English - 3

SFEN 21
UNDERGRADUATE COURSE
SECOND YEAR
THIRD SEMESTER
CORE PAPER - V
FOUNDATION COURSE
ENGLISH
INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS
UNDER GRADUATE COURSE FOUNDATION COURSE
CORE PAPER -V
SECOND YEAR - THIRD SEMESTER ENGLISH
BRITISH LITERATURE III
WELCOME
Warm Greetings.
It is with a great pleasure to welcome you as a student of Institute of Distance

Education, University of Madras. It is a proud moment for the Institute of Distance education
as you are entering into a cafeteria system of learning process as envisaged by the University
Grants Commission. Yes, we have framed and introduced Choice Based Credit
System(CBCS) in Semester pattern from the academic year 2018-19. You are free to
choose courses, as per the Regulations, to attain the target of total number of credits set
for each course and also each degree programme. What is a credit? To earn one credit in
a semester you have to spend 30 hours of learning process. Each course has a weightage
in terms of credits. Credits are assigned by taking into account of its level of subject content.
For instance, if one particular course or paper has 4 credits then you have to spend 120
hours of self-learning in a semester. You are advised to plan the strategy to devote hours of
self-study in the learning process. You will be assessed periodically by means of tests,
assignments and quizzes either in class room or laboratory or field work. In the case of PG
(UG), Continuous Internal Assessment for 20(25) percentage and End Semester University
Examination for 80 (75) percentage of the maximum score for a course / paper. The theory
paper in the end semester examination will bring out your various skills: namely basic
knowledge about subject, memory recall, application, analysis, comprehension and
descriptive writing. We will always have in mind while training you in conducting experiments,
analyzing the performance during laboratory work, and observing the outcomes to bring
out the truth from the experiment, and we measure these skills in the end semester
examination. You will be guided by well experienced faculty.
I invite you to join the CBCS in Semester System to gain rich knowledge leisurely at
your will and wish. Choose the right courses at right times so as to erect your flag of
success. We always encourage and enlighten to excel and empower. We are the cross
bearers to make you a torch bearer to have a bright future.
With best wishes from mind and heart,
DIRECTOR
(i)
UNDER GRADUATE COURSE FOUNDATION COURSE
CORE PAPER -V
SECOND YEAR - THIRD SEMESTER ENGLISH
BRITISH LITERATURE III
COURSE WRITER
Dr. V. Meena Kumari,

Associate Professor
Department of English
Anna Adarsh College for Women
Chennai
EDITING AND REVIEWING

Dr. S. SUMA,
Associate Professor (T)
Department of Education
Institute of Distance Education,
University of Madras,
Chennai - 600 005.
© UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS, CHENNAI 600 005.
(ii)
SECOND YEAR
THIRD SEMESTER
FOUNDATION COURSE
ENGLISH
SYLLABUS
Unit - I Prose
1. Dress in Communication -
2.Fusion Music - Pt. Ravi Shankar
3. About “An Inconvenient Truth”-Davis Guggenheim
4. A Speech - N.R. Narayana Murthy
5. A Speech - Barack Obama
6. Unity of Minds - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Unit - II Poetry
1. The Justice of Peace - HillariBellock
2. A Different History - Sujata Bhatt
3. Digging - Seamus Heaney
4. I Love You Mom -
5. Ozymandias of Egypt - Percy Bysshe Shelly
6. Leave this Chanting and Singing and Telling of Beads - Rabindranath

Tagore
(iii)
Unit - III Short Stories
1. Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde
2. The Story of Stanford -
3. Engine Trouble - R.K. Narayan
4. After Twenty Years - O. Henry
5. Two Gentlemen of Verona - A.J. Cronin
6. The Avenger - AntonChekhow.
Unit - IV Biographies from Inspiring Lives
1. Madam Curie
2. Mother Teresa
3. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
4. Dr.Amartya Kumar Sen
5. Gertrude Elion
6. Vikram Sarabhai
7. Charles Chaplin
8. WangariMaathi
Unit - V Grammar
Refer to the exercises given in the text and Part -V from Spring Board by
Orient Black swan Pvt. Ltd Rs.105/-
Face-to-Face
Preparing for an Interview, Win the Game of Life, The First Written Encounter:
Writing Skills.
SECOND YEAR
THIRD SEMESTER
FFOUNDATION COURSE
ENGLISH
SCHEME OF LESSONS
Sl.No. Unit Title Page
1 Prose 001
2 Poetry 027
3 Short Stories 047
4 Biographies 068
5 Interview Skills 089
6 Grammar 143
(iv)
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Lesson - 1
PROSE
Learning Objectives
After reading this unit, you will able to
• enrich their active and passive vocabulary.
• express the ideas of the passage orally and in writing.
• enjoy reading and writing.
• develop their imagination.
• prepare the students for world citizenship.
Structure
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Thematic Introduction
1.3 Dress In Communication
1.4 Fusion Music
1.5 About An Inconvenient Truth
1.6 A Speech
1.7 Unity Of Minds
1.8 I Love You, Mom
1.1 Introduction
Prose is a form of language that has no formal metrical structure. It applies a
natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure, rather than rhythmic structure,
such as in the case of traditional poetry.
Normal everyday speech is spoken in prose, and most people think and write in
prose form. Prose comprises of full grammatical sentences, which consist of paragraphs,
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and forgoes aesthetic appeal in favor of clear, straightforward language. It can be said to
be the most reflective of conversational speech. Some works of prose do have versification,
and a blend of the two formats that is called “prose poetry.”

This unit comprises of seven prose Dress in Communication by Earnest
Hemingway, Fusion Music by Pt. Ravi Shankar, About an Inconvenient Truth by Davis
Guggenheim, A Speech by N.R. Narayana Murthy, A Speech by Barack Obama, Unity of
Minds by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and I love you, mom. Dress in Communication portrays
about the importance of perfect outfit and communication, Fusion Music is a speech by
Pt. Ravi Shankar about the deep friendship between him and George Harrison, About an
Inconvenient Truthby Davis Guggenheim is a synopsis of a movie on Global Warming, the
next three are the speeches by N.R. Narayana Murthy, Barack Obama and A.P.J. Abdul
Kalamreflecting on their field of interests and the last one is a storyabout mother’s love for
their children.
1.3. Dress In Communication - Earnest Hemingway

Introduction To The Author
Ernest Hemingway’s colorful life as a war correspondent, big game hunter, angler,
writer, and world celebrity, as well as winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in literature, began in
quiet Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1899. When Ernest, the first son and second child born
to Dr. Ed and Grace Hemingway, was only seven weeks old, his general practitioner father
took the family for a quick weekend trip to the Michigan north woods, where Dr. Hemingway
was having land cleared by several Ottawa Indians for Windemere, a summer cabin that
he built on Walloon Lake. Ernest would return to this area year after year, as a child and
later as an adolescent — hunting, fishing, camping, vegetable gardening, adventuring, and
making plans for each new, successive summer.
Ernest’s mother, a devout, religious woman with considerable musical talent, hoped
that her son would develop an interest in music; she herself had once hoped for an operatic
career, but during her first recital at Carnegie Hall, the lights were so intense for her defective
eyes that she gave up performing. Ernest attempted playing the cello in high school, but
from the beginning, it was clear that he was no musician. Instead, he deeply shared his
father’s fierce enthusiasm for the outdoors.
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1.3.1 Summary
• Turn yourself into to a well dressed literary genius and learn how to rock it Ernest
Hemingway style. When you think about Ernest Hemingway’s style the first thing
that comes to mind is his style of writing.
• Dress is considered an aspect of non-verbal communication and has social

significance for the audience. Dress also includes the things that people wear such
as jewelry, ties, handbags, hats and glasses. Clothing conveys nonverbal clues about
a speaker’s personality, background and financial status. Ernest Hemingway’s style
generally falls in one of three categories:
• Earnest says that when people first meet, they immediately judge about each other
based on appearances. Moreover, your dress conveys about your personality,
education and credibility which break down barriers to launch careers or hamper
careers.
• The author further says that there is a mode of dress in our society which helps us to
identify their profession. He also says that the dress code will not only conveys
credibility but also self-confidence.
• Earnest says Clothing textures and lines also transmit silent messages. Soft texture
in attire tend to invite contact and closeness, crisp textures indicate the efficiency of
the person and the lines conveys the rigidness of the personality.
• The author in his last passage says that the dressing sense of the person reveals a
message for ourselves which inspire us to gain confidence in our abilities and lift the
self-esteem.
• Hemingway was a genius whose literary style has been imitated and studied for
decades. Ernest Hemingway’s style is a classic, simple style; it consists of clean
lines that flatter the body and are durable enough to survive a safari.
Check your progress
1. Bring out the importance of communication
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2. Critically analyse the prose.
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3. What is the outcome of the prose?
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4. What do you mean by “ Dress in Communiacation”?
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5. What do you wear is very important in any situation? Discuss.
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Model questions
1. Summarize the importance of communication.
2. What is the moral of the prose?
3. Do people judge people by their clothes?
4. Can people be successful due to their outfit too?
5. Would you agree that wearing a uniform can bring social and economic equality?
1.4 Fusion Music - Pt. Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar was a world-renowned musician, composer, performer, and scholar

of classical Indian music. He was one of the leading cultural figures of the twentieth century
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whose accomplishments placed him as the leading figure of an important musical tradition.
His long and distinguished musical career included numerous recordings, performances
at all the world’s leading venues, and a series of unprecedented collaborations with other
leading musicians. Although he is well known because of his interaction with the popular
music world, it is important to underscore that Shankar is considered the leading international
figure in a very elevated art form, Hindustani music. Shankar was born on April 7, 1920, in
Varanasi, India. He moved to Paris in 1930, and received most of his education there.
From the age of 12, he performed as a musician and dancer on tour in Europe and America
with his brother Uday Shankar, and in 1939 had his first concert as soloist at a music
conference in Allahabad. By 1945 Shankar’s reputation as the leading performer of traditional
Hindustani music on the sitar had coalesced. He began to branch out as a composer,
writing music for ballet and for important films such as such as Dharti Ke Lal and Neecha
Nagar. He also composed the song Sare Jahan Se Accha, which is one of the most widely
known piece of music in India. In 1949, Shankar became Music Director of All-India Radio
at Delhi, and founded the Vadya Vrinda Chamber Orchestra. During the years 1950-55
Shankar composed some of his most famous music, most notably in the internationally-
acclaimed film studios of Calcutta, where he scored The Ray Triology. For his outstanding
contribution to Indian music and culture, he received his first of five Presidential Awards in
1962, India’s highest honor in the arts. In the mid-1960s, his preeminence as one of the
world’s leading serious musicians was augmented with wide popular success. George
Harrison of The Beatles developed a deep, abiding interest in Hindustani music, and began
to study with Shankar. One influence of this study can be heard in his song Within You,
Without You. Shankar died in San Diego, California in 2012 at the age of 92.
1.4.1 Summary
o Pt Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso who became a hippie musical icon of the 1960s
after hobnobbing with the Beatles and who introduced traditional Indian ragas to
Western audiences over an eight-decade career, has died. He was 92.
o Labeled “the godfather of world music” by George Harrison, Shankar helped millions
of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.
o He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For
Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular
American singer Norah Jones.
o As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the
greats of Western music, including violinist Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist
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John Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the
United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the
West and the East.
o Describing an early Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said “U.S. audiences were
receptive but occasionally puzzled.”
o His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global
stardom in the 1960s.
o Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar. He played the instrument, with a Western
tuning, on the song Norwegian Wood, but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical
icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.
o The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison’s house in England
and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.
o Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired
song Within You Without You on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to
Shankar and his work.
o Shankar’s popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some
of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop
Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.
o Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious,
disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use
and rebelliousness of the hippie culture.
o “I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To
me, it was a new world,” Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival.
o While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was
horrified when Jimi Hendrix lit his guitar on fire.
o “That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical
instruments, they are like part of God,” he said. In 1971, moved by the plight of millions
of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out
to Harrison to see what they could do to help. In what Shankar later described as
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“one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century,” the pair
organized two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden that included Eric Clapton,
Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. The concert, which spawned an album and a film, raised
millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985
Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For
Haiti Now telethon.
o Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born on April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi.
At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his
brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar traveled with the troupe across
Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures
with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.
o During one tour, renowned musician Baba Allaudin Khan joined the troupe, took
Shankar under his wing and eventually became his teacher through 7 1/2 years of
isolated, rigorous study of the sitar.
o “Khan told me you have to leave everything else and do one thing properly,” Shankar
told The Associated Press. In the 1950s, Shankar began gaining fame throughout
India. He held the influential position of music director for All India Radio in New Delhi
and wrote the scores for several popular films. He began writing compositions for
orchestras, blending clarinets and other foreign instruments into traditional Indian
music.
o And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India’s musical traditions.
He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar’s honor, and
became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed West Meets East album
with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass
and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.
o “Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar.
If you love music, it would be impossible not to be,” singer David Crosby, whose
band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar’s music, said in the book “The Dawn of
Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi.” Shankar’s personal life, however, was more
complex.
o His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan’s daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in
divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri
that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s.
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o In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in
1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his
daughter Anoushka. He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn’t see
Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact.
o When Jones shot to stardom and won five Grammy awards in 2003, Anoushka
Shankar was nominated for a Grammy of her own.
o Shankar, himself, has won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar
for his musical score for the movie Gandhi.
o Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar’s music
remained a riddle to many Western ears.
o Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted
with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging
their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half.
Check your progress
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2. What is the major theme explored in the prose?
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3. Trace the journey from guru to father of the speaker.
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4. Who is George Harrison?
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5. How are George Harrison and Ravi Shankar Connected?
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Model questions
2. What is the main idea of the prose?
3. Comment on the three facets of Harrison’s personality.
4. How does the speaker explore the importance of friendship in this prose?
5. How did George Harrison and Ravi Shankar work together?
1.5 ‘About An Inconvenient Truth’ - Davis Guggenheim

Philip Davis Guggenheim (born November 3, 1963) is an American film and television
director and producer. His credits include NYPD Blue, ER, 24, Alias, The Shield, Deadwood,
and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth, The Road We’ve Traveled, Waiting for
‘Superman’ and He Named Me Malala. Since 2006, Guggenheim is the only filmmaker to
release three different documentaries that were ranked within the top 100 highest-grossing
documentaries of all time.
Guggenheim joined the HBO Western drama Deadwood as a producer and director
for the first season in 2004. The series was created by David Milch and focused on a
growing town in the American West. Guggenheim directed the episodes “Deep Water”,
“Reconnoitering the Rim”, “Plague” and “Sold Under Sin”. Guggenheim left the crew at the
end of Season 1.
The pilot episode of The Unit was directed by Guggenheim.
The documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was produced and directed by Davis

Guggenheim. An Inconvenient Truth won the Academy Award in 2007 for Best Documentary
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Feature. The film, released in 2006, featured Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his
international slideshow on global warming. Guggenheim’s goal was to shine a bright light a
subject that critics brushed off as nothing more than an exaggeration or a hoax.
Then-Candidate for President Barack Obama’s biographical film, which aired during
the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, was directed by Guggenheim. The
Guggenheim-directed Obama infomercial, which was broadcast on October 29, 2008,
was “executed with high standards of cinematography”, according to The New York
Times.[10] In 2012, he released The Road We’ve Traveled, a 17-minute short film on the
president.[11]
Davis Guggenheim directed and was an executive producer of the 2009 pilot for
Melrose Place. His brother-in-law Andrew Shue starred on the 1990s version of the series.
In 2008, he released It Might Get Loud, a documentary that glimpses into the lives
of guitarists Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White.
Guggenheim’s 2010 documentary Waiting for “Superman”, a film about the failures
of American public education sparked controversy and debate. Guggenheim knew his film
would lead to this and said, “I know people will say this movie is anti-this or pro-that. But it
really is all about families trying to find great schools”.This film received the Audience
Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Its public release was in
September 2010.
A documentary film about the band U2 directed by Guggenheim titled From the Sky
Down opened the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival in September.
In 2013, he directed a 30-minute documentary “The Dream is Now”. It tells the

stories of undocumented youth and their families who are desperate to earn their citizenship
in the only country they’ve ever called home. The film follows the lives of 4 undocumented
students in the United States as they deal with our “broken” immigration system.
Guggenheim’s film, however, offered only one perspective and possible solution: it
advocated for Congress to grant an amnesty. The film was critiqued for failing to mention
the social and economic costs of illegal immigration, especially the downward pressure
on low-income Americans.
In 2015, he directed a documentary film He Named Me Malala about a young

Pakistani female activist Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by Taliban gunmen, shot in
the head and left wounded.
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1.5.1 Summary
• An Inconvenient Truth presents in film form an illustrated talk on climate by Al Gore,

aimed at alerting the public to an increasing “planetary emergency” due to global
warming, and shows re-enacted incidents from his life story which influenced his
concerns about environmental issues. He began making these presentations in 1989
with flip chart illustrations; the film version uses a Keynote presentation, which Gore
refers to as “the slide show”.
• The former vice president opens the film by greeting an audience with his well-known
line about his campaign in 2000: “I am Al Gore; I used to be the next President of the
United States.” He is shown using his laptop to edit his presentation, and pondering
the difficulty he has had in awakening public concern: “I’ve been trying to tell this
story for a long time and I feel as if I’ve failed to get the message across.”
• Gore then begins his slide show on Global Warming; a comprehensive presentation
replete with detailed graphs, flow charts and stark visuals. Gore shows off several
photographs of the Earth taken from multiple space missions, as Earthrise and The
Blue Marble. Gore notes that these photos dramatically transformed the way we see
the Earth, helping spark modern environmentalism.
• Following this, Gore shares anecdotes that inspired his interest in the issue, including
his college education with early climate expert Roger Revelle at Harvard University,
his sister’s death from lung cancer and his young son’s near-fatal car accident.
Gore recalls a story from his grade-school years, where a fellow student asked his
geography teacher about continental drift; in response, the teacher called the concept
the “most ridiculous thing [he’d] ever heard.” Gore ties this conclusion to the
assumption that “the Earth is so big, we can’t possibly have any lasting, harmful
impact on the Earth’s environment.” For comic effect, Gore uses a clip from the
Futurama episode “Crimes of the Hot” to describe the greenhouse effect. Gore refers
to his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 United States presidential election as a
“hard blow” yet one which subsequently “brought into clear focus, the mission [he]
had been pursuing for all these years.”
• A tiny, pale blue dot is contrasted against the vastness of space
• The Pale Blue Dot, a Voyager 1 photo showing Earth (circled) as a single pixel from
4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) away, is featured in the film. Al Gore points out
that all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home.
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• Throughout the movie, Gore discusses the scientific opinion on global warming, as
well as the present and future effects of global warming and stresses that global
warming “is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one,” describing the
consequences he believes global warming will produce if the amount of human-
generated greenhouse gases is not significantly reduced in the very near future.
Gore also presents Antarctic ice coring data showing CO2 levels higher now than in
the past 650,000 years.
• The film includes segments intended to refute critics who say that global warming is
unproven or that warming will be insignificant. For example, Gore discusses the
possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica,
either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet (6 m), flooding
coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees. Melt water from Greenland,
because of its lower salinity, could then halt the currents that keep northern Europe
warm and quickly trigger dramatic local cooling there. It also contains various short
animated projections of what could happen to different animals more vulnerable to
global warming.
• The documentary ends with Gore arguing that if appropriate actions are taken soon,
the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO2
and planting more vegetation to consume existing CO2. Gore calls upon his viewers
to learn how they can help him in these efforts. Gore concludes the film by saying:
• Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices
to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we
can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions
are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have
everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But
in America, the will to act is a renewable resource.
• During the film’s end credits, a diaporama pops up on screen suggesting to viewers
things at home they can do to combat global warming, including “recycle”, “speak up
in your community”, “try to buy a hybrid vehicle” and “encourage everyone you know
to watch this movie.”
• Gore’s book of the same title was published concurrently with the theatrical release
of the documentary. The book contains additional information, scientific analysis,
and Gore’s commentary on the issues presented in the documentary. A 2007
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documentary entitled An Update with Former Vice President Al Gore features Gore
discussing additional information that came to light after the film was completed,
such as Hurricane Katrina, coral reef depletion, glacial earthquake activity on the
Greenland ice sheet, wildfires, and trapped methane gas release associated with
permafrost melting.
Check your progress
1. What is the truth mentioned in the prose?
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2. Is it important for the people to reinvent themselves from time to time?
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3. Was this prose for one country or for the world?
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4. What is the reason behind writing this prose
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5. “Gore discusses the scientific opinion on global warming”. Discuss.
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Model questions
2. What is the major theme explored in the prose?
3. What is the main idea of the prose?
5. Will this prose live test of time?
1.6 ‘A Speech’ - N.R. Narayana Murthy

