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Question
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe^ and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts’that once filled them and still lover this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What does the speaker say about death? Explain.
Solution
The speaker says that death is inevitable and is the destiny of both the races, whether the Indians or the white people. They all have to die one day one may decay earlier than the other but the ultimate fate is death. So he feels that death unites them and they are like brothers. He says that infect there is no death, only a change of worlds.
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Listen to the poem.
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath.
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
I wish I'd been that much more willin'
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin'.
When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice all sorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.
My mother, she told me no end.
'If you got a tooth, you got a friend.'
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.
Oh, I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin'
And pokin' and fussin'
Didn't seem worth time-I could bite!
If I'd known, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin's
Injections and drillin's,
I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine.
"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."
How I laughed at my mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin'
It's me they are beckonin'
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
About the Poet
Pam Ayres (1947- ) is a contemporary writer, a great entertainer who writes and performs
comic verse. She started writing poems and verses as a hobby and has appeared in every
major TV show in the U.K. She has published six books of poems, and cut seven record
albums including a collection of 50 best known poems.
Read and enjoy :
Hockey 
Do you know when hockey was first played? Research in Ethiopia has discovered that it has been around for more than four millenia. A tablet in Greece has images of young people playing field hockey. Even in South America, Ireland, Egypt, Scotland and Rome, there are proofs and records of this game. The game in these countries was no different than the other even though it was known by different names. Hundreds of years ago, this game was known as 'Hockie' in Ireland and it is this name that has stuck with the game ever since.
While current field hockey appeared in the mid-18th century in England, primarily in schools, it was not until the first half of the 19th century that it became firmly established. Prior to 1980, women were not permitted to take part in this game. The first club was created in 1849 at Blackheath in south-east London. During the 1600s and 1700s, hockey in England was a little dissimilar and it was more disorganised. People from all over the village would take part in the game. It was not unusual for a team to have 60 - 100 players. It was the goal of the team players to get the ball into the common ground of the rival team. This game required quite a few days to finish. Many players suffered injuries. Even though umpires were present, they were not allowed to say anything without the team members' request.
Ultimaty , good judgment prevailed. Firm regulations were introduced. In England, a headmaster restricted the number of players to thirty for one single team, During the 1860s, England's Eton College laid down some rules for the game. Additional rules were introduced afterthe formation of the Hockey Association in the year 1875.
Football
Football refers to a number of similar team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal. People from around the world have played games which involved kicking and / or canying a ball, since ancient times. However, most of the modern codes of football have their origins in England.
The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more comm.only known as just 'Football' or 'Soccer'. It is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world
The village consisted of less than thirty houses, only one of them built with brick and cement. Painted a brilliant yellow and blue all over with gorgeous carvings of gods and gargoyles on its balustrade, it was known as the Big House. The other houses, distributed in four streets, were generally of bamboo thatch, straw, mud, and other unspecified material. Muni’s was the last house in the fourth street, beyond which stretched the fields. In his prosperous days Muni had owned a flock of forty sheep and goats and sallied forth every morning driving the flock to the highway a couple of miles away.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe the Big House.
This woman had been despised, scoffed at, and angrily denounced by nearly every man, woman, and child in the village; but now, as the fact of, her death was passed from lip to lip, in subdued tones, pity took the place of anger, and sorrow of denunciation.
Neighbours went hastily to the old tumble-down hut, in which she had secured little more than a place of shelter from summer heats and winter cold: some with grave-clothes for a decent interment of the body; and some with food for the half-starving children, three in number. Of these, John, the oldest, a boy of twelve, was a stout lad, able to earn his living with any farmer. Kate, between ten and eleven, was bright, active girl, out of whom something clever might be made, if in good hands; but poor little Maggie, the youngest, was hopelessly diseased. Two years before a fall from a window had injured her spine, and she had not been able to leave her bed since, except when lifted in the arms of her mother.
“What is to be done with the children?” That was the chief question now. The dead mother would go underground, and be forever beyond all care or concern of the villagers. But the children must not be left to starve.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe the three children.
Imagine you are the king. Narrate the incident of your meeting the hermit. Begin like this: The wise men answered my questions, but I was not satisfied with their answers. One day I decided to go and meet the hermit.
Who is Mridu and with whom Mridu went to Rukku Manni’s place?
Why does the poet say, “I hope it doesn’t matter”?
Multiple Choice Question:
What makes people dance in the fields?
What are some of the notable features told about snakes in the lesson?
Who says this to whom and why?
“Victory to the panchayat. This is justice.”
