MAJOR COMMUNITIES IN INDIA

MAJOR COMMUNITIES IN INDIA 

Outline: Two major communities - minority community - muslims and the English immigrant children - mutual understanding will bring about harmony between the Hindus and muslims.

There are various communities in India. The two major communities are the Hindus and the Muslims. Owing to unavoidable historical circumstances, the relations between the two communities have been embittered, and several communal riots have broken out. Those living today have nothing to do with what happened way back in history and yet because people are not willing to forgive and forget, thanks to the politicians, the anger continues.

The minority community feels insecure and is consequently dissatisfied, There is no reason why it should be dissatisfied since India is a secular country. The root of the trouble is lack of understanding between the two communities. But the causes of this lack of understanding are historical, political and economical rather than cultural or linguistic.

Muslims, for example, cannot be compared to the immigrant children in England. While the surroundings of immigrants are entirely unfamiliar, the surroundings of Indian Muslims cannot be said to be so. They are born and living here. While immigrant children don't know English, a foreign language, many Indian Muslims speak or at least know the language of the region in which they live. On the whole. language is not a great barrier between the two communities.

But knowing or speaking a language is one thing, and studying it and its literature with a view to understand the cultural values embodied in them is quite another. Each community should try to understand the cultural values embodied in the languages of the other community, whether they are Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit or modern Indian languages. Such a mutual understanding will facilitate the solution of the communal problem. 

Difficult Words: Community - group of people living in one place or having the same interests. linguistic - of language. Immigrant - one who comes to a country to settle and live there. facilitate - help make work easier to do.

Essay: On a Painted Face

Essay: On a Painted Face

Outline: A painted face is proper on the stage - in actual life it is an attempt to deceive - it never achieves its object - the beauty of old age - the painted face of youth is disgusting. 

If there is one thing I abominate, above all others, it is a painted face. On the stage, of course, it is right and proper. The Stage is a world of make - believe, and it is the business of the lady of sixty, to give you the impression that she is a sweet young thing of seventeen. There is no affectation in this. It is her vocation to be young, and she follows it as willingly or unwillingly as you or I follow our respective callings. 

When anyone, not compelled to do it for a living, should paint the face or dye the hair is, to me, unintelligible. It is like attempting to pass off a counterfeit coin. It is either a confession that one is so ashamed of one's face that one dare not let it be seen in public, or it is an attempt to deceive the world accepting you as something - other than you are.

The paint on the face and the dye on the hair never really achieve their object. If they did they would not cease to be a sham, but at least they would not be a transparent sham. There are, of course, degrees of failure. Mrs. Gamp's curls were so obviously false that they could not be said to be intended to deceive. On the other hand, the great lady who employs the most scientific face-makers skill in order to deceive the encroachments of time does very nearly succeed. But her failure is really more tragic than that of Mrs. Gamp. How tragic I realised one day when I was introduced to a distinguished 'Society' woman, whose youthful beauty was popularly supposed to have survived to old age. At a distance she did indeed seem to be a miracle of girlish loveliness. But when I came close to her and saw the old, bleared eyes in the midst of that beautifully enamelled face, the shock had in it something akin to horror. It was as though Death itself was peering out triumphantly through the painted mask.

Why should we be so afraid of wrinkles and grey hair? In their place they can be as beautiful as the freshest glow on the face of youth. There is a beauty of the sunrise and a beauty of the sunset. And of the two the beauty of the sunset is the deeper and more spiritual.

And if the painted face of age is horrible the painted face of youth is disgusting. It is artistically bad and spiritually worse. It is like painting the lily or adding a perfume to the violet. These things are the symptoms of a diseased mind, a mind that has lost the healthy love of truth and nature and has taken refuge in falsities and shams. The paint on the face does not stop at the cheeks. It stains the soul. 

Difficult Words: Abominate - hate. vocation - profession. sham - falsehood. mrs. gamp - an old midwife in one of dickens's novels. society woman - a fashionable, rich woman bleared - dim-sighted, enamelled - painted, decorated.

Essay: On Habits

Essay: On Habits

Outline: I was in conflict with a habit - an example of the tyranny of habits - advantages of habits - we shouldn't be their slaves - conclusion.