N.R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys Technologies is one of the most famous
personalities in India’s I-T sector. Born on August 20, 1946, he obtained a degree in electrical
engineering from the National Institute of Engineering under University of Mysore in 1967
and went on to do his Masters from IIT Kanpur in 1969.
He joined Patni Computer Systems in Pune. While at Pune, he met his wife Sudha
Murty. In 1981, he founded Infosys alongwith with six otherpeople. He served as president
of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, India from 1992 to 1994.
Murthy was the CEO of Infosys for twenty years, and was succeeded by Nandan
Nilekani in March 2002. He functioned as the Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief
Mentor from 2002 to 2006.
He is on the governing bodies of many leading institutes like the International Institute
of Information Technology – Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
He is a member of the Advisory Boards and Councils of various well-known institutions like
the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Corporate Governance initiative at the
Harvard Business School, Yale University and the University of Tokyo’s President’s Council.
Besides, he has served on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India, as a
member of the Prime Minister’s council on trade and industry, as a member of the Asia
Advisory Board of British Telecommunications and was the Chairman of the committee on
Corporate Governance appointed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in
2003.
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Narayanamurthy has won several accolades in India and abroad. In 2000, he was
awarded the Padma Shri and was voted the World Entrepreneur of the Year – 2003 by
Ernst & Young. In 2001, his name was included by TIME / CNN in the list of twenty-five,
most influential global executives. He was ranked by the Economist as the 8th among the
top 15 most admired global leaders in 2005.
Though he retired on 20th August, 2006, he continues to be the Non-Executive

Chairman.
1.6.1 Summary
This was an inspirational speech delivered by Narayan Murthy at the New York
University. It taught us a lot of valuable lessons which leads to success. He shared with us
some of his real life experiences which helped him to become the man he is today. He
narrates those experiences which drove him into the field of computer science; about how
he changed from a confused leftist to a determined compassionate capitalist and finally
about the success story of Infosys. He said that each experience was a lesson to him,
which made him move forward with even more determination and courage.
Some of the valuable lessons that he learnt were:
• You can learn from each experience in life. It doesn’t matter where u start; what
matters is how and what u learn. It is more difficult to learn from success than from
failure as you can be less careful, if u succeeds in every attempt in life. .
• Sometimes an unexpected event can turn out to be the most crucial point in life. So
we should value each and every chance that comes our way.
• Your attitude towards work is also very important. You should look at your capabilities
as a result of hard work and not as something inherent.
• Self knowledge weighs more than any other knowledge. You should know your
capabilities, your limitations etc.A strong belief in oneself is the first step to any great
achievement.
The major point of the speech is that we should have a few role models to go by and
should cultivate a growth-oriented mindset and that we should take advantage of all
opportunities to learn from experience. We should make the best use of the power of the
chance events in our life and be ab!le to develop self-knowledge for self-advancement. He
also gives expression to his philosophy of compassion by stating that we are only the
16
temporary custodians of the wealth we earn and we should share it with the have-nots and
the less fortunate
Best way to learn and succeed in life is to learn from past experience. Our mind
should always be ready to grow and open to negative feedback. How we respond to the
crucial situation plays an important role in success of a person. And above all believe in
yourself. Finally the best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate.
Check your progress
1. How has the speaker structured his speech?
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2. Sum up the two unplanned events in the speaker’s life.
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3. How did they run out to be a turning point in his career?
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4. What do you think might have been the aims and functions of this body?
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5. What are the qualities that distinguish a visionary and an ordinary man?
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17
Model questions
1. Critically comment on the speech.
2. How did the speaker change his negative experiences in his life for his betterment?
3. Sum up the thoughts in the speech.
4. What were the speaker’s political convictions?
5. Analyse the theme of the speech.
1.7 ‘A Speech’ - Barack Obama

U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother,
Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His father, Barack
Obama Sr., who was black, was from Alego, Kenya. They were both young college students
at the University of Hawaii. When his father left for Harvard, his mother and Barack stayed
behind, and his father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government
economist. Barack’s mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta
when Barack was six. He later recounted Indonesia as simultaneously lush and a harrowing
exposure to tropical poverty. He returned to Hawaii, where he was brought up largely by his
grandparents. The family lived in a small apartment - his grandfather was a furniture
salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent and his grandmother worked in a bank -
but Barack managed to get into Punahou School, Hawaii’s top prep academy. His father
wrote to him regularly but, though he traveled around the world on official business for
Kenya, he visited only once, when Barack was ten. Obama attended Columbia University,
but found New York’s racial tension inescapable. He became a community organizer for a
small Chicago church-based group for three years, helping poor South Side residents
cope with a wave of plant closings. He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990
became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. He turned down a
prestigious judicial clerkship, choosing instead to practice civil-rights law back in Chicago,
representing victims of housing and employment discrimination and working on voting-
rights legislation. He also began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, and
married Michelle Robinson (now Michelle Obama, a fellow attorney; their daughters are
Sasha Obama and Malia Obama. Eventually, he was elected to the Illinois state senate,
where his district included both Hyde Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South
18
Side. In 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois,
and he gained national attention by giving a rousing and well-received keynote speech at
the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In 2008 he ran for President, and despite
having only four years of national political experience, he won. In January 2009, he was
sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and the first African-American ever
elected to that position. Obama was re-elected to a second term in November 2012.
1.7.1 Summary
• Barack Obama held his wife’s hand as they took the stage in St. Paul and turned to
the crowd like he was taking in the sunshine off of all those rising sun logos they
were wearing and waving. Before Obama and Michelle parted, they bumped fists
like they were still backstage, sharing their last private moment.
• Obama had come to the site of this summer’s 2008 GOP convention to end one
campaign and start a new one. “Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be
the Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” he said, on the day
exactly halfway between the Iowa caucuses he won five months ago and the general
election that will be held five months from today.
• He used the word change 16 times in his speech. He stole a little from Lincoln’s
Gettysburg address, and he even tried out a passage with an unmistakable echo of
JFK: “Let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new
course for America.” It’s hard to differentiate the moments of applause from the
crowd of 17,000 because they were so frequent and sustained. It’s likely the venue
has not heard applause that loud at any Minnesota Wild game. When he promised
that he would not use religion as a wedge, the Coke in the bottle next to my laptop
rippled from the vibrations. (The 12,000 standing outside reportedly went just as
bonkers into the balmy night.)
• Obama spent a good deal of time on his opponent John McCain, whom the crowd
first greeted with boos but switched quickly to cheers when Obama mentioned his
military service. His critique, and the campaign’s strategy for the campaign, came
down to a single passage: “John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to
Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities
and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy—cities in Michigan, and Ohio,
and right here in Minnesota—he’d understand the kind of change that people are
looking for.”
19
• We’re going to see that kind of flip back to the economy for the next five months.
• If Clinton didn’t work very hard to build unity, Obama did. He gave two paragraphs to
Hillary Clinton, whom the crowd greeted with sustained applause. Obama praised
the milestones in her career going back more than 20 years and promised that she
would be a part of the important fights to come on health care, energy, and child
poverty. It was not just praise for Clinton, but an attempt to revive the Clinton brand.
All the work he’d done during the campaign running against the low motives of
Clintonism were forgotten. She and her husband were selfless public servants again
with an “unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, no matter how
difficult the fight may be.”
• Where do negotiations stand about Clinton’s campaign debt and her possible place
on the ticket (which she appears to want)? On the plane flight from Chicago, top
strategist David Axelrod claimed that “there had been no back-channel negotiations
and no discussions.” After Obama’s speech, he called Clinton, left her a message
congratulating her on her victory in South Dakota, and asked that she call him back.
• The crowd that will gather for the Republican convention at the Xcel Energy Center
in St. Paul certainly won’t look like the multicolored one that filled the venue for Obama
on Tuesday night. They came in Dashikis, tattoos, T-shirts with Time magazine covers
showing a smiling Obama, and in bright-yellow rain jackets. You had to bring foul-
weather gear if you were going to come as early as some did—the weather could go
through a few cycles while you waited. One couple had been waiting since 3 p.m.
Another group of young women had tried to camp out the night before but had been
turned away. They came back at 8 a.m., more than 12 hours before Obama was
scheduled to speak.
• They danced to Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin and chanted while they waited.
They filled up on concession foods that normally feed hockey fans—chicken tenders,
french fries, and nachos with dipping cheese that matched the color of their neon
raincoats. An hour before Obama arrived, the Jumbotron overhead played occasional
videos of Obama, one centered around his 2004 Democratic Convention speech.
The crowd responded as if he were actually standing behind the podium. How young
Obama looked back then, bouncing around on stage as he talked. He was more
controlled tonight. Then, he was a guest at the party. Tonight, it became his party.
20
Check your progress
1. How does Obama praise the work of his lady?
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2. According to Obama, did the people come out in large numbers to vote for him
because of his personality?
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3. What is the main issue that the speaker addresses in the speech?
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4. How does he use this issue to turn the tables on the opponent?
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5. What is the reason for Obama oppose America’s involvement in Iraq?
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Model questions
1. What is the experience that Obama says he has gained in his two years of public
life?
2. Critically analyse the speech.

21
3. What is Obama’s perception on ‘change’?
4. How does the speaker establish his personal credibility?
5. What is the central theme of the speech?
1.8 ‘Unity Of Minds’ - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was a prominent Scientist and 11th president of India. He
was also known as the Missile Man of India. He was honoured with several prestigious
awards including India’s highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna in 1997. Let us study through
this article about Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam biography, books, quotes, facts, family history etc.
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam also known as Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. He was
born in Dhanushkodi, Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu and studied physics and aerospace
engineering.
He was the 11th president of India and elected against Lakshmi Sehgal in 2002.
Before becoming the President of India, he worked with the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as
an aerospace engineer.
He was known as the Missile Man of India for his important role in the nation’s
civilian space programme and military missile development. Also, in 1998, he made
significant contributions to India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests.
In 1990s he had served as the Chief Scientific adviser to the Prime Minister before
becoming the President of India in 2002. Now, let us study about Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam in
detail through this article.
1.8.1 Summary
This context is about the speech of Abdul Kalam on the eve of the fifty -fifth
anniversery of our independence. In this context he tells about his two visions and also
tells us about his visit to Sabarmati Ashram.
• First Vision
The first vision was to create a movement to achieve freedom. Each and everyone
of them was the live force of our freedom movement. The great vision of free India was
22
born around 1857.For 90 years, there was an intensive struggle for freedom. He have tried
to capture the essence of the freedom movement and two aspects emerge: our
independence is a result of supreme sacrifice and the vision driven movement created by
many leaders.
• Second Vision
Transform our country from a present developing status into a fully developed nation.
It implies integrated actions in areas of agriculture and food processing, education, health
care, infrastructure development which includes the development of power, information
and communication and technoligies and critical tecnologies. The greater vision will aim at
alleviating poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. When the minds of the people of out country
are unified and focused towards this vision. A happy and prosperous life of a billion people
is the chief goal of this vision.
• Visit to Sabarmati Ashram
After returning from Gujarat, he visited the Sabarmati Ashram established by

Mahatma Gandhiji for the purpose of our country men to carry on the search for the truth
and develop fearlessness. While he sat down, he got a dominant thought to his mind. If we
can rise above our own personal hardships and decide to work for a larger cause, then
there will be a natural elevation of our minds. We should all work together to achieve the
mission of the Unity if Minds to preserve the invaluable freedom that our noble leaders
earned for us and to reach greater heights in the future.
Check your progress
1. Why do you think Abdul Kalam offers salutation to Indians everywhere?
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2. How will unification help change people?
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3. Why did Abdul Kalam think that intergrating people from various field of life is
necessary?
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23
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4. What is the paradox in India that Abdul Kalam refers to?
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5. How do role models help us to grow in our country?
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Model questions
1. What are the greatest strengths of Indian heritage and tradition?
2. Why do we need role models?
3. What are the things we must learn to elevate our minds?
4. Critically analyse the lesson.
5. What according to Abdul Kalam is the second vision?
1.9 ‘I Love You’, Mom

This is a story about a son and his mother and their relationship. the son is the
narrator of the entire story. The story begins likes this.
After 21 years of marriage one day his wife wanted him to take another woman out
to dinner and a movie. She said that she loves him, but the other women loves him more
and would like to spend some valuable time with him. The other woman that his wife
wanted him to visit was his mother, who had been a widow for 19 years, but the demands
of his work and his 3 children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.
That night he called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie, and he was
shocked by her response. The mother asked him “‘What’s wrong, are you well?”. She was
a typical woman who suspects that a late night calls or surprise invitation is a sign of bad
news. But after knowing about the plan of her son to spend some time with her, the mother
was happy.
24
That Friday after work, the son drove over to pick the mother up. As he approached
the house he was becoming bit nervous and also noticed that his mother was also nervous
about the date. She was waiting in the door with her coat on. She had curled her hair and
was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary. She
smiled from a face that was as radiant as an Angel’s. ‘I told my friends that I was going to
go out with my son, and they were impressed,’ she said, as she got into the car. ‘They can’t
wait to hear about our meeting.’
The son and the mother went to a very elegant restaurant. The mother was so
happy and proud that she took his arms as if she were the First Lady. They took their seats
and the son started to read the menu. The mother started to smile as she felt nostalgic
about the whole thing. She was remembering how she used to read the menu when he
was young.
At the dinner both spoke so much that they missed the movie. As they arrived at
her house later, she said, ‘I’ll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.’ The son
agreed and returned home. Back home the wife was waiting to see her husband’s reaction.
She asked him about the outing. And the reply was ‘Very nice. Much more so than I could
have imagined,’ I answered.
A few days later, his mother died of a massive heart attack. It happened so suddenly
that the son didn’t have a chance to do anything for his mother. Sometime later, he received
an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place where mother and I
had dined. An attached note said: ‘I paid this bill in advance. I wasn’t sure that I could be
there; but nevertheless I paid for two plates — one for you and the other for your wife. You
will never know what that night meant for me.’
‘I love you, son.’
At that moment, the son understood the importance of saying in time: ‘I love you,’
and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than
your family. Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till
‘some other time.’ “
1.9.1 Check your progress
1. What was the mother’s initial reaction to the invitation?
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25
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2. Why did the mother wanted to know whether the narrator was well?
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3. Why did the narrator visit the mother occasionally?
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4. What do you suppose the mother told her friends about the date?
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5. What was the condition that the mother placed to agree to a second outing?
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Model questions
1. Do you think that the mother and the narrator enjoyed the conversation?
2. What was the event that made the narrator truly appreciate the importance of saying
things at time?
3. Why did the narrator’s wife ask him to take his mother for an outing?
4. The mother was excited at being invited out by her son. Do you agree?
5. Do you believe that the dinner with his mother changed the narrator’s attitude towards
his family?
26
Web Sources
DRESS IN COMMUNICATION - EARNEST HEMINGWAY
• http://degmat.blogspot.com/2016/03/unit-i-dress-in-communication-
earnest.html
FUSION MUSIC - PT. RAVI SHANKAR
• https://www.culturalindia.net/indian-music/classical-singers/ravi-shankar.html
ABOUT AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH - DAVIS GUGGENHEIM
• https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0346550/
A SPEECH - N.R. NARAYANA MURTHY
• https://degmateng.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/unit-ii-ls-7-a-speech-by-n-r-
narayana-murthy-bba-bhm-sem-2-b-u/
A SPEECH - BARACK OBAMA
• https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/barack-obama
UNITY OF MINDS - A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM
• http://englishbtech.blogspot.com/2015/05/notes-on-prose-lessons.html
27
LESSON – 2
POETRY
Learning Objectives
• identify a variety of forms and genres of poetry from diverse cultures and historic
periods, such as haiku, tanka, sonnets, ballads, dramatic monologues, free verse,
etc.
• recognize the rhythms, metrics and other musical aspects of poetry
• read and discuss selected poems in translation
• apply the principles of literary criticism to the analysis of poetry
• develop their own creativity
• enhance their writing skills
Structure
2.1 Introduction
2.3 Section
2.3.1 The Justice Of Peace - Hillaire Belloc Introduction To The Poet
2.3.2 A Different History - Sujata Bhatt
2.3.3 digging- Seamus Heaney
2.3.4 Ozymandias Of Egypt - Percy Bysshe Shelly
2.3.5 leave This Chanting And Singing And Telling Of Beads - Rabindranath
Tagore
28
2.1 Introduction
Poetry is a type of literature based on the interplay of words and rhythm. It often
employs rhyme and meter (a set of rules governing the number and arrangement of syllables
in each line). In poetry, words are strung together to form sounds, images, and ideas that
might be too complex or abstract to describe directly.
Poetry was once written according to fairly strict rules of meter and rhyme, and
each culture had its own rules. For example, Anglo-Saxon poets had their own rhyme
schemes and meters, while Greek poets and Arabic poets had others. Although these
classical forms are still widely used today, modern poets frequently do away with rules
altogether – their poems generally do not rhyme, and do not fit any particular meter. These
poems, however, still have a rhythmic quality and seek to create beauty through their words.

This unit introduces five poems with five different tones and themes.The Justice
of Peace by Hillaire Belloc, A Different History by Sujata Bhatt, Digging by Seamus
Heaney, Ozymandias of Egypt by Percy Bysshe Shelly, Leave this Chanting and
Singing and Telling of Beads by Rabindranath Tagore. All the poems explore the
problems faced by men in day today life and also suggest solution for it. These poems
indirectly emphasizes on the importance of justice, impartiality, God, inheritance, fate etc.,
2.3 SECTION
2.3.1 ‘The Justice Of Peace’ - Hillaire Belloc
Introduction To The Poet
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was born in 1870 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud. He

was an Anglo-French writer, orator, poet, political activist and historian best known for his
‘Cautionary Tales for Children’. He was deeply religious and held a strong Catholic faith
which was often reflected in many of his writings. A prolific writer, he wrote many poems,
fiction, essays, biographies, and a great many letters. His works covered a variety of genres
ranging from children’s literature, to history and economics. He had a deep interest in
politics and served as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Salford South for five
years. He had strong views against capitalism and was a member of the Fabian society, a
socialist debating group. He came into contact with well known authors like George Bernard
Shaw and H.G.Wells who helped him in getting jobs in the literary circle. He was an
29
aggressive debater who during his later years became disillusioned with the concept of
socialist reforms; his anti-socialist views are well depicted in his book ‘The Servile State’.
A versatile writer, he wrote novels like ‘A Change in the cabinet’ and ‘Pongo and the Bull’.
He also wrote works of history and economics, which were critically acclaimed, though his
undisputable claim to fame was the children’s book ‘Cautionary Tales for Children’ for
which he is best known. He wrote in a simple, clear and concise style, avoiding excessive
usage of idioms and aphorisms.
Hilaire Belloc was also considered as one of the most controversial and
accomplished men of letters of early 20th-century England. An author whose writings
continue to draw either the deep admiration or bitter contempt of readers, he was an
outspoken proponent of radical social and economic reforms, all grounded in his vision of
Europe as a “Catholic society.” Although many critics have attacked Belloc’s prescriptive
polemical works for their tone of truculence and intolerance—and, especially, for recurrent
elements of anti-Semitism—they have also joined in praise of his humor and poetic skill,
hailing Belloc as the greatest English writer of light verse since Lewis Carroll and Edward
Lear.
Summary
• The poem “the justice of peace” is written by Hilaire Belloc. In this poem the poet
talks about the kind of thinking that people are protesting about at the moment: a
complete and fervent belief that property rights are handed down from on high and
that it’s a natural right that the state will protect your possessions, let you keep your
squillion dollars and your penthouse and your yacht.
• And how dare anybody question your right to that squillion dollars, question your
assertion that you earned it by working hard, as though the things that other people
do to keep a roof over their head and food in their belly and shoes on their feet (and
books on their shelves and wine in the fridge and the heating as high as they want
and a trip to the beach in the summer if they feel like it) aren’t hard work and don’t
have value.
• We sneer at Working For Families and middle-class welfare and do not question the
underlying reason behind it: that, actually, people who are on the average wage in
New Zealand would have difficulty supporting a family on that and paying the usual
rates of tax.
30
• We judge beneficiaries for still having cars; for having cell phones and computers in
their home; for faithfully buying a lotto ticket once a week; for having a beer with
dinner, or two, or three – as though our society thinks being poor should mean suffering
all the time, not spending your money on anything you want, not having choices and
not having the opportunity to make short-sighted ones from time to time because,
fuck it, it’s a lovely day – doesn’t a glass of wine on the patio sound nice?
• And we don’t question that, that earning the minimum wage if you’re working full-time
in New Zealand means you probably can’t afford to rent a whole house if you’re living
in a city, not without extra government assistance.
• We talk instead about how jobs might be lost, as though employers hire people out
of the goodness of their hearts and would pay more if only they could afford to, by
gum. We talk about that fucking microeconomic graph, the one that says that labor
is price elastic and assumes that’s true both ways or that it’s in any way realistic to
talk about a labor market as a whole, as though demand for checkout chicks at the
local New World is in any way comparable with the hiring of neurosurgeons, as
though the negotiating process works the same way when you’re a sixteen year old
girl as it does for a sixty-year old grey-haired businessman in a suit worth a month’s
wages.
• We let the entire conversation be overtaken by smirking fools talking earnestly about
how hard they worked to get where they are, and who let the subtext run through the
conversation like a lead-weighted punch to the face: if you’re poor it’s because you
deserve it. If you’re breaking your back cleaning other people’s floors and bagging
their groceries and typing their memos and organising their offices and driving their
taxis and educating their children and – and you’re not wearing thousand-dollar shoes
and driving a late-model import, it’s because you don’t deserve any better.
• Except that they of course are poor because they made poor choices, and they’re
staying poor because they — because — because New Zealand is a land of milk
and honey and what’s with all the pessimism anyway?
• “The Justice of the Peace” in which the speaker chides his tenant, “I do not envy you
your hat, your shoe./Why should you envy me my small estate?/It’s fearfully illogical
of you/To fight with economic force and fate.” We laughed sadly at the irony of the
poem describing a world in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
31
Check your progress
1. Who is the addresser and the addressee in the poem?
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———————————————————————————————
2. What is the power relationship between the addresser and the addressee?
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——————————————————————————————
3. How does the poet challenge the opponent? ————————————————

