterpart. The story also depicts what makes a woman pour a mother’s love on a poor castaway and how this castaway yearns to convince this woman that he is not a thief.

• Nilkanta is the protagonist of the story.
• Sharat and his wife Kiran lived in a riverside house in Chandernagore.
• Kiran wanted to go to her own home, to which Sharat and his mother objected.
• Nilkanta survived a boat accident and reached Kiran’s house.
• The boy’s entry was a boon to everyone.
• Kiran and Nilkanta became good friends.
• Nilkanta was a naughty boy.
• Kiran supported Nilkanta by providing him with all the amenities.
• Satish, Sharat’s brother arrived and Kiran’s attention was turned to Satish.
• Nilkanta envied the friendship between Kiran and Satish.
• Once Satish found his inkpot missing.
• Everyone accused Nilkanta except Kiran.
• Later Kiran found it from his box.
• When Nilkanta realised it, he ran away from the house.