I sat down to write an article this morning, but found I could make no progress. I was writing with a pen - a new, excellent pen. Then it occurred to me that I was in conflict with a habit. It is my practice to do my writing with a pencil. Put a pencil in my hand, seat me before a blank writing pad in an empty room, and I am, as they say of the children, as good as gold. But here I was sitting with a pen in my hand, and the whole complex of habit was disturbed. The pen kept intruding between me and my thoughts. It was unfamiliar to the touch. 

The tyranny of little habits which is familiar to all of us is nowhere better described then in the story which Sir Walter Scott told of his school days. "There was "he said," a boy in my class who stood always at the top, nor could I with all my effort supplant him. I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of his waistcoat ... to remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eye, and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. When the boy was again questioned, his finger sought again for the button, but it was not to be found. In his distress he looked down for it - it was not to be seen. He stood confused, and I took possession of his place."

There is no harm in cultivating habits, so long as they - are not injurious habits. Indeed, most of us are little more than bundles of habits neatly done up in coat and trousers. Habits simply the mechanism of life. They enable us to do a multitude of things automatically which, if we had to give fresh and original thought to them each time, would make existence and impossible confusion. 

But habits should be a stick that we use, not a crutch to lean on. We ought to make them for our convenience or enjoyment and occasionally break them to assert our independence. We ought to be able to employ them, without being discomposed when we cannot employ them. 

I happily had a remedy for my disquietude. I put away my pen, took out a pencil, and, launched once more into a comfortable rut of habit, I began to write with ease. And this is the (I hope) pardonable result. 

Difficult words: Supplant - take the place of, supersede. fumbled - feel about with the hands. expedient - essential from the practical point of view. discomposed - agitated, nervous.

Curiosity - The Mother of Discovery (New)

Curiosity - The Mother of Discovery

Outline: Introduction - We owe our food and drink to curiosity - the sea - another field of human curiosity - education system - a spur to curiosity.

Curiosity, so the saying goes, killed a cat, and a cat has nine lives! But the cat's curiosity, to the best of my knowledge, has never mothered any discoveries. But human curiosity is quite different and has led to countless valuable discoveries.

Consider, for instance, the things we eat and the things we drink today. To satisfy our hunger we have a wide variety of palatable and nutritious cereals, an infinite variety of delicious fruits, an abundance of fish, flesh and fowl to suit every taste. So also to quench our thirst we have, apart from life - giving water, a host of drinks like milk, tea and coffee, not to speak of heady wines. All these we consume with pleasure and relish. But do we pause to think of their history?

Man was curious about the use of different kinds of leaves. Just consider how many different kinds of leaves he plucked, dried and brewed before he carved upon the plant, which today provides us with our refreshing cup of tea. How many different kinds of beans were dried, roasted and ground before he discovered the coffee and the cocoa plants! Similar was the story of cereals, fruits, vegetables, flesh, fish and fowl, insatiable curiosity bringing in its wake a process of trial and error which never ceased till a useful discovery was made.

To turn to another field of human curiosity - the sea. Undoubtedly, the sea - boundless, fathomless and mysterious - had a curious fascination for our early ancestors. We can imagine them standing on the seashore, wondering what there was on the other side of the water. As the years rolled on their curiosity grew stronger until at last they were emboldened to risk their lives and sail on the high seas in vessels which, compared with the mighty modern liners, were mere eggshells. Those were the days of the intrepid navigators like Columbus, Magellan, Vasco-da-Gama and Drake. These daring mariners brought to light the New World and other lands and dimes with people and cultures till then unknown.

The mother of all invention, namely curiosity should be kept alight as it were all the time. The effort of the education system among others should be to keep the students asking questions, burning with zeal to discover.

Difficult Words:

Curiosity - a desire to know or learn about an unusual and interesting person or thing. Palatable - delightful in taste. heady - intoxicating. insatiable - that cannot be satisfied. fathomless - so deep that it cannot be measured. intrepid - fearless. fend for oneself - earn one's living. zeal - great energy or enthusiasm.