————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————-
4. What is his strength over the opponent?
————————————————————————————————————
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——————————————————————————————-
5. What is the irony in the poem?
————————————————————————————————————
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Model questions
1. Write a critical appreciation of the poem.
2. Explore the ideas in the poem.
3. What are the main themes that run throughout the poem.
4. What is the conflict in the poem?
5. Does the poet resign himself to a system built on the base of economic inequalities
and social injustices?
32
2.3.2 ‘A Different History’ - Sujata Bhatt
Sujata Bhatt (b. 1956) grew up in Pune but emigrated with her family to the United
States in 1968. She studied in the States receiving an MFA from the University of Iowa and
went on to be writer-in-residence at the University of Victoria, Canada. More recently she
was visiting fellow at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. She currently lives with her husband
and daughter in Bremen, Germany. Her first collection, Brunizem, won the Commonwealth
Poetry Prize (Asia) and the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award. Subsequent collections have been
awarded a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and in 1991 she received a Cholmondeley
Award.
For Bhatt, language is synonymous with the tongue, the physical act of speaking.
She has described Gujarati and the Indian childhood it connects her to as “the deepest
layer of my identity”. However, English has become the language she speaks every day
and which she, largely, chooses to write in. The repercussions of this divided heritage are
explored in her work, most explicitly in ‘Search for My Tongue’ which alternates between
the two languages. The complex status of English - its beauties and colonial implications
- are also conveyed in the moving ironies of ‘A Different History’ and ‘Nanabhai Bhatt in
Prison’ about her grandfather who read Tennyson to comfort himself during his incarceration
by the British authorities. Such division finds geographical expression in poems which
explore ideas of home (‘The One Who Goes Away’) and question our mental mapping of
the world (‘How Far East is it Still East?’). It’s present too in her voice, with its musical
melding of Indian and American inflections.
Summary
• A Different History written by Sujata Bhatt portrays the loss of language and cultures
after colonization in India. This poem describes the bitterness and sadness Bhatt
felt about her mother tongue and cultures. Bhatt explores the idea of history, culture
and language throughout the poem.
• Bhatt uses two enjambments in the poem. The first enjambment talks about the
book, which represents the culture and the way people should treat the books. The
tone of voice used in the second enjambment is more aggressive and critical, as it
described the period of colonization when the cultures and language were taken
away by the conquerors.
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• There is no rhyme utilized throughout the poem. This shows that Bhatt wants to
show how serious and complex the problem is, wanting the readers to think of the
loss of mother tongue and one’s culture. Moreover, an irony is used throughout the
whole poem. Bhatt, who cries for the loss of language, used English to write the
poem. This indicates that she is one of those ‘unborn grandchildren’ who ‘grow to
love that strange language’ creating a sense of sadness, because even the author
herself cannot speak Indian but uses English – the ‘strange language’.
• ‘Great Pan is not dead; he simply emigrated to India’ tells that the cultures and religions
are transmitted across the globe. ‘Great pan’ symbolizes the pantheism existing in
Indian religion where everything has a god in charge of it, even human. Bhatt talks
about the culture and lifestyle moving with people by implying that God Pan is not
seized to exist but simply moved to India. This also indicates the similarity between
the religions of the Eastern and the Western due to the constant transmitting of
cultures and lifestyles. ‘The god roams freely, disguised as snakes and monkeys’
portrays the acceptance of new religion and cultures in India. ‘God’ represents the
new cultures and lifestyles. Snakes and monkeys were worshipped during the past
time, as Indians believed that there were gods laying on them. This indicates that
Indians welcomed and worshipped the new culture and lifestyles. This also exhibits
the innocence of Indians who allowed foreign religion to enter and ‘roam freely’ in
India.
• There is a repetition of ‘sin’ when the author lists the way people should treat the
books. The word ‘sin’ reinforces the negative commentary and intensifies the critical
tone of the poem. Bhatt uses book as an example to show people that the cultures
must be appreciated and treated carefully by mentioning the tradition and custom of
India in how to treat the book. Pantheism is, again, underscored in ‘you must not
learn how to turn the pages gently without disturbing Sarasvati’. Sarasvati is a goddess
of knowledge and art, who Indians believed to be laying on the book. Bhatt is telling
the people that people should treat books just as the way people treat the goddess of
knowledge, highlighting the importance of god and the way people should treat them.
It also depicts the emancipation of freedom in valuing one’s culture but not liberating
oneself with selfishness.
• There is a sudden change in the tone of voice in the second enjambment; it is more
hostile and aggressive. This change is supported by the rhetorical questions: ‘which
language has not been the oppressor’s tongue? Which language truly meant to
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murder someone?’ This creates a sense of uncertainty and infuriation, which the
author felt about the colonization. Bhatt describes her depressions as she realizes
that there are neither the oppressors not the oppressed. No one means to be any of
those – no one can be blamed. In addition, the repetition of ‘which language’ enhances
the sense of criticalness and uncertainty in her expression. The repetition and
rhetorical questions lead the readers to feel the shamefaced of human history.
• Further sense of torment is created in ‘and how does it happen that after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped with a long scythe swooping out of the conqueror’s
face’. ‘Soul’ symbolizes the self-esteem of Indians for being able to speak Indian and
follow the Indian culture. Scythe is a tool used to harvest crops by hand, which obviously
takes much longer time than by machine. ‘Scythe’ in this phrase represents the
colonization and injustice. This shows that the colonization has cut out the ‘soul’ of
Indian by forbidding the cultures and language. This also reveals that Indians suffered
long time during the colonization.
• Final tone of the poem is made in the last two lines: ‘the unborn grandchildren grow
to love that strange language’. Sense of sadness and uncertainty are enhanced as it
described Bhatt’s realization of cultural consequences such as the colonization does
not ruin one’s history but begins a new era where a new generation of ‘unborn
grandchildren’ grow ‘to love that strange language’ – the inevitability of cultural change.
• Sujata Bhatt explores the theme of cultural consequence and the loss of language
and cultures throughout the poem by describing he feeling about her lost mother
tongue and culture. This poem leads the readers to think back about their own history,
which may either be painful or happy.
Check your progress
1. How do people in India treat books?
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——————————————————————————————-
2. Why does the poet say that Pan has immigrated to India?
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3. Which are the gods she is referring to?
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4. Why does Sujata Bhatt say that the gods wander freely in India?
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5. What does the oppressors’ language do to the oppressed people?
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Model questions
1. What are the main themes that run throughout the poem ‘A Different History’ by
Sujata Bhatt?
2. Write your feelings as you read the poem ‘’A Different History’’ by Sujata Bhatt.
4. What is the poet’s attitude towards the grandchildren who learn to love the language
of the oppressors?
5. Explore the ideas in the poem A Different History by Sujata Bhatt.
2.3.3 ‘Digging’ - Seamus Heaney
Introduction to The Poet
Seamus Heaney was a renowned Irish poet and professor who won the 1995 Nobel
Prize in Literature. Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the
20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later
lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism,
and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995
36
“for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living
past.” Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor
of Poetry (1989-1994). He died in 2013.
Heaney has attracted a readership on several continents and has won prestigious
literary awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize. As Blake Morrison noted in his work
Seamus Heaney, the author is “that rare thing, a poet rated highly by critics and academics
yet popular with ‘the common reader.’” Part of Heaney’s popularity stems from his subject
matter—modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural
culture and language overrun by English rule. The New York Review of Books essayist
Richard Murphy described Heaney as “the poet who has shown the finest art in presenting
a coherent vision of Ireland, past and present.” Heaney’s poetry is known for its aural
beauty and finely-wrought textures. Often described as a regional poet, he is also a
traditionalist who deliberately gestures back towards the “pre-modern” worlds of William
Wordsworth and John Clare.
Summary
• Digging by Seamus Heaney was first published in 1966 in his poetry collection, Death
of a Naturalist. He deals with the themes of root consciousness and respect to the
ancestors in this poem.
• At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is sitting at his desk with a pen that is
resting in his hand. He compares the pen to the gun with the use of simile. Suddenly
he is diverted by the continuous sound of digging outside by his father. His father is
digging potato field with the help of spades. He travels back to his past with the
imagination and finds his grandfather digging for peat. Ultimately, the speaker comes
back to the present being ready for the writing.
• In the first couplet and last tercet of the poem, the speaker repeats the same line
“Between my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests.’ Using this refrain, he implies
the message that he has been digging with the pen which is as powerful as the gun.
As he digs into the memory, he finds the tradition of digging in both father and
grandfather. Then he is digging into the memory as symbolized by ‘bog’. Then, this
bog is the symbol of personal memory where he digs to identify the personal history.
• He proudly declares that his father was the digger who followed the tradition of digging
from his father when father dug for the potato drills, grandfather dug for the turf.
37
Whatever the reason is, they were digging for their survival. His father and grandfather
are the simple digger. They have not done anything great, but he finds greatness in
the trifling family history. It is his root, which may be ugly, but it is always lovely. The
change might have come in the nature of digging, but the tradition of digging has
continued.
• The digging of his parents differs from the digging of a son. When the son digs, he
digs for history in which he is proud. He finds rhythm in his personal history. What is
personal that is political. So, he wants to celebrate the root consciousness by exploring
into the personal history, which for him is as important as the Irish history.
• Now, the speaker digs for his identity. His going for family history means that he has
gone for his root or origin. His digging can thus be seen with root-consciousness in
mind. The speaker listens to the rhythm of the sound produced by the digging of his
father and grandfather. He finds his family history sweet, musical and melodious. He
comes from a long line of diggers, and he seems pretty proud. Both the father and
the grandfather seem to be pretty hard-working, tough men, and the lines in the
poem continue to emphasize that fact by calling our attention to the grandfather’s
constant effort.
• Heaney is aware by the end of the poem with the fact that his skill of digging with a
pen is as powerful as his forefathers’ act of digging for the survival. Though the mode
of digging is absolutely different from that of his ancestors, he is giving continuation
to the tradition of digging, but with a pen. His ancestors used manual force to dig,
now he is using his intellectual force to dig. When he says, ‘I’ll dig’ in the end of the
poetry, he is sure with his writing career and proud enough for his selection.
Check your progress
1. How is the poet different to the older generations in his family?
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2. How does Heaney present landscape and a sense of place in this poem?
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3. Is the poet in ‘Digging’ unhappy that he is not a potato farmer? Why?
————————————————————————————————————
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——————————————————————————————-
4. Why does the speaker admire his father?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————
5. In the Seamus Heaney poem “Digging,” how does the poet feel about his father’s work?
————————————————————————————————————
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——————————————————————————————-
Model questions
1. What are the two meanings of the title of Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging?”
2. Explain the theme of Seamus Heaney’s “Digging.”
3. How did Seamus Heaney use indigenous or Irish images in his poem “Digging?”
4. Does Seamus Heaney use formal diction, informal diction, middle diction or poetic
diction in “Digging”?
5. How does the poem “Digging” explore ideas of heritage/family tradition?
2.3.4 ‘Ozymandias of Egypt’ - Percy Bysshe Shelly
Known for his lyrical and long-form verse, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the most
highly regarded English Romantic poets of the 19th century. His works include The Masque
of Anarchy and Queen Mab.
Born in Broadbridge Heath, England, on August 4, 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley is

one of the epic poets of the 19th century, and is best known for his classic anthology verse
works such as Ode to the West Wind and The Masque of Anarchy. He is also well known
39
for his long-form poetry, including Queen Mab and Alastor. He went on many adventures
with his second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. He drowned in a sudden
storm while sailing in Italy in 1822.
The life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley exemplify Romanticism in both its
extremes of joyous ecstasy and brooding despair. The major themes are there in Shelley’s
dramatic if short life and in his works, enigmatic, inspiring, and lasting: the restlessness
and brooding, the rebellion against authority, the interchange with nature, the power of the
visionary imagination and of poetry, the pursuit of ideal love, and the untamed spirit ever in
search of freedom—all of these Shelley exemplified in the way he lived his life and live on
in the substantial body of work that he left the world after his legendary death by drowning
at age twenty-nine. While Shelley shares many basic themes and symbols with his great
contemporaries, he has left his peculiar stamp on Romanticism: the creation of powerful
symbols in his visionary pursuit of the ideal, at the same time tempered by a deep
skepticism. His thought is characterized by an insistence on taking the controversial side
of issues, even at the risk of being unpopular and ridiculed. From the very beginning of his
career as a published writer at the precocious age of seventeen, throughout his life, and
even to the present day the very name of Shelley has evoked either the strongest
vehemence or the warmest praise, bordering on worship. More than any other English
Romantic writer, with the possible exception of his friend George Gordon, Lord Byron,
Shelley’s life and reputation have had a history and life of their own apart from the reputation
of his various works.
Summary
• Ozymandias is a well-known poem by Shelley (1818). It describes a broken statue

of a legendary king of ancient times, lying forgotten in the desert. Here, let us go
through the précis or summary of Ozymandias and see what it originally depicts.
• “Ozymandias” is a famous sonnet which was written by the English Romantic poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). It got published for the first time in the 11 January
1818 issue of The Examiner in London. Since it is a sonnet, it has only fourteen lines.
But in this limited space, Shelley explores a number of contemporary and relevant
issues. “Ozymandias” explores the repercussions happened to the tyrant kings who
are the autocratic world leaders more generally. As we all know, nothing lasts forever;
that means even the very worst political leaders, no matter how much they torture
and inflict pain on others, all die at some point. But, Shelley doesn’t explicitly say
“nothing lasts forever” and “there is always hope.” He pens down a sonnet in a subtle
way to explain the truth.
40
• The poem makes simple bare statements about the downfall of a certain tyrant called
Ozymandias. The speaker in the poem reports to us what a traveler “from an antique
land” told him. The traveler conjoins the past with the present. The traveler knew
who Ozymandias was and what happened to his power and empire.
• He now stands by the trunk less statue of the emperor Ozymandias, which lies in
the vast desert landscape and tells the speaker the artistry of Ozymandias’s statue
and the inscription on its pedestal. The whole scene is dramatic and ironic. The
poem is written almost like a sonnet with the rhyming words at the beginning and the
end of it.
• The poem begins with the narrative form and includes the description of the statue/
pedestal by the traveler. The narrator reports what the traveler said to him. The report
goes this Way:
• Just see these two vast and bodiless legs of the stone statue standing in the desert.
Also see the face that now is half-sunk shattered to pieces. On the face is seen
certain anger. The lip is wrinkled. The face also shows the sneer and the cold
command of emperor Ozymandias. The sculptor knew well the nature of the tyrant.
He was passion-frenzy in dictating others. There was pride in him. The sculptor
stamped the ruthless ruler’s cruel nature on his statue. The sculptor in fact mocked
out the tyrant and gave full expression of all that the tyrant signified for him in the form
of a grand and imposing statue that now is shattered into pieces and that now appears
in its half-sunk and almost forgotten relic form. He must have given his whole heart
and imagination in the formation of that statue. One can still see such words on the
pedestal of the statue.
• ‘My name is Ozymandias. I am the king of kings. Look at my works. Even the mighty
people will be disappointed at seeing the grand power and authority I exercise.’
• But nothing remains beside. Everything is bound to disappear from the face of the
earth. The statue is decayed now. One can still see the “colossal wreck” - that vast
destruction brought about by time. Now it is all bare in this desert land that stretches
far.
• Ozymandias’s physical power was long gone to his death. He wished to be immortal
by having his great statue built up which now appears only in the form of remains.
The way the sculptor is said to have made the statue the reader forms the opinion
that the ruler, proud as he was of his authority, must have been bad-tempered,
41
heartless and cruel. We move from the broken fragments to what is written on the
pedestal of the statue that speaks of the hastiness and the pride of the ruler. After
reading the poem, we form the view that the interest of the poem is not to give the
historical detail of the ruler, but to imply the character of Ozymandias, in special
relation to what has happened in subsequent ages. The whole poem is a satirical
piece that is directed to mocking at Ozymandias’s foolish presumption and supposition
that his power was permanent,
• Here the poem reveals its anti-tyrannical and anti -autocratic nature and also gives
us the impression that the artist and art are also time-bound and subject to death
and decay. As regards the choice of words, “frown”, “wrinkled lip”, “cold command”
are some such words that precisely depict the uncompromising and dictatorial
character of Ozymandias as powerfully as the stone carvings themselves. Nowhere
does the narrator see in that vast desert sand any sign of the tyrant’s impression.
Ozymandias death is the undignified end that reminds us of the downfall of many
tyrants/emperors at the modern time.
Check your progress
1. What are some poetic devices in Ozymandias?
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2. Why does the traveler say that the passions still survive?
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3. In what way could Ozymandias be said to live on?
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4. Based on the poem how might Ozymandias be described?
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5. What is the intention of the poet here? What do the colossal wreck and sands
symbolize?
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Model questions
1. What inferences does the narrator make about Ozymandias from the way the face
of the statue looks?
2. Based on the information in the poem, who was Ozymandias?
3. What is the main idea of the poem “Ozymandias”?
4. How does the narrator feel about the king in “Ozymandias”?
5. How can the poem “Ozymandias” be related to contemporary culture?
2.3.5 ‘Leave This Chanting and Singing and Telling of Beads’ - Rabindranath
Tagore
Rabindranath was born on 7 May 1861 Calcutta. His father Debendranath Tagore
was a leading light in the Brahmo Samaj – a reforming Hindu organisation which sought to
promote a monotheistic interpretation of the Upanishads and move away from the rigidity
of Hindu Orthodoxy which they felt was holding back India. Debendranath Tagore also
encouraged his family to learn English.
Rabindranath began writing from an early age and impressed with his free-flowing
style and spontaneous compositions. He mostly rejected formal schooling; he spent much
time being taught at home. In 1878 he travelled to England and sought to study law at
University College, London, but he left before finishing the degree.
After returning to India, in 1901, Tagore moved to Shantiniketan to found an ashram

which became his focal point for writing and his view on schooling. He chose the name for
the ashram – Shantiniketan meaning ‘Abode of Peace’
43
Tagore was firm friends with Gandhi and admired him very much. But, despite this
friendship, he could be critical of his views. For example, he disagreed with Gandhi’s views
on Swaraj protests and upbraided Gandhi when Gandhi claimed an earthquake was ‘divine
retribution for the mistreatment of Dalits in India.’ Yet despite the frequent divergence of
opinions, they could admire each other.
In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his work ‘Gitanjali‘
This made his writings internationally known and his fame spread throughout the world.
This gave Tagore the opportunity to travel extensively giving lectures and recitals in many
different countries. He also became acquainted with many of the leading cultural
contemporaries of the day; this included W.B.Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Romain Rolland,
Robert Frost and Albert Einstein.
Tagore had a great love for nature and many of his poems invoke the simple beauties
of the natural world. For Tagore, his religion could be found in the wonders and mysteries
of nature – as much as in temples and sacred books.
Summary
o Gitanjali is a collection of 103 English poems, largely translations, by the Bengali

poet Rabindranath Tagore. ‘Leave this chanting’ is the 11th poem in the collection.
o The poet advises the priests to give up their counting of beads and their singing and
chanting of mantras. He also urges them stop the worship of God in a secluded
corner of the temple, with their eyes half shut. He sharply states, ‘Open your eyes
and see God is not there before you.’ God is not to be found in this way. God lives
with the humble and down-trodden like the tillers of the land and path-makers who
work hard at breaking stones. He lives with those who toil in sun and shower and
whose clothes are soiled with dust. If the priest wants God he must come out of his
temple, give up his holy robes and work with the humble tillers of the soil in rain and
sun. Tagore thus glorifies the life of the humble labourers and rejects the ascetic way
of life.
o The ultimate spiritual goal of the ascetic is to seek deliverance. This is the liberation
of the soul from the cycle of birth and death. But God Himself is bound to all of us in
chains of love. He himself is not free and He has joyfully bound Himself to the work of
creation and to the objects He has created. How can then man ever hope to be free
from bondage? He urges the ascetics to leave the ritualistic flowers and incense
44
which does not serve any purpose. According to the poet one can find God not in the
temple but with the workers who are working whole day in the dirt and under the hot
sun. He asks us what harm is there if you work under the sun and if your clothes
become dirt. Even when your clothes are turn out or stained there is no harm because
one is going to see the creator. Thus Tagore conveys that participation in the activity
of life is essential for the realization of God.
o Tagore suggests that the infinite expresses itself through the finite, and the divine is
found in the human. Tagore stands for a synthesis of contemplation and action.
Contemplation comes first, for that helps the purification of the mind. But the fullness
of spiritual life can be realised only when the life of contemplation is merged into the
life of action-the life of service to humanity. In the poetry of Tagore’s later life, the
rejection of asceticism and the promotion of a world-affirmative view become more
subtle and intricate.
o Tagore knows the value of humanism and he expresses the value of humanism in
this poem. Humanists believe that service to fellowmen and love of them is the highest
form of worship. They also believe that God is to be found with the poor and the
labourer. Tagore says that true worship of God means mingling with the humble
humanity on terms of equality, and participation in their humble activities. According
to Tagore, the rich and the proud can never find God, for they keep aloof from the
poor and the downtrodden. He opines, pride can never approach to where those
walk in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, the lowliest and lost.
o It shows that God lives in the company of those who toil in Sun and Shower and
whose clothes are soiled with dust. God loves the humble tiller despite his dirty and
tattered dress. God is to be found with the poor and the humble who earn their bread
with the sweat of their brow.
o This poem ‘Leave This Chanting’ is equally important in World Literature due to his
exposing the pseudo-zeal of worshippers everywhere.
Check your progress
1. Why does the poet say that God is not in the temple?
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2. Where can we find God?
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3. Why do you think the poet is addressing?
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4. How can we attain deliverance?
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5. How can we meet and stand with God?
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Model questions
2. Do you think the poet approves of rituals and blind worship?
3. What kind of man and God does Tagore create?
4. Write a short note on the theme of the poem.
5. What does the poet urge the priest to do at the beginning of the poem?
Web Sources
The Justice Of Peace - Hillaire Belloc
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hilaire-belloc
• Https://Degmateng.wordpress.com/2016/03/
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A Different History - Sujata Bhatt
• https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/sujata-bhatt
• https://studymoose.com/analysis-of-a-different-history-by-sujata-bhatt-essay
Digging - Seamus Heaney
• https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1995/heaney/biographical/
• https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/digging-
summary-analysis.html#.xlcau9ylziu
Ozymandias Of Egypt - Percy Bysshe Shelly
• https://www.biography.com/people/percy-bysshe-shelley-9481527
• https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/ozymandias-
summary.html#.xlb_0tylziu
Leave This Chanting And Singing And Telling Of Beads - Rabindranath Tagore
• https://www.biographyonline.net/poets/tagore-rabindranath.html
• http://www.literaturewise.in/mdl/mod/page/view.php?id=139
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LESSON - 3
SHORT STORIES
Learning Objectives
• learnnuances of short stories
• be entertained and enlightened
• explore the theme and moral
• appreciate a work of literature for its own sake
• comprehend new words and use them.
Structure
3.1 Introduction
3.3 The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde
3.4 The Story Of Stanford
3.5 The Engine Trouble - R.K. Narayan
3.6 After Twenty Years - O. Henry
3.7 Two Gentlemen Of Verona - A.J. Cronin
3.8 The Avenger - Anton Chekhow
3.1 Introduction
A short story typically takes the form of a brief fictional work, usually written in
prose. The earliest precursors to the short story can be found in the oral storytelling tradition,
as well as episodes from ancient Mediterranean epics, such as ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’
and Homer’s ‘Iliad.’
48
Anecdotes, fables, fairy tales, and parables are all examples of the oral storytelling
tradition that helped to shape the short story, such as ‘The Painting of the Dog and His
Reflection’ from ‘Aesop’s Fables’. In fact, ‘Aesop’s Fables,’ first collected in the 4th century
B.C., may have been the first anthology of short stories in Western literature.
Over time, genres and writers all around the world have influenced the development
of the short story. For example, Norse legends, Irish ballads, and Gothic ghost stories
have all played a major role in directing both its structure and subject matter. Let’s take a
look at some of the major characteristics of the short story.

This third unit has six exciting short stories in the list. The Happy Prince by Oscar
Wilde, The Story of Stanford, The Engine Trouble by R.K. Narayan, After Twenty
Years by O. Henry, Two Gentlemen of Verona by A.J. Cronin and The Avenger by
Anton Chekhow. All the stories listed are equally entertaining and enlightening.They take
us through the various walks of life and to meet people with unique mind. Being a collection
of stories by authors from various parts of the world they resent the different ways of life in
a nutshell.
3.3 ‘The Happy Prince’ - Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was an Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and critic. He is regarded
as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era. In his lifetime he wrote nine plays,
one novel, and numerous poems, short stories, and essays. Wilde was a proponent of the
Aesthetic movement, which emphasized aesthetic values more than moral or social themes.
This doctrine is most clearly summarized in the phrase ‘art for art’s sake’.
Oscar Wilde was known for his acclaimed works including The Picture of Dorian
Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as his brilliant wit, flamboyant style and
infamous imprisonment for homosexuality.
Born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was
a popular literary figure in late Victorian England, known for his brilliant wit, flamboyant style
and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality. After graduating from Oxford University, he
lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism. In
1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was panned as immoral
49
by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable works. As a dramatist,
many of Wilde’s plays were well received including his satirical comedies Lady
Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895)
and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play. Unconventional in his
writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young man led to his arrest on charges of “gross
indecency” in 1895. He was imprisoned for two years and died in poverty three years after
his release at the age of 46.
Summary
• This is a story about the statue of a Happy Prince and a little Swallow. TheHappy
Prince was a beautiful statue stood on a tall column high above thecity. The statue
was covered with thin leaves of gold. He had sapphires forhis eyes and a ruby in his
sword.
• One night a little swallow flew over the city. He was tired and want tospent the night
between the feet of the Happy Prince. As he was ready tosleep just then a large drop
of water fell on him. It was curious as therewere no clouds in the sky. Then another
drop of water fell on him. Theswallow decided to look for another place just then third
drop fell on him, helooked up and saw that these were the tears from the eyes of the
HappyPrince and the swallow filled with pity. The swallow asked “ who are you”and
why are you crying? The Happy Prince told the swallow that he lived ina palace while
he was alive and had a kind human heart. There was nosorrow at all and his and his
courtiers called him the happy prince. After hisdeath he had been set up on a high
pillar, his heart is made up of Lead yetand it always weeps when he see the ugliness
and misery of his city. Hetold the swallow that far away in a little street a little boy of
a seamstress issick. He is crying and his mother could not give him oranges to eat.
Heasked the swallow to give his ruby to the poor women when he was goingto Egypt.
But he obeyed the Happy Prince and then he flew and laid theruby on the table of the
poor women.
• Then the Happy Prince saw a writer. He was suffering from coldand was hungry.
Happy Prince asked the swallow to give one of thesapphire to the writer. The swallow
did not want to pluck out the sapphirefrom his eyes, but he obeyed him unwillingly.
After that the Happy Princesaw a match girl and her matches fall into the gutter. At
his command theswallow very unwillingly plucked out the sapphire from the other
eye of theHappy Prince and now the Prince was totally blind. the swallow slipped
thesapphire into the palm of the match girl. Then the Happy Prince allowed the swallow
to fly away to Egypt, but the swallow decided to stay with the blindPrince forever.
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• The swallow reported about the sufferings of the starvingpeople. At the command of
the Happy Prince the swallow took of thegolden leaves from the statue and distributed
them among the poor people.Now the statue was dull and grey. The frost made the
swallow colder andcolder and he was about to die. He flew to the Happy Prince who
bade himkiss him on the lips. The swallow fell down die at the feet of the statue.
Thelead heart of the Prince broke into two.
• The Mayor ordered that the statue should be pulled downbecause it was neither
beautiful now useful. The broken heart did not meltin the furnace. It was thrown away
on a dust heap where the dead swallowwas also lying. God asked the angels to
bring the two most precious thingsin the city. God praised the angel’s choice in bringing
him the leaden heartof the Happy Prince and the dead swallow.
Check your Progress
1. Why do the courtiers call the prince “The Happy Prince”? - Is he really happy? What
does he see all around him?
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2. Why does the Happy Prince send a ruby for the- seamstress? What does the swallow
do in the seamstress house?
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3. What does the swallow see when it flies over the city?
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4. Where did the little swallow want to go?
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5. Why did the swallow did not leave the prince and go to Egypt?
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Model questions
1. Who is the narrator of “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde?
2. What are the precious things mentioned in the story? Why - are they precious?
3. Narrate the summary of the story “ The Happy Prince”
4. What are the themes employed in the story “The Happy Prince”?
5. What is the exposition in “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde?
3.4 ‘The Story of Stanford’

Synopsis
Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University or Stanford) is a private

research university in Stanford, California. Stanford is known for its academic strength,
wealth, proximity to Silicon Valley, and ranking as one of the world’s top universities
The university was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their
only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year.
Stanford was a U.S. Senator and former Governor of California who made his fortune as a
railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students on October 1,1891,as a coeducational
and non-denominational institution.
Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893
and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates’
entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as
Silicon Valley. The university is also one of the top fundraising institutions in the country,
becoming the first school to raise more than a billion dollars in a year.
Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to
Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanford’s previous
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Palo Alto farm. Despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus
was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was
started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I. The Stanford Medical
Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National
Accelerator Laboratory (originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), which
was established in 1962, performs research in particle physics.
Jane and Leland Stanford modeled their university after the great eastern universities,
most specifically Cornell University and Harvard University. Stanford opened being called
the “Cornell of the West” in 1891 due to faculty being former Cornell affiliates (either
professors, alumni, or both) including its first president, David Starr Jordan. Both Cornell
and Stanford were among the first to have higher education be accessible, nonsectarian,
and open to women as well as to men. Cornell is credited as one of the first American
universities to adopt this radical departure from traditional education, and Stanford became
an early adopter as well.
According to the storyof Standford University is,”Two ‘country hicks’ came to Harvard
and wanted to talk with the president. A haughty secretary resisted the couple and made
them wait for hours. In exasperation, she finally asked the president to see the visitors,
which he did if for no other reason to get rid of them. The couple told him their son had
attended Harvard for a year and he had loved it, but had been killed in an accident and they
wanted to build a memorial to him. The president discouraged them, saying they couldn’t
erect a memorial to every student who had died. The couple said they were thinking of
donating for an entire building in their son’s honor. The president discouraged them and
mentioned how much all of the buildings at Harvard were worth. The lady commented to
her husband that if that was all it took to build a university, they ought to construct their own.
So...Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford went to Palo Alto, Calif., and built a school in honor of
their son ... a memorial to a student that Harvard no longer cared about.”
Check your progress
1. What was the reaction of the secretary?
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2. What did the secretary think about the couple?

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3. How did the secretary treat the couple?
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4. How did the couple react to the information given by the president?
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5. What was the president’s reaction to the ladies reply?
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Model questions
1. Why was the president confused and bewildered by the lady’s reaction?
2. How was the couple different from the other rich?
3. What were the various difficulties faced by the couple in fulfilling their mission of
building a memorial to their sons?
4. Did the president of Harvard University behave appropriately towards the couple?
5. What is the moral of the story?
3.5 ‘The Engine Trouble’ - R.k. Narayan

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Narayanaswami, or R. K. Narayan, is one of the

most celebrated Indian novelists writing in English. This master storyteller was born on
October 10, 1906 in Madras or present day Chennai.
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Most of his stories were set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. His works
captured the essence of ordinary life. His first novel ‘Swami and Friends’ was published in
1935. Besides novels, he wrote short stories, travelogues, condensed versions of Indian
epics in English and his memoir.
Born to a schoolteacher father, he took the name R. K. Narayan at the suggestion

of his close friend and another great author, Graham Greene. He learnt Tamil and English
in school. He did his initial studies at the residence of his grandmother and eventually
moved to Mysore with his parents, when his father got appointed as headmaster of the
Maharaja’s High School in Mysore.
R. K. Narayan earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Mysore and
went to the United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. His literary
career began with his short stories, which appeared in ‘The Hindu’ newspaper. He began
to work as the Mysore correspondent of ‘Justice’, a Madras-based newspaper. When he
could not get his first novel ‘Swami and Friends’ published, a mutual friend showed the
draft to Graham Greene who agreed to arrange for its publication.
He won numerous awards and adulation during his lifetime. These include the
Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958, the Padma Bhushan in 1964, the AC Benson Medal by the
Royal Society of Literature in 1980, besides the Padma Vibhushan in 2000. He was
nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1989. This great storyteller passed away on May 13,
2001 at the age of 94. Narayan played an exceptional role in making India accessible to the
outside world through literature.
Synopsis
In Engine Trouble by R.K Narayan we have the theme of practicality, hope, luck,
responsibility and authority. Taken from his Malgudi Days collection the story is narrated in
the first person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that
Narayan may be exploring the theme of practicality. The narrator has no use for a road
engine and all the narrator can do is hope that somebody will either buy the road engine off
him or that he might be able to give it away to somebody. It serves no practical purpose
and is costing the narrator money in rent. Similarly the narrator’s marriage is beginning to
suffer because of the problems that the road engine is bringing the narrator. To make
matters worse those in authority (Municipal Chief) want the road engine moved which
causes further headaches for the narrator. He has to hire an elephant and fifty men but
while attempting to move the road engine, the road engine hits a wall. If anything there are
55
traces of irony in the story. At first the narrator felt lucky to have won the road engine and in
many ways personalised the engine. However as mentioned the road engine has caused
the narrator nothing but problems. Which may be the point that Narayan is attempting to
make. He may be suggesting that luck can be a double edged sword and the reality may
be that rather than being lucky an individual like the narrator may experience nothing but
bad luck.
The fact that the narrator personalises the road engine may also be important as
by doing so he may be filling a void in his own life. It may be a case that the road engine
represents a shift (upwards) in class for the narrator or at least he hopes it might. He has
an object that is unique however nobody is interested in owning it. The road engine is
simply not practical. So problematic is ownership of the road engine that the narrator advises
his wife to contact her father to take her back to her village. While the narrator himself
hopes to run away from his troubles. Which is not necessarily the most responsible of
actions. Where once the narrator had huge admiration for the road engine. This is no
longer the case. It is also ironic that the road engine, which is meant to move, does very
little moving in the story. This may be because nobody knows how to drive the road engine.
The narrator’s second piece of luck comes through the Swami. However due to
the restrictions imposed on the Swami by the magistrate things do not work out as planned
for the narrator. For the second time the narrator has been frustrated by those in authority.
Which may be Narayan’s way of highlighting to the reader that those in authority may have
too much power or influence over people. There’s no disputing that the narrator’s life would
be a lot easier if those in authority did not interfere with his plans. It is those in authority who
are dictating the law though they may not necessarily have valid reasons for their directives.
Which again may be the point that Narayan is attempting to make. Rather than blind
adherence to authority it is possible that Narayan is suggesting that at times those in
authority need to be questioned. As the Swami attempts to do to the police inspector.
Though he doesn’t actually get anywhere with the police inspector.
The end of the story is also interesting as Narayan continues to explore the theme
of luck and it is as though the phrase ‘third time lucky’ rings true for the narrator. Due to the
earthquake the narrator’s problems with the road engine have been resolved. To help matters
the narrator has also been paid for any losses he may have incurred while trying to move
or get rid of the road engine. Through good fortune (earthquake) the narrator has found
someone that actually wants the road engine. It is stuck at the bottom of a well which suits
the man who owns the well. Though the road engine never served the purpose it was
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meant to serve it is still serving some purpose to somebody. Which may be important as
Narayan could be suggesting that everything has its purpose for somebody. It may not
necessarily be the purpose something was built for but nonetheless it has a purpose. It is
also noticeable that the worry that the narrator showed throughout the story while he was
trying to get rid of the road engine is gone. At the end of the story the narrator is a happy
man who is able to ‘heave a sigh of great relief.’ It may also be a case that what man
cannot fix. The narrator and the road engine. Nature will remedy. On this occasion in the
form of an earthquake. The narrator can live his life again without the concerns that were
brought upon him by his winning of the road engine. Life can return to normal for the
narrator.
Check your progress
1. What are the circumstances that lead to the narrator taking possession of a road
engine in ‘Engine Trouble?’
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2. What is the narrator’s solution to his problems in ‘Engine Trouble?’
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3. Why was one corner of the shop popular?
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4. Why did the people gaze at the narrator?
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5. What was the rule regarding prizes?

57
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Model questions
1. What is the theme of RK Narayan’s Engine Trouble?
2. How was the rule broken in the case of narrator?
3. What steps did the narrator take in getting rid of the engine?
4. How did the narrator decide to take the engine out of the ground?
5. Describe about the irony in the story Engine Trouble.
3.6 ‘After Twenty Years’ - O. Henry

O. Henry was an American writer whose short stories are known for wit, wordplay
and clever twist endings. He wrote nearly 600 stories about life in America.William Sydney
Porter, writing as O. Henry, wrote in a dry, humorous style and, as in “The Gift of the Magi,”
often ironically used coincidences and surprise endings. Released from prison in 1902,
Porter went to New York, his home and the setting of most of his fiction for the remainder
of his life. Writing prodigiously, he went on to become a revered American writer.
O. Henry (1862 - 1910) was an American short story author named William Sydney
Porter, raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. Henry’s rich canon of work reflected his
wide-range of experiences and is distinctive for its witticism, clever wordplay, and unexpected
twist endings.
Like many other writers, O. Henry’s early career aspirations were unfocused and
he wandered across different activities and professions before he finally found his calling
as a short story writer. He started working in his uncle’s drugstore in 1879 and became a
licensed pharmacist by the age of 19. His first creative expressions came while working in
the pharmacy where he would sketch the townspeople that frequented the store. The
customers reacted warmly to his drawings and he was admired for his artistry and drawing
skills.
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Synopsis
“After Twenty Years” tells the story of two friends who made a pact to meet at a
specific time and place. Bob, a noted criminal from Chicago, arrives on time and speaks to
a policeman who happens to be walking by. Later, it’s revealed that this policeman was
Jimmy Wells, Bob’s friend.
It is approaching ten o’clock on the largely deserted avenue in New York. A policeman
works his way up the street, carefully checking the locked doors of the businesses that
have long since closed for the day. Suddenly, the officer of the peace encounters a man
with an unlit cigar, standing in the doorway of a hardware store. Congenially, the man tells
the policeman that he is waiting for a friend, whom he had agreed to meet with at that very
spot, twenty years ago that day.
The waiting man strikes a match to light the cigar he is holding, and in the brief
flash of illumination, the officer notes that the person before him has “a pale, square-jawed
face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow.” On his scarf is a large
diamond, indicating great wealth. The man explains that he and the friend for whom he is
waiting, his “best chum” Jimmy Wells, had been raised in New York like brothers; when
they had grown up, Jimmy had remained in the city, but he himself had headed West to
make his fortune. Upon taking leave of each other, the two friends had agreed to meet
again in exactly twenty years to the hour, “no matter what [their] conditions might be or
from what distance [they] might have to come.”
The waiting man pulls out a fancy watch, embellished with diamonds. The officer
idly comments that he must have done “pretty well out West,” and the man responds, “You
bet!” and expresses the hope that Jimmy, whom he remembers as having been “a kind of
plodder,” has done even half as well. He is confident that his old friend will meet him that
night if he is alive, no matter what his circumstances may be, because Jimmy always was
“the truest, stanchest old chap in the world.”
The policeman continues on his way, and the man in the doorway keeps vigil as a
fine rain begins to fall. After a short time, a tall character in a long overcoat with the collar
turned up to his ears approaches and inquires hesitantly, “Is that you, Bob?” The waiting
man exuberantly responds in kind, “Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” and the two grasp hands.
The friends exchange pleasantries; then the waiting man proudly asserts that the West
has given him “everything [he] asked it for,” while his counterpart says, a bit less emphatically,
that he has done moderately well at a position in one of the city departments.
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The newcomer suggests that the two of them “go around to a place [he] know[s]
of” where they can talk, and the men proceed up the street, arm in arm. At the corner,
beneath the glare of a drug store’s electric lights, they turn to each other. The man from the
West suddenly draws back and snaps, “You’re not Jimmy Wells...twenty years is a long
time, but not long enough to change a man’s nose from a Roman to a pug.” The tall man
counters with a gibe of his own, commenting ironically that such a span of time indeed
“sometimes changes a good man into a bad one.” He then places Bob, the waiting man,
under arrest. Before taking Bob in, the tall man hands him a note that he has been asked
to give him.
The missive is brief. The writer says that he was “at the appointed place on time,”
but when the recipient of the correspondence struck the match to light his cigar, the writer
recognized his face as that of a notorious criminal wanted in Chicago. The writer did not
have the heart to do what needed to be done himself, so he solicited the aid of a plainclothes
officer to fill in for him. The note is signed by “Jimmy”—Patrolman Jimmy Wells.
Check your progress
1. What are the circumstances that lead to the narrator taking possession of a road
engine in ‘Engine Trouble?’
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2. What is the narrator’s solution to his problems in ‘Engine Trouble?’
————————————————————————————————————
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3. Why was one corner of the shop popular?
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4. Why did the people gaze at the narrator?
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5. What was the rule regarding prizes?
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Model questions
1. What is the theme of RK Narayan’s Engine Trouble?
2. How was the rule broken in the case of narrator?
3. What steps did the narrator take in getting rid of the engine?
4. How did the narrator decide to take the engine out of the ground?
5. Describe about the irony in the story Engine Trouble.
3.7 ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ - A.J. Cronin