Essay on My Idea of Happiness

Essay on My Idea of Happiness

Outline: Absolute happiness is impossible - happiness does not depend on wealth; yet adequate money is essential to happiness - interest in one's work makes for happiness - physical health is an important factor - domestic and emotional life is a rich source of happiness - happiness is best attained by ot thinking of it. 

From time immemorial happiness has been the eternal quest of human beings. Yet it has frequently proved to be an illusion, a mirage. It may be safely asserted that absolute happiness - freedom from pain, sorrow and disappointment is impossible in this world. Yet there is such a thing as happiness in the broad sense of the word. 

Though all people seek happiness, they don't seek the same thing, because their ideas of happiness are different. Many people associated wealth and material possessions with happiness. A rich man who goes about in an imported car and lives in a posh house is popularly supposed to be happy. As a matter of fact, the only thing certain about him is that he is comfortable whether he is happy or not depends on several other factors - on how he has acquired his wealth and how he uses it, on the state of his health and on his domestic and emotional life. In my opinion, to be happy one needn't roll in wealth and luxury. Happiness is a state of mind that does not depend very much on material possessions and prestige symbols. Milton's Satan has eloquently stated as an essential factor of happiness. 

'The mind is its own place, and in itself,

Can make a Heaven of Hell, Hell of Heaven.'

However, it is impossible to lead a full life in the modern world without adequate money and moderate comforts and amenities. Poverty is one of the greatest and commonest enemies of happiness. If a man has to devote all his time and energy to keep the pot boiling, his mind and spirit will starve, and he will be miserable. I believe that sufficient money - not vast wealth or luxury - is essential to happiness. 

If the work from which you get adequate money happens to be congenial to you, it will largely contribute to your happiness. A large part of man's waking life is devoted to his work, and few things can be more soul-killing than to be compelled to do, day after day, the work one dislikes. On the other hand, if you are genuinely interested in your work, it will be a source, not only of income, but of perpetual delight. 

It is a platitude worth repeating that one must be physically healthy and fit in order to be happy. Many rich men fall prey to disease because of vicious habits like excessive drinking which their wealth enables them to indulge in. In Samuel Butler's Erewhon, a book describing his ideal world, those who fall ill are sent to prison, while those who commit crimes are sent to hospital. The idea is that neglect of health is a real crime which deserves punishment, while crime in the usual sense is committed by those who need mental and moral education. 

Finally, an important source of happiness is one's domestic and emotional life. However rich, powerful and famous  a man may be, he cannot be called happy, if he is lonely, or if he is not happily married. Few things can contribute more to happiness than love, friendship, the laughter of children, and peace and harmony at home. 

Having described my ideas of happiness, I must sound a note of warning. Those who think too much of happiness or constantly pursue it are likely to miss it. On the contrary, happiness is likely to be attained by those who are so busy doing their work and duty that they have no time to think of it. 

Difficult Words: From time immemorial - from a time beyond man's memory. quest - search. posh - smart. congenial - agreeing with one's tastes or nature. to keep the pot boiling - to earn enough money to buy one's food etc. Platitude - commonplace remark.

A birthday party Essay for School Students.

Fiona is my neighbour. She turned twelve recently and her parents held a birthday party for her. I was one of those invited.

The party began at about three in the afternoon. There were about twenty of us children gathered in Fiona's house. We were all dressed in our best clothes. Everyone, especially Fiona, wore a happy smile.

We gave our presents to Fiona and she happily opened them. It must really be exciting to receive all those presents.

After that Fiona's mother served us soft drinks and delicious tidbits. We then played some games like "Musical Chairs" and "Treasure Hunt". The winners were given prizes.

At about four-thirty Fiona's mother brought out the birthday cake. It was beautifully decorated with pink and white icing. Twelve colourful candles sat in the middle of the cake. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Fiona after which she blew out the candles and cut the cake. We clapped out hands eagerly.

We helped ourselves to slices of the delicious cake. Then we continued our games.

Finally at about six in the evening the party came to an end. We were all tired but happy. The parents of the other children came to collect them. I helped Fiona and her mother clean up the mess we made. After that I walked home which was only two doors away.

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