British novelist A.J. Cronin was born in Dumbartonshire, Scotland, in 1896. In 1914
he entered Glasgow University to study medicine, but his studies were interrupted by World
War I, in which he served in the British Navy as a surgeon sublieutenant. He received his
M.B. and Ch.B. in 1919, and took a job as a ship’s surgeon on a passenger liner. He
afterwards took positions at several hospitals, and in 1921 he married and moved to south
Wales to start a medical practice. He received his MD degree in 1925 from the University
of Glasgow, and he moved to London to start a practice there.
In 1930 he began to have health problems, and while recuperating in the Scottish
Highlands he wrote a story called “Hatter’s Castle”, which was published in 1931. It was a
best-seller, was translated into five languages and later became a film (A.J. Cronin’s
Hatter’s Castle (1942)). The book’s success convinced Cronin to pursue writing full-time.
Probably his most famous novel, “The Citadel”, which was written in 1937, has been made
into several theatrical films and a few television series. His other best-known work, “Keys
of the Kingdom”, was a story about a priest helping Chinese villagers survive under the
brutal Japanese occupation of their country during World War II. It was also a best-seller
and was made into a successful film starring Gregory Peck, The Keys of the Kingdom
(1944).
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Synopsis
The narrator is driving through the foothills of the Alps along with his companion.
While driving on the outskirts of Verona, two young boys who sell wild strawberries stop
their car. The small boys appear to be quite shabby and the driver is not keen on buying
strawberries from them. Then the narrator’s companion gets to know that the boys are
brothers. The elder one aged 13 is Nicola, and the younger brother, aged 12, is Jacopo.
The narrator and his companion buy the biggest basket of strawberries from the boys and
go towards the city. The next morning, they again see the same two boys doing the shoe
shining job and on being asked, they say that they do many things for a living. They also tell
the narrator and his companion that they could work as guides and show the visitors
places of interest in the town. So, the narrator asks them to take them to Juliet’s tomb.
During the time of their stay in the town, the two young boys turn out to be very helpful to
the visitors.
Then, the boys are found with a bundle of unsold newspapers and are ready to sell
them when the last bus arrived one night. The narrator then talks to them and asks them
why they are working so hard. He also told them that they seem to fetch sufficient money,
so why were they not spending anything on clothes and food. Nicola tells him that they had
something in their minds but he does not elaborate.
Jacopo then requests the narrator to drop them in his car to the village polenta that
is around 30 kilometers away. He requests him and says that it would be a great favor.
Although, Nicola does not like the fact that his brother is troubling the narrator. But the
narrator gladly agrees to help the boys with reaching that place. So, the next afternoon, he
along with his companion drives to the village. After dropping them, the small boys enter a
large red-roofed villa, which is actually a hospital.
The narrator hesitates to enter the hospital room. He tries to find out from the nurse
about the girl in the hospital and the boys. Later, the nurse tells him that Lucia is the sister
of these two boys and is suffering from tuberculosis. She also mentions that a bomb
destroyed their home during the war. And even their father, a widower, had got killed during
the early part of the war. When he died, his three children were left to starve. She told the
narrator that the boys also started hating the Germans who came to rule the city and even
became a part of the resistance movement. Once the war was over, Lucia got afflicted
with tuberculosis and the boys had to admit her to the hospital. So, they have been trying
their best to make the payments regularly to the hospital.
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The narrator waited outside the room. He did not say anything to the boys on their
way back in order to give the impression that they did not know about their secret.
Check your progress
1. Why didn’t Luigi, the driver, approve of the two boys?
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2. Why were the narrator and his companion impressed by the two boys?
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3. How were the boys useful to the author?
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4. Why were the boys in the deserted square at night?
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5. What character traits do the boys exhibit?
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Model questions
1. Describe the first meeting of the narrator with the two boys.
2. When the narrator asks the boys about their plans, they are evasive. Why don’t they
disclose their problems?
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3. Appearances are deceptive. Discuss with reference to the two boys.
4. Do you think the boys looked after Lucia willingly? Give reasons for your answer.
5. How does the story ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ promise hope for society?
3.8 ‘The Avenger’ - Anton Chekhow

Russian writer Anton Chekhov is recognized as a master of the modern short story
and a leading playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Anton Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia. Through stories
such as “The Steppe” and “The Lady with the Dog,” and plays such as The Seagull and
Uncle Vanya, the prolific writer emphasized the depths of human nature, the hidden
significance of everyday events and the fine line between comedy and tragedy. Chekhov
died of tuberculosis on July 15, 1904, in Badenweiler, Germany.
Anton Chekhov grew up in the Russian town of Taganrog. He spent much of his
childhood quietly sitting in his father’s fledgling grocery store. He watched the customers
and listened to the their gossip, their hopes, and their complaints. Early on, he learned to
observe the everyday lives of humans. His ability to listen would become one of his most
valuable skills as a storyteller.
Synopsis
In An Avenger by Anton Chekhov we have the theme of infidelity, trust, revenge,

shame and pride Taken from his The Complete Short Stories collection the story is narrated
in the third person by an unnamed narrator and from the beginning of the story it becomes
clear to the reader that Chekhov may be exploring the theme of infidelity. Sigaev’s wife has
been unfaithful to him. Hence his visit to the gun shop. Sigaev wants to exact revenge on
both his wife and his wife’s lover. However it is also noticeable that at times he also considers
killing himself after he has killed his wife and her lover. This may be important as Sigaev
appears to be looking for sympathy from others when it comes to killing himself. He wants
to let others know that he is the offended party. That he himself has done nothing wrong
and that the onus of responsibility lies with his wife and her lover. They are the guilty parties
and their tryst or romantic engagements have driven him to the point of madness. Which
killing himself, his wife and his lover would be. It would be insanity for Sigaev to kill himself
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of his wife or her lover over the fact that his wife has been unfaithful. Something that
becomes clearer to Sigaev towards the end of the story when he decides that the proper
course of action is to divorce and shame his wife.
Though Chekhov gives no background as to why Sigaev’s wife might have been
unfaithful it is clear that Sigaev cannot trust his wife. What is also interesting is the fact that
Chekhov also gives no background into Sigaev. The reader is left to take his word on
everything. Only his feelings are felt throughout the story. Though it is clear his pride is
wounded the reader never knows if Sigaev’s potential actions are justified. We do not
know how Sigaev has treated his wife. Which leaves the reader wondering is it possible
that Sigaev’s wife’s actions were triggered by the fact she feels as though she is in an
unhappy marriage. The reader never knows. As Chekhov throughout the story is focused
on Sigaev’s feelings about what has happened. Sigaev also appears to be more interested
in how he will be perceived should he kill himself. Will he be viewed upon as the wounded
party? Shaming his wife and her lover.
It might also be important that Chekhov affords Sigaev the opportunity to think things
through. He may not necessarily be acting on impulse. Something that is clearer by the
fact that he decides upon divorce rather than the action of killing himself, his wife and her
lover. By not acting on impulse Sigaev is able to think clearly about the course of action he
will take. At the end of the day he wishes to be seen by society as the one who has been
offended. That is utmost in Sigaev’s mind. The outrage that Sigaev feels at the beginning
of the story also seems to lessen as the story progresses. It as though Sigaev longs to
make a decision that will not only ensure he is viewed upon sympathetically by society but
that he will also come out on top. It is as though he can’t let go of what has happened.
Though any man or woman may have difficulty letting go of their spouse’s infidelity. If
anything Sigaev is a proud man. Rather than discussing what has happened to him with
his wife and seeking some form of reconciliation. He appears to have a knee jerk reaction.
Hence his thoughts about purchasing a pistol.
Sigaev’s indecision about which pistol to purchase not only buys him some time to
think a little more clearly but his indecision also mirrors the course of action that Sigaev
intends to take. From going from killing himself, his wife and her lover. Sigaev takes the
more sensible approach and decides upon divorce. Affording himself the opportunity to be
viewed upon sympathetically by others. It is as though Sigaev’s only real complaint is the
fact that his pride is wounded. Though it is inappropriate to conduct a relationship with
another person’s wife or husband. Sigaev does not at any stage in the story think that he
65
might be at fault and it is also difficult for the reader to suggest that Sigaev is at fault. As
mentioned Chekhov gives no background to Sigaev’s relationship with his wife. The entire
story is focused upon how Sigaev feels and the importance of him being seen in a good
light. Sigaev does not appear to mourn the fact that his wife has been unfaithful. Rather
revenge is more important to Sigaev. Making his wife and her lover feel as he is feeling. As
though this will solve the problem for Sigaev. In reality Sigaev should probably follow the
course of action he decides upon at the end of the story (divorce). However he still longs to
be viewed upon as the injured or wounded party. Though again it is difficult not to view
Sigaev in any other light considering that Chekhov only gives the reader limited information.
Check your progress
1. How does Sigaev keeps changing his decisions throughout the story?
————————————————————————————————————
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2. Do you think the opening sentence strikes the keynote for a revenge story?
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——————————————————————————————-
3. How serious, do you think, Sigaev is in carrying out his intended revenge?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
4. What kind of assessment would you make of Sigaev’s character based on the contrast
of the revolver he wanted to buy and the net he ended up buying?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
5. What is the cultural background suggested by the situation in the story?
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——————————————————————————————-
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Model questions
1. What argument would you prefer contrasting Sigaev’s intention to murder and his
buying the net to avoid embarrassment?
2. Describe the behaviour of the shopkeeper.
3. Explain how Sigaev convinces himself into deciding not to carry out revenge.
4. Write a critical analysis of the story “The Avenger”.
5. Write a short note on the climax of the story “The Avenger”.
Web Sources
The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde
• https://www.biography.com/people/oscar-wilde-9531078
• https://cdn.s3waas.gov.in/s347d1e990583c9c67424d369f3414728e/uploads/
2018/02/2018031638.pdf
The Story Of Stanford
• https://www.jacksonville.com/reason/2017-03-04/fact-check-story-about-
stanford-s-founding-true
The Engine Trouble - R.K. Narayan
• https://www.mapsofindia.com/who-is-who/literature/r-k-narayan.html
• http://sittingbee.com/engine-trouble-r-k-narayan/
After Twenty Years - O. Henry
• https://www.biography.com/people/william-sydney-porter-9542046
• http://sittingbee.com/after-twenty-years-o-henry/
Two Gentlemen Of Verona - A.J. Cronin

67
• https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0188743/bio
• https://www.toppr.com/bytes/two-gentlemen-of-verona-summary/
The Avenger - Anton Chekhow
• https://www.biography.com/writer/anton-chekhov
• http://sittingbee.com/an-avenger-anton-chekhov/
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LESSON - 4
BIOGRAPHIES
Learning Objectives
• compare and contrast autobiographical writing with biographical writing
• identify the literary elements related to biographical writing
• read and analyze a biography
• get inspired from the biography
• understand that biographies give an account of a person’s life and achievements
• explore several different types of biographies to help determine their area of interest
• choose one notable person they would like to learn more about
Structure
4.1 Introduction
4.3 Madam Curie
4.4 Mother Teresa
4.5 Subramanya Chandrasekhar
4.6 Dr. Amartya Kumar Sen
4.7 Gertrude Elion
4.8 Dr.Vikram Sarabhai
4.1 Introduction
A biography is simply an account or detailed description about the life of a person.
It entails basic facts, such as childhood, education, career, relationships, family, and death.
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Biography is a literary genre that portrays the experiences of all these events occurring in
the life of a person, mostly in a chronological order. Unlike a resume or profile, a biography
provides a life story of a subject, highlighting different aspects of his of her life. A person
who writes biographies, is called as a “biographer.”

This unit is intended for extensive reading. The selection of the biographies of great
personalities across the globe presents their remarkable achievements that inspire and
guide the readers. Biographies of Marie Curie, the first women to receive the Nobel Prize
twice in spite of Czar and Male chauvinism, Mother Teresa, who saw God in suffering
humans, an astrophysics graduate Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, who presented
“Chandrasekhar limit”, Amartya Sen studied socio-economic conditions and suggested
sustainable development, Gertrude Elion, who successfully overcame the male chauvinism
and evolved the scientific way of discovering medicine and Vikram Sarabhai who made
new strides in space research in India.
4.3 Madam Curie

Marie Curie (1867 – 1934) was a Polish scientist who won a Nobel prize in both
Chemistry and Physics. She made ground-breaking work in the field of Radioactivity,
enabling radioactive isotypes to be isolated for the first time. During the First World War,
Curie developed the practical use of X-Rays; she also discovered two new elements,
polonium and radium. Her pioneering scientific work was made more remarkable because
of the discrimination which existed against women in science at the time. She was the first
female professor at the University of Paris and broke down many barriers for women in
science.
Marya Sklodowska was born on 7 November 1867, Warsaw Poland. She was the
youngest of five children and was brought up in a poor but well-educated family. Marya
excelled in her studies and won many prizes. At an early age she became committed to
the ideal of Polish independence from Russia – who at the time were ruling Poland with an
iron fist, and in particular, making life difficult for intellectuals. She yearned to be able to
teach fellow Polish woman who were mostly condemned to zero education.
Unusually for women at that time, Marya took an interest in Chemistry and Biology.
Since opportunities in Poland for further study was limited, Marya went to Paris, where
after working as a governess she was able to study at the Sorbonne, Paris. Struggling to
learn in French, Marya threw herself into her studies, leading an ascetic life dedicated to
70
education and improving her scientific knowledge. She went on to get a degree in Physics
and finished top in her school. She later got a degree in Maths, finishing second in her
school year. Curie had a remarkable willingness for hard work.
It was in Paris that she met Pierre Curie, who was then chief of the laboratory at the
School of Physics and Chemistry. He was a renowned Chemist, who had conducted many
experiments on crystals and electronics. Pierre was smitten with the young Marya and
asked her to marry him. Marya initially refused but, after persistence from Pierre, she
relented. Until Pierre’s untimely death in 1906, the two become inseparable. In addition to
co-operation on work, they spent much leisure time bicycling and travelling around Europe
together.
Marie pursued studies in radioactivity. In 1898, this led to the discovery of two new
elements. One of which she named polonium after her home country.
There then followed four years of extensive study into the properties of radium.
Using dumped uranium tailings from a nearby mine, very slowly, and with painstaking
effort, they were able to extract a decigram of radium.
Radium was discovered to have remarkable impacts. In testing the product, Marie
suffered burns from the rays. It was from this discovery of radium and its properties that
the science of radiation was able to develop. It was found that radium had the power to
burn away diseased cells in the body. Initially, this early form of radiotherapy was called
‘curietherapy.
The Curries agreed to give away their secret freely; they did not wish to patent
such a valuable element. The element was soon in high demand, and it began industrial
scale production.
For their discovery, they were awarded the Davy Medal (Britain) and the Nobel
Prize in Physics in 1903. Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
In 1906, Pierre was killed in a road accident, leaving Marie to look after the laboratory
and her two children. Her two children were Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956) and Ève Curie
(1904–2007). Irene won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, jointly with her husband.
In 1911, she was awarded a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of
actinium and further studies on radium and polonium.
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The success of Marie Curie also brought considerable hostility, criticism and
suspicion from a male-dominated science world. She suffered from the malicious rumours
and accusations that were spread amongst jealous colleagues.
The onset of World War I in 1914, led to Marie Curie dedicating her time to the
installation of X-ray machines in hospitals. Marie understood that X-ray machines would
be able to locate shrapnel, enabling better treatment for soldiers. By, the end of the First
World War, over a million soldiers had been examined by her X-ray units.
At the end of the First World War, she returned to the Institute of Radium in Paris.
She also published a book – Radiology in War (1919) which encompassed her great ideas
on science. Curie was also proud to participate in the newly formed League of Nations,
through joining the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation in August 1922.
Marie Curie was known for her modest and frugal lifestyle. She asked any financial
prizes to be given to research bodies rather than herself. During the First World War, she
offered her Nobel Prizes to the French Treasury.
Marie Curie died in 1934 from Cancer. It was an unfortunate side effect of her own
ground-breaking studies into radiation which were to help so many people.
Marie Curie pushed back many frontiers in science, and at the same time set a
new bar for female academic and scientific achievement.
Her discovery of radium enabled Ernest Rutherford to investigate the structure of

the atom, and it provided the framework for Radiotherapy for cancer.
Curie also played a leading role in redefining women’s role in society and science.
Check your progress
1. Describe about the childhood of Marie Curie.
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2. Write on the educational background of Marie Curie.
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3. What were the hardships faced by Marie Curie in her career?
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4. What was the field of interest for Marie Curie?
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5. How and when did Marie Curie die?
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Model questions
1. How did Marie Curie marry Pierre? How did they work?
2. How the family of Marie Curie win three Nobel Prize?
3. Consider Marie Curie and Pierre Curie an ideal couple.
4. Why did Marie Curie name the new radio active element as Polonium?
5. What are the honors and awards received by Marie Curie?
4.4 Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (1910–1997) was a Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to
serving the poor and destitute around the world. She spent many years in Calcutta, India
where she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation devoted to helping
those in great need. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and
became a symbol of charitable, selfless work. In 2016, Mother Teresa was canonised by
the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa.
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia.
Little is known about her early life, but at a young age, she felt a calling to be a nun and
serve through helping the poor. At the age of 18, she was given permission to join a group
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of nuns in Ireland. After a few months of training, with the Sisters of Loreto, she was then
given permission to travel to India. She took her formal religious vows in 1931 and chose to
be named after St Therese of Lisieux – the patron saint of missionaries.
On her arrival in India, she began by working as a teacher; however, the widespread
poverty of Calcutta made a deep impression on her, and this led to her starting a new order
called “The Missionaries of Charity”. The primary objective of this mission was to look after
people, who nobody else was prepared to look after. Mother Teresa felt that serving others
was a fundamental principle of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
She experienced two particularly traumatic periods in Calcutta. The first was the
Bengal famine of 1943 and the second was the Hindu/Muslim violence in 1946, before the
partition of India. In 1948, she left the convent to live full-time among the poorest of Calcutta.
She chose to wear a white Indian sari, with a blue border, out of respect for the traditional
Indian dress. For many years, Mother Teresa and a small band of fellow nuns survived on
minimal income and food, often having to beg for funds. But, slowly her efforts with the
poorest were noted and appreciated by the local community and Indian politicians.
In 1952, she opened her first home for the dying, which allowed people to die with
dignity. Mother Teresa often spent time with those who were dying. Some have criticised
the lack of proper medical attention, and their refusal to give painkillers. Others say that it
afforded many neglected people the opportunity to die knowing that someone cared.
Her work spread around the world. By 2013, there were 700 missions operating in
over 130 countries. The scope of their work also expanded to include orphanages and
hospices for those with terminal illnesses.
Mother Teresa never sought to convert those of another faith. Those in her hospices were
given the religious rites appropriate to their faith. However, she had a very firm Catholic
faith and took a strict line on abortion, the death penalty and divorce – even if her position
was unpopular. Her whole life was influenced by her faith and religion, even though at
times she confessed she didn’t feel the presence of God.
The Missionaries of Charity now has branches throughout the world including
branches in the developed world where they work with the homeless and people affected
by AIDS. In 1965, the organisation became an International Religious Family by a decree of
Pope Paul VI.
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In the 1960s, the life of Mother Teresa was brought to a wider public attention by
Malcolm Muggeridge who wrote a book and produced a documentary called “Something
Beautiful for God”.
In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for work undertaken in the struggle
to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.” She didn’t
attend the ceremonial banquet but asked that the $192,000 fund be given to the poor.
In later years, she was more active in western developed countries. She commented
that though the West was materially prosperous, there was often a spiritual poverty. When
she was asked how to promote world peace, she replied,”Go home and love your family”.
Over the last two decades of her life, Mother Teresa suffered various health problems,
but nothing could dissuade her from fulfilling her mission of serving the poor and needy.
Until her very last illness she was active in travelling around the world to the different
branches of The Missionaries of Charity. During her last few years, she met Princess
Diana in the Bronx, New York. The two died within a week of each other.
Following Mother Teresa’s death, the Vatican began the process of beatification, which
is the second step on the way to canonization and sainthood. Mother Teresa was formally
beatified in October 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
Check your progress
1. What was the real name of Mother Teresa?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
2. Describe about the life of Mother Teresa.
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——————————————————————————————-
3. Write on the educational background of Mother Teresa.
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————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
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4. Why did Mother Teresa come to India?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
5. When and how did Mother Teresa die?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
Model questions
1. Write about the childhood of Mother Teresa.
2. Why did Mother Teresa leave the sisters of Loretto for the poor of the city?
3. Why did Mother Teresa shift her service from God to poor and needy?
4. How did Mother Teresa expand her service activity?
5. What are the honors and awards that Mother Teresa received?
4.5 Subramanya Chandrasekhar

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was an astrophysicist. He discovered that massive
stars can collapse under their own gravity to reach enormous or even infinite densities.
Today we call these collapsed stars neutron stars and black holes.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born on October 19, 1910 in Lahore, British

India. (Lahore is now in Pakistan.)
He was the third of ten children in a well-educated family: his mother was a translator,
who taught her children to read, while his father was Deputy Auditor General of the
Northwestern Railways. The Nobel Prize winning physicist C. V. Raman was his father’s
brother. As a young boy, he was home-schooled by his parents and private tutors.
In 1922, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar became a student at the Hindu High School,

Triplicane, Madras, where he was educated until 1925. Then, aged just 14, he began studying
for a physics degree at Presidency College, also in Madras. (The city of Madras is now
known as Chennai.)
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In 1929, aged 18, he wrote his first academic paper, The Compton Scattering and
the New Statistics. The following year, he graduated with a B.Sc. Honors degree in physics.
Chandrasekhar had already been identified as having extraordinary potential in

physics; as a result of this he was awarded a scholarship to study for a Ph.D. degree at
the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
His supervisor at Cambridge was the physicist and astronomer Ralph Fowler. While
traveling by ship from India to Britain in 1930, Chandrasekhar reviewed Fowler’s and others’
work on the degenerate electron gas in white dwarf stars. He updated the classical physics
used previously to understand the behavior of the electrons, incorporating the new relativistic
physics of Albert Einstein.
Although he was just 19 when he did it this work, it led to his Nobel Prize in physics.
In 1931, Chandrasekhar visited Göttingen, Germany, where he had been invited to

spend summer working with the future Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Born.
In 1932, Chandrasekhar moved again, this time to Copenhagen, Denmark where

he worked at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, founded 12 years earlier by Nobel Prize
winning physicist Niels Bohr.
In 1933, he returned to Cambridge, where at the age of 22 he received his Ph.D.

degree. He was also awarded a Fellowship to continue research at Cambridge for four
more years.
Between the ages of 18 and 28 (1929 to 1939) Chandrasekhar was intensely

interested in the physics of stars – astrophysics.
Traveling by ship in 1930 to begin his Ph.D. at Cambridge, he calculated a number.

In his honor this number is now called The Chandrasekhar Limit. Its value is 1.4.
This number determines the fate of stars.
Chandrasekhar published his result in 1931 in the Astrophysical Journal.
In several billion years, our sun will become a white dwarf. In 1930, astrophysicists
believed all stars would eventually fade to become white dwarfs.
Chandrasekhar discovered that a white dwarf can exist only if its mass is less than
or equal to 1.4 times our sun’s mass. Chandrasekhar initially found the limit would be
about 1.7 solar masses, but over time, he refined this value.
77
At the end of a star’s life, if its remaining mass is greater than 1.4 times our sun’s
mass, then its ultimate fate will be rather strange.
Chandrasekhar did not propose the existence of neutron stars or black holes, but
in 1932 he wrote that for all collapsing stars of mass higher than the (Chandrasekhar) limit,
there were no known forces that could prevent a singularity forming. For physicists, a
singularity is a point with zero volume into which a star’s entire mass has been crushed by
gravity. Today we know all black holes have a singularity at their centers.
Unfortunately, Chandrasekhar’s view was opposed by the foremost authority on

the physics of stars at the time, Sir Arthur Eddington, who was also at the University of
Cambridge.
Eddington did not believe matter could be crushed to the incredible densities
Chandrasekhar’s theory predicted. After all, he was being asked to believe the entire mass
of the moon could be crushed into the volume of large building, or nothing! No, said
Eddington, such densities were impossible.
His emphatic view was that there must be some higher, undiscovered scientific
principle which simply stopped incredibly dense objects being formed.
Our modern understanding is that Chandrasekhar was right, and Eddington was
wrong. Unfortunately, although he won private support from eminent physicists such as
Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, and Paul Dirac – who agreed with his calculations – they
would not publicly support Chandrasekhar’s conclusions.
In 1937, his four year fellowship came to an end. Chandrasekhar was frustrated at
the lack of acceptance at Cambridge for his theory about the fate of high mass stars.
He took a position as research associate at the University of Chicago in the USA,

and remained affiliated with that university for the rest of his life, becoming an eminent
professor.
He continued his work on the limits of white dwarf formation for two years, then
drew a line under it and moved on.
This would become the pattern of his research work for the rest of his career. He
would master a field, publish groundbreaking research in it, then move on.
In 1952, he became managing editor of the Astrophysics Journal, remaining in this

highly demanding role until 1971, building it from a rather small publication into the foremost
78
international journal of astrophysics. This period was one of enormous commitments for
Chandrasekhar, because he continued his research work, his writing, and his university
teaching, maintaining his usual very high standards in all of these roles, while managing
and building the journal.
In the end, scientists came to accept that Chandrasekhar was correct, and
Eddington was wrong. It was a slow process, taking about 30 years.
It is now accepted that the ultimate fate of stars depends on their masses. Smaller
stars become white dwarfs, while larger stars, after a supernova, can become neutron
stars or black holes.
In 1983, Chandrasekhar was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics “for his theoretical
studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars.”
He shared the prize with William Fowler.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar died of a heart attack on August 21, 1995, aged 84.
He had retired from his role as a full professor at the University of Chicago in 1980. He
continued living in Chicago and his output of scientific books continued.
His final book was Newton’s Principia for the Common Reader, a masterpiece
published shortly before his death.He was survived by his wife Lalitha, who died in 2013 at
the age of 102.
Today, NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, named in his honor, orbits the earth. This
observatory has lived up to its name, discovering new black holes, new supermassive
black holes, and a new class of black hole.
Check your progress
1. Describe about the childhood of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
————————————————————————————————————
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——————————————————————————————-
2. Write on the educational background of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
————————————————————————————————————
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3. What is Chandrasekhar limit?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
4. What is a black hole?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
5. When did Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar die and how?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
Model questions
1. What are the achievements of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar?
2. What are the honors received by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar?
3. What indignities did Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar suffer?
4. Why did Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar contradict Eddington?
5. Write about the life style of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
4.6 Dr. Amartya Kumar Sen

One of India’s greatest pioneers in social theories, Amartya Sen is the name who
revolutionized the image of Indian society with his socio-economic policies. Better known
for his contributions in classifying the reasons for famine that affected the country post-
Independence, Amartya Sen forwarded feasible solutions to curb effectively the crisis that
once plagued the nation. A Ph.D. in economics, Sen extensively researched on various
problems affecting the socially backward communities. Over the years, he introduced
innovative solutions to help underdeveloped countries cope with social problems like poverty,
famine, gender inequality, human rights, and biased liberalism. This earned him the title of
“the Conscience and the Mother Teresa of Economics.” Sen has written many books to
80
convey his theories on social welfare, most of which gives you an insightful and practical
elucidation on how to curtail such crisis. Read the article below to know more about his life
and contributions.
Amartya Sen was born in a Hindu Brahmin Bengali family in Santiniketan, West
Bengal, although his ancestral roots can be traced back to Dhaka, the present day capital
city of Bangladesh. He hailed from an educated and illustrious family. His grandfather Kshiti
Mohan Sen was a close companion of Rabindranath Tagore, while his maternal grandfather
was believed to be an associate of Sukumar Sen, the renowned Chief Election
Commissioner of India. Born to a homemaker mother Amita Sen and chemistry lecturer
father Ashutosh Sen, Amartya Sen spent much of his childhood basking in the limelight of
public eye, thanks to his illustrious background. He started his academic life from St.
Gregory’s School in Dhaka. However, post-partition in 1947, his parents moved to West
Bengal. He took his later training in Visva-Bharati University and Presidency College in
Bengal where he graduated in economics. Sen moved to London, where he enrolled in
Trinity College, Cambridge to pursue his vocation in economics and it was from the
University of Cambridge from where he attained his doctorate degree in Economics.
Even before Amartya Sen completed his Ph.D., he left to India to begin his career in
teaching. There he was introduced to Triguna Sen, who appointed him as the professor of
economics at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. After two years of teaching at the university,
he left to London to complete his Ph.D. In the following years, he dedicated his entire time
in studying philosophy, which helped him in his future research work. However, his urge to
move took him places in the following years. He would often shuttle between London and
Kolkata, to teach and continue his research on his social theories. When he finished his
Ph.D. in 1959, he was recruited as a visiting facility in a number of universities including
Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, and Massachusetts Institution of Technology. In the year 1972,
he moved back to India and started teaching at University of Calcutta and at Delhi school of
Economics. During this period, he completed his extensive research on “Collective Choice
and Social Welfare.” After that, Amartya Sen went on to teach Economics in a slew of elite
institutions like London School of Economics, University of Oxford, Nuffield College, All
Souls College, and other distinguished universities. Having witnessed a famine in his
childhood, Sen was interested in bringing out social reforms to improve the condition in
underdeveloped countries with his adaptable socio-economic policies to abolish shortage
of food. Apart from this, he also put in much effort to forward constructive reasoning and
ways to improve the condition of the poor and consciously worked for the welfare of the
socially backward communities. His work shed new light on the country’s many social
81
problems such as poverty, famine, human underdevelopment, gender inequality, and political
liberalism and brought about successful reforms.
Amartya Sen was elected as the Foreign Honorary Member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in the year 1981.The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic
Sciences was awarded to him for his work in welfare economics in 1998. In 1999, he was
honored with the Bharat Ratna by the then President of India. The year 2000 proved to be
a good year for Amartya Sen as this was the year when he was bestowed with a number
of distinguished awards such as Companion of Honour in UK, Leontief Prize from the
Global Development and Environment Institute, and Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and
Service. In the same year, he was also chosen as the Commencement Speaker of Harvard
University. In 2002, he won the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist
and Ethical Union. The Indian Chamber of Commerce, United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia Pacific, a Bangkok based organization, honored him with a Lifetime
Achievement Award. Over the years, he also took to writing to put forward his views and
ideologies to bring about a social change. Some of his popular publications are “Collective
Choice and Social Welfare”, “Hunger and Public Action”, “More Than 100 Million Women
Are Missing”, “Reason Before Identity, Development as Freedom”, “The Argumentative
Indian”, “The Three R’s of Reform,” etc. are a few of his interesting reads.
Amartya Sen is married to Nabaneeta Dev Sen, a well-known writer and scholar,
with whom he fathered two children and has two daughter, Antara and Nandana. The former
is a journalist and the latter is a Bollywood actor. Amartya and Nabaneeta’s marriage was
short lived as they parted from each other in 1971. Two years later after the separation, he
married a Jewish lady named Eva Colorni. In 1985, she died from stomach cancer. During
their marriage, Eva gave birth to two children Indrani, a reporter and Kabir a music teacher.
Amartya Sen is presently married to Emma Georgina Rothschild, an economic historian.
Check your progress
1. Describe about the childhood of Amartya Sen.
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————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
2. Write about the education of Amartya Sen.
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
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3. How did Shanthiniketan mould the mind of Amartya Sen?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
4. What was the change experienced by Amartya Sen as a teenager?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
5. When was Amartya Sen elected as elected as the Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences?
————————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————————
——————————————————————————————-
Model questions
1. What are the honors received by Amartya Sen?
2. Write about the hardships faced by Amartya Sen.
3. What were the political demands that caused a dilemma in Amartya Sen?
4. Write about the achievement of Amartya Sen towards his motherland.
5. List the interests of Amartya Sen.
4.7 Gertrude Elion

American biochemist and pharmacologist Gertrude B. Elion helped develop drugs
to treat leukemia and prevent kidney transplant rejection. She won a Nobel Prize for medicine
in 1988.
Born in New York in 1918, scientist Gertrude B. Elion had an impressive career,
during which she helped develop drugs to treat many major diseases, including malaria
and AIDS. She won a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988. Gertrude Elion died on February
21, 1999, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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Born to immigrant parents in New York City, Gertrude Elion spent her early youth in
Manhattan, where her father had a dental practice. When her brother was born, the family
moved to the Bronx. She attended high school and excelled with, in her words, an “insatiable
thirst for knowledge.”
Motivated by the death of her grandfather, who died of cancer, Elion entered Hunter
College, in New York City, at age 15 and graduated summa cum laude in chemistry at age
19. She had difficulty finding employment after graduation, because many laboratories
refused to hire women chemists. She found part-time jobs as a lab assistant and went
back to school at New York University. Elion worked as a substitute high school teacher for
a few years while finishing work on her master’s degree, which she earned in 1941. Though
she never obtained a doctorate degree, she was later awarded an honorary Ph.D. from
Polytechnic University of New York and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Harvard
University.
The start of World War II created more opportunities for women in industry. Elion
was able to obtain a few quality-control jobs in food and consumer-product companies
before being hired at Burroughs-Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) in 1944, where she
began a 40-year partnership with Dr. George H. Hitchings. Her thirst for knowledge
impressed Dr. Hitchings, and he permitted her to take on more responsibility.
Elion and Hitchings set out on an unorthodox course of creating medicines by

studying the chemical composition of diseased cells. Rather than relying on trial-and-error
methods, they used the differences in biochemistry between normal human cells and
pathogens (disease-causing agents) to design drugs that would block viral infections. Elion
and her team developed drugs to combat leukemia, herpes and AIDS. They also discovered
treatments to reduce the body’s rejection of foreign tissue in kidney transplants between
unrelated donors. In all, Elion developed 45 patents in medicine and was awarded 23
honorary degrees.
Elion admitted that her work was her life, but she also enjoyed photography and
travel, both products of her curiosity about life. She also enjoyed opera, ballet and theater.
Though she never married, she enjoyed being the “favorite aunt” to her brother’s children.
Gertrude Elion officially retired in 1983, but she remained active, holding the titles of
scientist emeritus and consultant at her old company. She also served as an adviser for
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the World Health Organization and the American Association for Cancer Research.
In 1988, Elion received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, together with George Hitchings
and Sir James Black. She received other awards for her work, including the National Medal
of Science in 1991, and that same year, she became the first woman to be inducted into
the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1997, she was granted the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime
Achievement Award.
Check your progress
1. Describe the childhood of Gertrude Elion.
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2. Write about the hardships faced by Gertrude Elion as a woman in her career.
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3. What was the passion of Gertrude Elion?
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4. When did Gertrude Elion officially retire?
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5. How many patents did Gertrude Elion develop?
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Model questions
1. Write a note on the education of Gertrude Elion.
2. What achievement of Gertrude Elion won her the Nobel Prize?
3. How did Gertrude Elion carry out her research work?
4. What honors did Gertrude Elion receive?
5. What are the achievements of Gertrude Elion?
4.8 Dr. Vikram Sarabhai

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was one of the greatest scientists of India. He is widely
regarded as the father of the Indian space programme. In fact he was a rare combination
of a scientist, an innovator, industrialist and a visionary.
Vikram Sarabhai was born on August 12, 1919 at Ahmedabad in an affluent family
of progressive industrialists. He was one of the eight children of Ambalal and Sarla Devi.
He had his early education in a private school, ‘Retreat’, run by his parents on Montessori
lines. Some of the great personalities like Gurudev Rabindranath, J Krishna Murthi, Motilal
Nehru, VS Shrinivasa Shastri, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Azad, CF Andrews,
C V Raman et al used to stay with the Sarabhai family when they visited Ahmedabad.
Mahatma Gandhi also once stayed at their house while recovering from an illness. Visits
by such great personalities greatly influenced Vikram Sarabhai.
After his matriculation, Vikram Sarabhai proceeded to Cambridge for his college
education and took the tripos in Natural Sciences from St. John’s College in 1940. With the
beginning of World War II, he returned home and joined as a research scholar under Sir
CV Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His interest in solar physics and
cosmic ray led him to set up many observation stations around the country. He built the
necessary equipment and took measurements at Bangalore, Pune and the Himalayas. He
returned to Cambridge in 1945 and completed his PhD in 1947.
Back home, he became instrumental in establishing the Physical Research

Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad in November 1947. The laboratory was established in a
few rooms in the MG Science Institute of the Ahmedabad Education Society, which was
founded by his parents. Subsequently, it got support from the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Atomic Energy.
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The research that Vikram Sarabhai did on the time variations of cosmic rays
concluded that meteorological effects could not entirely affect the observed daily variations
of cosmic rays; Further, the residual variations were wide and global and these were related
to variations in solar activity. Vikram Sarabhai visualised a new field of research opening
up in solar and interplanetary physics.
The year 1957-1958 was designated as International Geo-physical year (IGY). The
Indian programme for the IGY had been one of the most significant ventures of Sarabhai.
This gave him exposure to new vistas of space science with the launching of Sputnik-I in
1957. Subsequently, the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was
formed, under his chairmanship.
Knowing the unique feature of Thumba on account of its proximity to the

geomagnetic equator, Vikram Sarabhai chose this fishing village near Thiruvananthapuram
on the Arabian Coast to set up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching station (TERLS),
the first rocket launching station in the country. In this venture he got active support from
Homi Bhabha, who was then the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. The first
rocket with sodium vapour payload was launched on November 21, 1963. In 1965, the UN
General Assembly gave recognition to TERLS as an international facility.
After the sudden demise of Homi Bhabha in an air crash, Vikram Sarabhai took
over as Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission in May 1966. He always longed that the
practical application of science should reach the common man. He worked towards
acquiring competence in advance technology for the solution of country’s problems based
on technical and economic evaluation of its real resources. He initiated India’s space
programme, which today is renowned all over the world.
Dr Vikram Sarabhai received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal in 1962. The
nation honoured him awarding Padma Bhushan in 1966 and Padma Vibhushan
(posthumously) in 1972.
Vikram Sarabhai passed away in his sleep on December 31, 1971.
Check your progress

1. Write about the childhood of Vikram Sarabhai.
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2. Write about the education of Vikram Sarabhai.
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3. What are the achievements of Vikram Sarabhai?
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4. What is the bold initiative that Vikram Sarabhai takes?
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5. What honors did Vikram Sarabhai receive?
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Model questions
1. What are the achievements of Vikram Sarabhai in space research?
2. Write a short note on the life of Vikram Sarabhai.
3. What were the most significant ventures of Sarabhai?
4. How did Vikram Sarabhai set up Physical Research Laboratory?
5. How did Vikram Sarabhai work on the effect of solar activity on cosmic rays?
Web Sources
Madam Curie
• https://www.biographyonline.net/scientists/marie-curie.html
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Mother Teresa
• https://www.biographyonline.net/nobelprize/mother_teresa.html
Subramanya Chandrasekhar
• https://www.famousscientists.org/subrahmanyan-chandrasekhar/
DR. Amartya Kumar Sen
• https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic- sciences/1998/sen/biographical/
Gertrude Elion
• https://www.biography.com/people/gertrude-b-elion-9285981
DR.Vikram Sarabhai
• https://www.isac.gov.in/directors/sarabhai.jsp
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LESSON - 5
INTERVIEW SKILLS
Objectives of the interview
• It helps to verify the information provided by the candidate. It helps to ascertain the
accuracy of provided facts and information about the candidate.
• What the candidate has written in the resume are the main points. What other
additional skill set does he have? All these are known by conducting interviews.
• It not only gives the interviewer information about the candidate’s technical knowledge
but also gives an insight into his much needed creative and analytical skills.
• It helps in establishing the mutual relation between the employee and the company.
• It is useful for the candidate so that he comes to know about his profession, the type
of work that is expected from him and he gets to know about the company.
• It is beneficial for the interviewer and the interviewee as individuals, because both of
them gain experience, both professionally and personally.
• It helps the candidate assess his skills and know where he lacks and places where
he needs improvement.
• It also helps the company build its credentials and image among the employment
seeking candidates.
Structure
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Face - to – Face
5.3 Presentation on Interview
5.4 Panel interview
5.5 How to handle a stress interview
5.6 Group discussion

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5.7 Star technique
5.8 Win the Game of Life
5.9 Behavioral ethics in work place
5.10 SWOT Analysis
5.11 Stress Management
5.12 Time Management
5.13 The First Written Encounter : Writing skills
5.13.1 Cover Letter
5.13.2 Resume
5.13.3 CV
5.13.4 Essay writing
5.1 Introduction
When you split the word ‘interview’ you get two words, ‘inter’ and ‘view’. This roughly
translates to ‘between view’ or seeing each other. This means that both the groups involved
in an interview get to know about one another. In short an interview can be defined as a
gentleman conversation between two people or more where questions are asked to a
person to get the required responses or answers.
5.2 Face - To – Face

5.3 Presentation on Interview
Once your resume has gotten an employer’s interest, you may be contacted for an
interview. If you are feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry! Everyone is nervous about job
interviews. Understanding what interviews are all about, how the various interview formats
differ, and how a typical interview may proceed should put your mind at ease.
Interviews
In today’s job market, you will likely need to go through some type of interview in
order to secure a job. An interview is a meeting between an employer and a job applicant.
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This meeting can take place in person, over the telephone, or via video conferencing. The
atmosphere may be formal or fairly casual. It may involve just you and the employer, or you
and a group of people or panel. Regardless, your interview serves a distinct purpose for
both you and your potential employer.
The hiring manager uses the interview to assess your qualifications and determine
if you are the best candidate for the job.
The employer asks questions to see how well you understand the industry and the
position, as well as to determine if you are able to perform the job duties. In addition, the
employer is trying to decide whether you will fit well within the culture of the organization. If
you don’t meet every job qualification but you present yourself well in an interview, there is
a good possibility that you could be chosen over candidates with similar or better
qualifications who don’t communicate as well.
The job interview is your chance to find out if the company—and the job—are a
good match for you.
Ask questions of your own to learn more about the company and the position itself.
Use this time to decide whether the job, the direction of the company, and the developments
within the industry will maintain your interest and use your unique skills and abilities. Your
questions should help you determine if the work atmosphere is one in which you work well
and one you will enjoy.
Types of interviews
When we think about interviews, we often imagine going to a place of business to

speak with one person—usually a potential boss or hiring manager. However, job interviews
can take a wide range of forms and can be held in person, over the phone, or via video
conference. Here are seven types of interviews you may encounter in addition to a face-to-
face, one-on-one interview:
An employer may use a screening interview to determine which of the top candidates
to bring in for the actual face-to-face interview. A screening interview can be done in person
but more often will be over the telephone. It may sometimes be conducted by the hiring
manager’s assistant or someone from HR, but is more typically done by the person doing
the hiring.
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For a group interview, you’ll usually meet with several people at once, possibly
including the hiring manager and your potential peers or supervisors. Group interviews
also sometimes include people from other parts of the company that you would have to
work with in the position you’re applying for. Interviewing potential employees in a group
allows employers to see how well you communicate within a team environment. This type
of interview is most common for government or education jobs.
During behavioral interviews, the employer asks you questions about your previous
employment behavior to try to gauge what your future performance would look like.
Questions focus on how the skills, abilities, and accomplishments of your past can benefit
their organization. These questions usually begin with Tell me about a time you... and ask
you to give examples of times when you’ve worked in teams or resolved an issue. Most
interviews will involve some behavioral questions, so you should always come prepared
with examples.
The audition interview allows potential employers to see you in action before they
make hiring decisions. Computer programmers may be asked to write code, software
testers may have to locate and fix a problem, chefs are often asked to prepare a dish, and
a corporate trainer may be asked to present new material. These are examples of the
audition interview, with the hiring manager—or the hiring team—serving as your audience.
In some fields, such as computer programming, an audition is a standard part of an
interview, and you may not be told about it ahead of time. For other types of jobs, you’ll
usually be told before the interview if an audition is expected.
Interviews over lunch and dinner can be nice, but they often cause anxiety for job
candidates. Use basic meal-time etiquette in this case. Order something mid-priced and
nonmessy, avoid alcoholic beverages, and pay more attention to the interview than the
meal. Even if conversation is casual during the meal, the employer is assessing the
appropriateness of your responses and manners. Avoid talking too much about yourself
on a personal level, and stay away from comments about politics, religion, gender, and
ethnicity.
During a full-day interview, several members of an organization interview you

individually, each with their own departmental interests in mind. For example, the head of
the marketing department may ask about your communications background, while the
project management team may want to know if you’re able to manage large-scale team
projects. Sometimes a full-day interview will include behavioral interview questions and an
audition interview. The full-day interview will likely include a lunch interview, so be prepared
for that as well.
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Sometimes a company may invite the top candidates for a follow-up interview if
they are having a difficult time deciding or have neglected to ask an important question.
Before going, ask what you can expect and what the company is hoping to get out of the
follow up so you’ll be prepared.
Every interview is unique; your interview may be a combination of the interview

types discussed above, or it may be completely different.
The interview process
Regardless of which type of interview you will have, all should follow the same
process. We suggest keeping the following GOA2L Process in mind during an interview:
1. Greet the interviewer with a firm handshake, introduce yourself, and thank the
interviewer for taking the time to meet with you.
2. Offer additional copies of your resume. Have several copies with you in case you’ll
meet with multiple interviewers. If you have previous work samples, a list of references,
or other materials to share, you can bring them out now or hold onto them until you
are asked about them.
3. Answer the questions that are asked of you, making sure to be honest, clear,
professional, and concise. If you don’t understand a particular question, it is always
acceptable to ask for clarification.
4. Ask whatever questions you may have about the job or the company. Remember,
this is your chance to find out if you really want this job for this company. Not sure
what to ask? Read more about asking your own questions.
5. Leave on a good note. When the interview is over, shake the interviewer’s hand
again. Thank the interviewer for taking time to talk with you, communicate your interest
in being hired, and ask when you can expect to hear an answer about the job.
Finally, don’t forget to send a thank-you note! Less than half of job candidates send
them, but all hiring managers are impressed by candidates who send thank-you notes.
Either by phone, email, or letter, follow up. This is just one more way to put yourself ahead
of other candidates. Use the note as a chance to:
• Thank the hiring manager again for his or her time
• Restate why you think you are the best fit for the job
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• Inquire about the status of the position
• Ask anything that has come to mind since the interview
Tips for how to prepare effectively and deliver a presentation during interview with
impact.
1. Have a Clear Message
Work out what you want to say in two or three sentences before elaborating your
ideas. In order to make an impact you need to have clear recommendations, backed up by
convincing arguments.
2. Structure your Presentation
Make sure the structure of your presentation is clear. You need:
A short introduction explaining what the presentation is about and what you are
going to cover.
Clear sections or themes within the presentation (there might be one slide per
theme), ensuring your argument has a logical structure
A summary of your arguments
A clear conclusion with specific recommendations, identifying the resources

required to deliver them.
3. Less Is More
It is better to keep your presentation succinct and allow the audience to ask follow-
up questions at the end rather than rushing through a mound of information. It is especially
important that any slides you use are visually clear and not text-heavy. Restrict slides to 3
or 4 for a 5 minute presentation, and 6 or 7 for a 10 minute presentation.
Remember, you don’t have to put all your points onto your slides – it is fine to put
some top-line points on a slide but then elaborate on them verbally. If your presentation
requires more detail, this can be given as a supporting hard copy handout.
4. Manage your Time
It is important that your presentation lasts the amount of time you have been given
– too short and you can appear a lightweight candidate; too long and you seem poorly
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organised – and you may be cut off halfway through. It is always a good idea to have a
timed run through of your finished presentation but this is not always fool proof (nerves
often lead people to speed up). Give yourself some flexibility by having an extra slide or two
up your sleeve to add in if you are running ahead of time and/ or decide in advance on a
slide which you will be able to skip if you are running over.
5. Do Your Research
Make sure you have researched your topic thoroughly . Find out how the institution
or department have handled this issue in the past. Research what their competitor
institutions are doing in this field. And have some relevant facts and figures to illustrate key
trends at your fingertips – this can enhance your credibility and show impressive levels of
preparation.
6. Know your Audience
Before writing your presentation, consider your panel members. What are their job
responsibilities, priorities, professional backgrounds and interests? You can find out a lot
through online research on sites such as LinkedIn, or ask others who work for and with
those individuals. Think about your presentation from their individual perspective and
consider what aspects of the topic will most interest them. Give some thought to any
internal politics between members of the panel and how you might deal with these
diplomatically.
7. Predict Follow Up Questions
Go through your presentation and work out what questions the panel might ask,
especially given their job roles and personal perspectives. Make sure you have an answer
ready for these questions. Typical follow up questions might include: Why are you
recommending x option and not y? What resources would be required to implement this?
How would you go about getting sign on to your recommendations with key stakeholders?
What are the risks of this plan of action and how would you minimise them? How do your
recommendations fit with the institution’s wider activities and strategies?
8. Test It Out
It is a good idea to run through your ideas for the presentation with colleagues who
are well informed about the topic before you finalise the content. Gathering views can help
you discover if there is something obvious you have neglected to mention and to ensure
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your ideas are well understood by others. Ask your colleagues to test you with follow up
questions and see how well prepared you are.
9. Take Back Up
Always make sure you have a Plan B if the technology is not working or a vital piece
of equipment is not available. If you are delivering a powerpoint presentation, email it to
yourself as well as taking it on a stick just in case. It can also be helpful to print off some
hard copies in case there are problems with the projector. You may wish to take a small
clock in case the room doesn’t have one, and you don’t wish to keep checking your watch.
10. Build Rapport
The more familiar you are with your material and the more thorough your research,
the more confident you will feel. The best way to engage your audience is to maintain
strong eye contact ; avoid looking at the screen or reading notes. Use keywords on a card
as prompts rather than memorising sentences as a ‘speech’ as this will appear more
natural. Remember to smile and to pause at key points. Address panel members by name
when answering their questions. Remember to take your time and enjoy it! It’s not often
you get to be the centre of attention and are able to put your views directly to senior members
of staff.
5.4 Panel Interview

A panel interview is a job interview in which an applicant answers questions from a
group of people who then make the hiring decision. Hiring managers use panel interviews
to gain perspective from other people in the organization and occasionally those outside
the organization.
Panel interviews reduce the risk of making a bad hire. The panel’s goal is to make
the best hiring decision possible given the information available about the position and the
finalists.
Since each panel member brings a different set of experiences, thoughts, beliefs,
and biases to the interview process, the members’ strengths tend to compensate for each
others’ weaknesses. In the most effective panels, members work well with one another
while being unafraid to respectfully challenge each other’s judgments and assertions about
the potential hire.
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Selecting Panel Members
Members of the interview panel are often people who will routinely interact with the
person chosen to fill the job vacancy and who know the organization and its culture well.
For example, an interview panel for an assistant police chief position may consist of the
police chief, the fire chief, and an assistant city manager. The panel can also include peers
and even those whom the potential hire will manage. These people have a vested interest
in making a good hire. In the long run, a bad hire will mean unnecessary disruption for the
people who work closely with the new person on the staff.
Organizations often factor in two types of diversity when deciding who will serve on
interview panels. By ensuring a panel includes men and women and a mix of races,
organizations mitigate the risk of applicants suing on the basis of discrimination. Just
defending against a lawsuit costs an organization considerable time and money, so any
cost-free action the organization can take to prevent such a lawsuit makes sense.
The hiring manager generally leads the panel and asks the predetermined interview
questions. Alternatively, a member of human resources or a recruiter can help facilitate the
interview.
All panelists are free to ask follow-up or probing questions. The predetermined
questions are the same for each finalist. The follow-up and probing questions are different
for each finalist because they are based on how the finalist answers the predetermined
questions. The panel lead is responsible for controlling the start and finish of the interview.
Scheduling of Panel Interviews
Hiring managers tend to schedule panel interviews all in one day. It is easier to
block out an entire workday than to find five 90-minute blocks of time within a few days that
fit each panelist’s schedule.
Scheduling for one day also makes the interview process shorter. The panelists
can come to a decision the same day that finalists are interviewed. Since vacancies cause
stress and strain among existing staff because remaining employees must cover the vacant
position’s workload, anything that shortens the hiring process without sacrificing
thoroughness is good for the finalists as well as the organization.
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Tips for successful panel interview
Tip #1: Find out who will be on the interview panel. Ask the recruiter (or hiring manager) for
the names and titles of everyone who will be on the panel. This will help you gain a better
understanding of what will be important to each person. Are they in sales, service, marketing,
operations, research and development, finance, process improvement, HR, etc.?
Tip #2: Brainstorm the questions each person might ask. Based on their role in the company,
think through the types of questions they might ask you during the interview. For example,
if you’re interviewing for a job as a marketing manager and you find out that one person on
the panel is a sales manager, figure out the types of questions he or she might ask, such
as: When you create a promotional program, what is your process to ensure it will be
successful with the sales teams? What are some of the issues you’ve encountered while
working with sales teams and how have you overcome them? Etc. Then, practice your
answers.
Tip #3: Introduce yourself to each person. When you show up for the panel interview,
approach each person and introduce yourself while shaking his or her hand. Ask for a
business card from everyone, so you can place these in front of you in the order in which
they’re sitting. If they don’t have business cards with them, write down their names on a
piece of paper (in the order in which they’re sitting) and have this in front of you during the
interview. That way, you’ll know whom you’re addressing as you answer questions.
Tip #4: Modify your communication style. In an individual interview, you would respond to
questions by answering the person directly. But in a panel interview, you need to be careful
not to exclude the rest of the panel during your comments. Look directly at the person
asking the question and begin by answering to them, making eye contact. Then, look at the
other panel members as you finish the rest of your comments, so each person feels
included in the conversation.
Tip #5: Demonstrate that you’re making connections during the conversation. Instead of
just answering each person’s question, see if you can make connections and demonstrate
your active listening skills. Let’s say that one panel member asked you to walk them through
your process for creating a successful promotional program. Then, a little while later,
someone asks you to “tell me about a time when something went wrong with a promotion
you were running.” You could refer back to your other answer by saying something like:
“Joe, when you asked me to walk you through my process for creating a promotional
program, one of the key steps I mentioned was to obtain feedback from the sales team
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and test the program from beginning to end with several members. Early in my career, I
didn’t realize the importance of obtaining feedback before rolling out a new sales promotion.
I once tried to…” then tell how you didn’t include that step, what happened, and what you
learned from your mistake.
Tip #6: Modify how you ask questions at the end of the interview. Just like you would for an
individual interview, come prepared with your list of potential questions to ask at the end of
the interview. Then, see if you can relate any of your questions back to what was discussed
during the panel interview. For example, if one of the interviewers asked you to tell them
what you know about the company’s key competitors, you might relate back to that with
one of your own questions, such as: “I know we discussed some of the company’s main
competitors, but I’m curious to know what each of you see as the biggest threat to the
growth of the company. Is it a competitor, or is it something else?”
Tip #7: Follow-up with each person. As I mentioned in a previous blog, no, the interview
thank you note is not dead. In the case of a panel interview, it means you should send a
personalized thank you note to each member of the interview panel.
At first, a panel job interview might sound intimidating. But with the right prep work and by
modifying your communication during the interview, you’ll be able to increase your chances
for a successful interview.
5.5 How to Handle A Stress Interview

Have you ever felt incredibly stressed during a job interview? If so, you’re not alone.
Most people say that interviewing for a job is an overwhelmingly stressful experience.
Fortunately, you can come to terms with job interview stress by understanding that a certain
amount of stress can actually help you ace the interview; that practicing for your interview
can help you maintain a manageable stress level; and that there are some effective
responses you can use if your level of stress starts to feel overwhelming.
First, consider the upside of stress: Researchers and counselors remind us that
an appropriate amount of stress can be a positive thing, while too much stress can wear
us out mentally, emotionally, and physically. It can be a balancing act to keep your stress
level at an appropriate, productive level. A job interview provides the perfect example of
how just enough stress can keep us on our toes while helping us to put our best foot
forward.
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Lyrics from the Broadway smash hit A Chorus Line demonstrate how much is at
stake in an audition — the stage version of an interview. The dancers sing, “I really need
this job; I’ve got to get this job” as they execute difficult moves and literally remain on their
toes. While they, and we, need to remember that there are other jobs out there, the stress
of really wanting this particular job can help us approach the audition or interview with as
much energy as possible. We just have to remind ourselves to use that stress effectively
— remember, you want that job.
The problem is that job interviews are an unusual kind of conversation: one that we
have only so often, where there’s a huge imbalance of power, and that requires the type of
confident recitation of our strengths that wouldn’t fly in other social interactions. Unlike a
relaxed chat with a friend, this encounter requires that you rattle off all your relevant skills,
experiences, strengths, and interests in an efficient and effective manner so that your
listeners are quickly reassured that their time with you is worthwhile (and might even be
extended). Producing all of this information in a way that comes across as confident,
eloquent, and appropriate means paying attention to your interviewer’s questions, striving
to remember that list of things you wanted to be sure to say, and working hard to tackle
unexpected questions. A bit of stress keeps you paying attention and giving your best.
Because a job interview isn’t typically something that we encounter very often, it’s
important to fully prepare for this unusual and nonstandard interaction. Consider some of
the standard things your interviewer is looking for: what do you already know how to do,
how confident are you that you can learn new skills, what do you consider to be your
strengths, and what might be a weakness that you’ve had to address. The latter is where
you can demonstrate that you have self-awareness and know that no one is perfect but
practice makes us better. Practice your responses to questions like these so that you
know what you want to say when some version of them comes up. When you’ve already
practiced these expected interactions, your stress level will be manageable and can even
provide the remaining energy needed for the unexpected requests that come out of left
field and require you to think on your feet. Clients of mine have said that practice gave them
the confidence they needed and helped them to tackle the unusual surprise question.
But what happens when, despite all of your practice, you feel like you’ve screwed
up during your interview? Your stress level might skyrocket and send you into a spiral of
despair, making you feel that you’re flubbing the rest of the interview and that you’ve already
lost the job. While you really can’t ask for a total do-over, rest assured that corrections can
be made. When you realize that you forgot to say something important, you can still correct
the omission in order to minimize ongoing stress. If you’re still in the interview, it’s always
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possible to say: “I just realized that I hadn’t mentioned…” Now you’ve made sure that the
information you wanted to share has been shared. If you realize an important omission
after the interview has already ended, you can send a thank-you email that says, “I want to
add to, or clarify, or revise what I said about x…” Again, you’ve completed the message you
wanted to get across. Now you don’t have to lie awake at night worried about that omission
or mistake. A client of mine said that a hiring manager appreciated his willingness to admit
his mistake in the interview and gave him the job because (1) he was qualified and (2) he
hadn’t given up.
Sometimes, the stress level in some interviews goes way beyond what most people
experience. As you can imagine — or perhaps have experienced — a room full of multiple
interviewers can be difficult for the lone candidate. For example, a client of mine named
Jane, who is very skilled in her field and very good at interacting with others, is an introvert
who’s most comfortable in a one-on-one situation. She learned that she would have to
appear before a panel of interviewers, and wanted to discuss what she could do in that
situation to maintain a calm and confident demeanor. Jane’s concern was that she would
not be able to “connect” effectively with every person in the room as she worked hard to
answer their questions and tried to remember who was who.
We discussed making a quick outline in her notebook of the oval table where her
interviewers sat, marking, as they introduced themselves, their positions around the table
with their names and titles. Jane did just that, and her interviewers were pleased that she
was able to address each one of them during the course of the interview. Jane also planned
to make eye contact with each member of the group as they addressed her or heard her
comments. By planning these ways of managing the stress of a multiperson interview
team, she felt more confident and not overly stressed. Her interviewers, in turn, felt that
she managed to engage with them all and took the extra effort to get to know them right
away.
Another onslaught of overwhelming stress can occur when a wacky question comes
your way. You didn’t see it coming (because who would?), you’re not sure if it’s sincere or
intended as a joke, and you have to decide quickly how to attempt an answer that may be
what your listener is seeking. Your first step in managing your stress and developing your
response is to acknowledge the unusual nature of the question: “That’s an interesting
question. May I have a moment to consider that?” This procedure could help by first finding
out if the interviewer really means for you to answer the question. Is it just a joke to break
the ice, or is it a sincere effort to find out if you can think on your feet? If the latter, their
response gives you more time to think about a topic you hadn’t rehearsed.
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When Ellen, a former client of mine, was asked what kind of plant she would be if
indeed she were a plant, she replied with, “Hmm…that’s very interesting. Let me think
about that for a moment.” Her listener responded with an enthusiastic nod and waited
patiently. When Ellen responded after a pause, she said, “I enjoyed thinking about that; I
always enjoy considering new ideas, and I think I would be a cactus. That kind of plant is
sturdy: It plants itself firmly and it doesn’t require a lot of water. Rain or shine, cold or heat,
it keeps its reliable place and can even supply some moist prickly pear to someone lost in
the desert. Similarly, I work hard and understand the need to stay on my watch and to help
others be successful, too.”
Wacky questions or not, an intense and important interview could create a stress
level that results in brain freeze: Your mind goes blank, you stutter, or you blush with
embarrassment. What to do?
Take a breath, take a sip of water, and take a moment to compose yourself. It’s
okay to reply — even to a standard question — with, “Ah, let me think about that for a
moment” or “Do you mean…” or “Could you rephrase the question?” You can also ask:
“Does my answer cover the issues you were asking about?”
Regain some confidence and a sense of calm by remembering that you are
interviewing the organization just as much as it is interviewing you. You are not bereft of all
control. You do have some control over the conversation and some good questions to
pose to your interviewers. After all, you want to know whether the job and the organization
can really offer what you hope to find in your next job.
The best defense against experiencing overwhelming stress in a job interview is a

good offense. Practice in advance what you want to be sure to say, whether it’s initially
asked for or not. Remind yourself of your value, your skills, and your ability and enthusiasm
about learning additional skills. If you tend to suffer from anxiety or lack of confidence in
interviews or in general, consult with a career couch or a counselor who can help you
prepare emotionally for this kind of situation. Remind yourself that you might not necessarily
get the job, but you’ll know that you’ve done your best to stay calm and ace the interview if
it’s at all possible.
If you tend to “sweat it out” literally or figuratively, make sure you’re dressed
comfortably, in clothes and shoes that allow you to breathe easily and to focus on the
subject at hand.
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Remind yourself that stress in an interview is not only normal — it’s necessary.
Prepare yourself for stress while you train yourself to do a great job. Take the edge off
through practice beforehand and by successfully managing your stress in real time. Having
nailed down what you want to say about your qualifications and having prepared for those
tough questions, you’ll be ready to take that deep breath and know that you can manage an
unexpected challenge. Use your stress effectively and land the job you want.
5.6 Group Discussion

“Group” is a collection of individuals who have regular contact and frequent
interaction and who work together to achieve a common set of goals. “Discussion” is the
process whereby two or more people exchange information or ideas in a face-to-face
situation to achieve a goal. The goal, or end product, maybe increased knowledge,
agreement leading to action, disagreement leading to competition or resolution or perhaps
only a clearing of the air or a continuation of the status-quo.
“Group Discussion”, popularly labeled as GD, is a methodology used by an

organization (company, institute, business school, etc.) to gauge whether the candidate
has certain personality traits. GDs form an important part of the short-listing process for
recruitment or admission in a company or institution. In this methodology, the group of
candidates is given a topic or a situation, typically given some time to think about the
same, and then asked to discuss it among themselves for a specific duration (which may
vary from one organization to another). As in a football game, where you play like a team,
passing the ball to each team member and aim for a common goal, GD is also based on
teamwork, incorporating views of different team members to reach a common goal.
So, a group discussion refers to a communicative situation that allows its participants
to share their views and opinions with other participants. It is a systematic exchange of
information, views and opinions about a topic, problem, issue or situation among the
members of a group who share some common objectives.
Why is a “GD” conducted?
Organizations conduct GDs to find out whether you possess the critical qualities/
skills to contribute effectively to the goal accomplishment process. Group Discussions
are held because business management is essentially a group activity and working with
groups is the most important parameter of being successful as a manager. Apart from
that, the candidates are evaluated on the basis of their communication skills, knowledge,
leadership skills, listening skills, conceptualizing ability, etc.
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A GD helps to achieve group goals as well as individual goals. The examiner can
evaluate both the personality traits and group skills of candidates participating in a G.D. It is
basically a situation test wherein a sample of a candidate’s group worthiness and potential
as a worker comes out quite explicitly.
How to Prepare for Group Discussion & Personal Interview
In short, the GD panel is testing whether you know the topic well, are able to present
your point of view in a logical manner, are interested in understanding what others feel
about the same subject and are able to conduct yourself with grace in a group situation.
Outlined are some tips and suggestions that will help you prepare well for Group Discussion:
• Train yourself to be a good listener. Develop the patience to listen attentively.
• Acknowledge that everyone has something valuable to say.
• When speaking in a GD, your job is to articulate your point of view in a way that is
easy for others to comprehend.
• Inculcate the good habit of structuring your thoughts and presenting them logically.
• Writing essays on a variety of topics is good practice developing thought structure.
• The only way to prepare is to read more, develop a keen interest in current affairs.
• Seek opportunities to discuss these in groups.
• Learn to respect others for what they are.
• Learn to be open-minded and recognize the fact that people think differently about
issues.
• Train your mind to think analytically.
• Your GD arguments should have ‘meat’.
5.7 Star Technique

A simple, structured technique to help you answer interview questions. It stands for
Situation, Task, Approach and Results.
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You’re in a job interview, and things are going well. You didn’t get lost on your way to
the office, you made some friendly small talk with the hiring manager, and you’re nailing
your answers to the questions you’re being asked.
Just when you start thinking you have this in the bag, you hear the interviewer say,
“Tell me about a time when…”
Your stomach drops. You rack your brain for something—anything!—you can use
as an example. You grasp at straws and finally stumble your way through an anecdote that
only sort of satisfies the prompt.
First of all, take comfort in the fact that we’ve all been there. These types of interview
questions are tough to answer. But, here’s the good news: There’s a strategy you can use
to come up with way more impressive answers to these dreaded questions: the STAR
interview method.
What Is the STAR Interview Method?
The STAR interview technique offers a straightforward format you can use to answer
behavioral interview questions—those prompts that ask you to provide a real-life example
of how you handled a certain kind of situation at work in the past.
Don’t worry—these questions are easy to recognize. They often have telltale
openings like:
Tell me about a time when…
What do you do when…
Have you ever…
Give me an example of…
Describe a…
Thinking of a fitting example for your response is just the beginning. Then you also
need to share the details in a compelling and easy-to-understand way—without endless
rambling.
That’s exactly what the STAR interview method enables you to do. “It’s helpful
because it provides a simple framework for helping a candidate tell a meaningful story
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about a previous work experience,” says Al Dea, the founder of CareerSchooled and a
career and leadership coach.
So, let’s break down that framework. STAR is an acronym that stands for:
Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.
Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.
Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.
Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.
By using these four components to shape your anecdote, it’s much easier to share
a focused answer, providing the interviewer with “a digestible but compelling narrative of
what a candidate did,” says Dear. “They can follow along, but also determine based on the
answer how well that candidate might fit with the job.”
Answering Interview Questions Using STAR
Knowing what the acronym stands for is only the first step—you need to know how
to use it. Follow this step-by-step process to give the best STAR interview answers.
1. Find a Suitable Example
The STAR interview method won’t be helpful to you if you use it to structure an
answer using a totally irrelevant anecdote. That’s why the crucial starting point is to find an
appropriate scenario from your professional history that you can expand on.
There’s no way for you to know ahead of time exactly what the interviewer will ask
you (although our list of behavioral interview questions can help you make some educated
predictions). With that in mind, it’s smart to have a few stories and examples ready to go
that you can tweak and adapt for different questions.
“Brainstorm a few examples of particular success in your previous job, and think
through how to discuss that success using the STAR framework,” says Lydia Bowers, a
human resources professional. Repeat that exercise for a few types of questions.
If you’re struggling during your interview to come up with an example that fits, don’t
be afraid to ask to take a minute. “I’m always impressed when a candidate asks for a
moment to think so that they can provide a good answer,” says Emma Flowers, a career
coach here at The Muse. “It’s OK to take a few seconds.”
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2. Lay Out the Situation
With your anecdote selected, it’s time to set the scene. It’s tempting to include all
sorts of unnecessary details—particularly when your nerves get the best of you. But if the
interview asks you to tell them about a time you didn’t meet a client’s expectations, for
example, they don’t necessarily need to know the story of how you recruited the client
three years earlier or the entire history of the project.
Your goal here is to paint a clear picture of the situation you were in and emphasize
its complexities, so that the result you touch on later seems that much more profound.
Keep things concise and focus on what’s undeniably relevant to your story.
“The STAR method is meant to be simple,” explains Flowers. “Sometimes people

provide too much detail and their answers are too long. Focus on just one or two sentences
for each letter of the acronym.”
For example, imagine that the interviewer just said, “Tell me about a time when you
achieved a goal that you initially thought was out of reach.”
Your Response (Situation): “In my previous digital marketing role, my company

made the decision to focus primarily on email marketing and was looking to increase their
list of email subscribers pretty aggressively.”
3. Highlight the Task
You’re telling this story for a reason—because you had some sort of core
involvement in it. This is the part of your answer when you make the interviewer understand
exactly where you fit in.
This can easily get confused with the “action” portion of the response. However,
this piece is dedicated to giving the specifics of what your responsibilities were in that
particular scenario, as well as any objective that was set for you, before you dive into what
you actually did.
Your Response (Task): “As the email marketing manager, my target was to increase
our email list by at least 50% in just one quarter.”
4. Share How You Took Action
Now that you’ve given the interviewer a sense of what your role was, it’s time to
explain what you did. What steps did you take to reach that goal or solve that problem?
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Resist the urge to give a vague or glossed-over answer like, “So, I worked hard on
it…” or “I did some research…”
This is your chance to really showcase your contribution, and it’s worthy of some
specifics. Dig in deep and make sure that you give enough information about exactly what
you did. Did you work with a certain team? Use a particular piece of software? Form a
detailed plan? Those are the things your interviewer wants to know.
Your Response (Action): “I started by going back through our old blog posts and
adding in content upgrades that incentivized email subscriptions—which immediately gave
our list a boost. Next, I worked with the rest of the marketing team to plan and host a
webinar that required an email address to register, which funneled more interested users
into our list.”
5. Dish Out the Result
Here it is—your time to shine and explain how you made a positive difference. The
final portion of your response should share the results of the action you took. Of course,
the result better be positive—otherwise this isn’t a story you should be telling. No interviewer
will be dazzled with an answer that ends with, “And then I got fired.”
Does that mean you can’t tell stories about problems or challenges? Absolutely
not. But, even if you’re talking about a time you failed or made a mistake, make sure you
end on a high note by talking about what you learned or the steps you took to improve.
Bowers warns that too many candidates skip over this crucial, final part of their response.
“They don’t make it clear how their action made an impact—the result,” she says. “That’s
the most important part of the answer!”
Remember, interviewers don’t only care about what you did—they also want to
know why it mattered. So make sure you hammer home the point about any results you
achieved and quantify them when you can. Numbers are always impactful.
Your Response (Result): “As a result of those additions to our email strategy, I was
able to increase our subscriber list from 25,000 subscribers to 40,000 subscribers in three
months—which exceeded our goal by 20%.”
Putting it All Together
It’s making sense now, isn’t it? Here’s one more question-and-answer example for some
added clarity.
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The Interviewer Says: “Tell me about a time when you had to be very strategic in
order to meet all of your top priorities.”
Your Response:
Situation: “In my previous sales role, I was put in charge of the transfer to an entirely new
customer relationship management (CRM) system—on top of handling my daily sales
calls and responsibilities.”
Task: “The goal was to have the migration to the new CRM database completed by Q3,
without letting any of my own sales numbers slip below my targets.”
Action: “In order to do that, I had to be very careful about how I managed all of my time. So,
I blocked off an hour each day on my calendar to dedicate solely to the CRM migration.
During that time, I worked on transferring the data, as well as cleaning out old contacts and
updating outdated information. Doing this gave me enough time to chip away at that project,
while still handling my normal tasks.”
Result: “As a result, the transfer was completed two weeks ahead of deadline and I finished
the quarter 10% ahead of my sales goal.”
The STAR interview process for answering behavioral interview questions might seem a
little overwhelming at first. But it will become second nature with a little practice. And make
no mistake, practicing is definitely something you should do.
“Whether it’s in a mock interview or just practicing your answer in the mirror, talk through
your response so that it feels natural and comfortable when you’re actually in the interview,”
Flowers says.
With just a little preparation and strategy, you’ll soon view behavioral interview questions
as less of a burden—and more of an opportunity to emphasize your awesome qualifications.
5.8 Win The Game of Life

5.8.1 Behavioural ethics in work place
Voice of employee systems that effectively promote ethical behavior and encourage
reporting unethical behavior meet five key criteria:
Elegance: Be easily understood, applicable to the entire organization and all employees
and effectively diagnose issues.
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Accessibility: Be easy to use, widely promoted, accessible to all employees.
Correctness: Be well-administered and include follow-up to complaints.
Responsiveness: Be timely, be responsive, be used by management and show results.
Nonpunitiveness: Be anonymous and be free of retaliation – managers and employees

must be protected.
The challenge is that many organizations implement voice of employee systems

with good intentions, but the voice of employee tools used, such as interviews and surveys,
simply are not effective. Voice of employee tools, such as interviews and surveys, that
proactively seek to uncover and stop unethical conduct should be conducted:
Using an Open-Ended Question: To ensure all possible issues are uncovered, voice
of employee efforts should focus on asking an open-ended question about awareness of
compliance issues. Closed ended questions do not provide the ability to uncover all possibly
issues or all details to understand issues.
Externally: To ensure accuracy, the research should be conducted through an

independent third-party to remove biases and remove barriers to employees feeling they
can express their true perceptions related to unethical conduct in the workplace.19,20
When conducted internally, it’s likely that true perceptions aren’t revealed because
employees aren’t being honest with the organization. Employees may not want to risk
burning a bridge or disappointing a manager. Additionally, when conducted externally, data
is systematically collected and thoroughly reported.
Using a Mixed Methodology – Asking “Why?”: To obtain detailed reasons for

perceptions of unethical behavior, it’s critical to use a mixed methods research instrument
that asks “Why” in an open-ended, qualitative manner to avoid limiting the scope of what
can be learned from each individual employee.21 Third-party researchers can offer high-
quality telephonic interviews and web-interviews that capture in-depth qualitative responses
in a systematic manner. In asking fewer open-ended questions, specifically following up to
ask why the participant perceives unethical behavior, you obtain in-depth data and reveal
the root causes of perceptions.22
Systematically: To track trends and progress, data should be systematically captured

for use in subsequent data collection and analysis. External research uses a consistent
question set, data collection technology and a dependable methodology to capture
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responses in a reliable system to facilitate future reporting and analyses. This information
can then be analyzed to identify issues that might exist in specific employee segments,
departments, job groups or even certain supervisors.
Conclusion
The struggle between right and wrong amongst your stakeholders and the perception
of good or evil about your organization are a constant. And, the implications of a perceived
ethical or unethical reputation could be helpful or harmful – even devastating – to your
business. Your reputation is on the line and your employees provide valuable information
when given a true voice. It’s imperative to proactively promote ethical behavior in your
organization before you are potentially destroyed by tomorrow’s headlines.
5.8.2 Swot Analysis
What is a swot analysis and why should you use one?
SWOT stands for: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat. A SWOT analysis

guides you to identify your organization’s strengths and weaknesses (S-W), as well as
broader opportunities and threats (O-T). Developing a fuller awareness of the situation
helps with both strategic planning and decision-making.
The SWOT method was originally developed for business and industry, but it is
equally useful in the work of community health and development, education, and even for
personal growth.
SWOT is not the only assessment technique you can use. Compare it with other
assessment tools in the Community Tool Box to determine if this is the right approach for
your situation. The strengths of this method are its simplicity and application to a variety of
levels of operation.
When do you use SWOT?
• A SWOT analysis can offer helpful perspectives at any stage of an effort. You might
use it to:
• Explore possibilities for new efforts or solutions to problems.
• Make decisions about the best path for your initiative. Identifying your opportunities
for success in context of threats to success can clarify directions and choices.
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• Determine where change is possible. If you are at a juncture or turning point, an

inventory of your strengths and weaknesses can reveal priorities as well as
possibilities.
• Adjust and refine plans mid-course. A new opportunity might open wider avenues,
while a new threat could close a path that once existed.
SWOT Template
Strengths
• What advantages does your organization have?
• What do you do better than anyone else?
• What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can’t?
• What do people in your market see as your strengths?
• What factors mean that you “get the sale”?
• What is your organization’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
Consider your strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of
view of your customers and people in your market.
Also, if you’re having any difficulty identifying strengths, try writing down a list of
your organization’s characteristics. Some of these will hopefully be strengths!
When looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors.
For example, if all of your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality
production process is not a strength in your organization’s market, it’s a necessity.
Weaknesses
• What could you improve?
• What should you avoid?
• What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?
• What factors lose you sales?

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Again, consider this from an internal and external perspective: do other people
seem to perceive weaknesses that you don’t see? Are your competitors doing any better
than you?
It’s best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.
Opportunities
• What good opportunities can you spot?
• What interesting trends are you aware of?
• Useful opportunities can come from such things as:
• Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale.
• Changes in government policy related to your field.
• Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on.
• Local events.
Threats
• What obstacles do you face?
• What are your competitors doing?
• Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing?
• Is changing technology threatening your position?
• Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
• Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?
Using SWOT Analysis in Project Management and Marketing
If you’re using SWOT as a serious tool (rather than as a casual “warm up” for
strategy formulation), make sure you’re rigorous in the way you apply it:
Only accept precise, verifiable statements (“Cost advantage of $10/ton in sourcing

raw material x”, rather than “Good value for money”).
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Ruthlessly prune long lists of factors, and prioritize them, so that you spend your
time thinking about the most significant factors.
Make sure that options generated are carried through to later stages in the strategy
formation process.
Apply it at the right level – for example, you might need to apply the tool at a product
or product-line level, rather than at the much vaguer whole company level.
Use it in conjunction with other strategy tools (for example, USP Analysis and
Core Competence Analysis ) so that you get a comprehensive picture of the situation
you’re dealing with.
SWOT Example
A small start-up consultancy might draw up the following SWOT Analysis:
Strengths
• We are able to respond very quickly as we have no red tape, and no need for higher
management approval.
• We are able to give really good customer care, as the current small amount of work
means we have plenty of time to devote to customers.
• Our lead consultant has a strong reputation in the market.
• We can change direction quickly if we find that our marketing is not working.
• We have low overheads, so we can offer good value to customers.
Weaknesses
• Our company has little market presence or reputation.
• We have a small staff, with a shallow skills base in many areas.
• We are vulnerable to vital staff being sick or leaving.
• Our cash flow will be unreliable in the early stages.

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Opportunities
• Our business sector is expanding, with many future opportunities for success.
• Local government wants to encourage local businesses.
• Our competitors may be slow to adopt new technologies.
Threats
• Developments in technology may change this market beyond our ability to adapt.
• A small change in the focus of a large competitor might wipe out any market position
we achieve.
• As a result of their analysis, the consultancy may decide to specialize in rapid

response, good value services to local businesses and local government.
Marketing would be in selected local publications to get the greatest possible market
presence for a set advertising budget, and the consultancy should keep up-to-date with
changes in technology where possible.
5.8.3 Stress Management
It may seem like there’s nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop
coming, there will never be more hours in the day, and your work and family responsibilities
will always be demanding. But you have a lot more control than you might think. In fact, the
simple realization that you’re in control of your life is the foundation of managing stress.
Stress management is all about taking charge: of your lifestyle, thoughts, emotions, and
the way you deal with problems. No matter how stressful your life seems, there are steps
you can take to relieve the pressure and regain control.
Why is it so important to manage stress?
If you’re living with high levels of stress, you’re putting your entire well-being at risk.
Stress wreaks havoc on your emotional equilibrium, as well as your physical health. It
narrows your ability to think clearly, function effectively, and enjoy life.
Effective stress management, on the other hand, helps you break the hold stress
has on your life, so you can be happier, healthier, and more productive. The ultimate goal is
a balanced life, with time for work, relationships, relaxation, and fun—and the resilience to
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hold up under pressure and meet challenges head on. But stress management is not one-
size-fits-all. That’s why it’s important to experiment and find out what works best for you.
The following stress management tips can help you do that.
Tip 1: Identify the sources of stress in your life
Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. This
isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. While it’s easy to identify major stressors such as
changing jobs, moving, or a going through a divorce, pinpointing the sources of chronic
stress can be more complicated. It’s all too easy to overlook how your own thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors contribute to your everyday stress levels. Sure, you may know that
you’re constantly worried about work deadlines, but maybe it’s your procrastination, rather
than the actual job demands, that is causing the stress.
To identify your true sources of stress, look closely at your habits, attitude, and
excuses:
Do you explain away stress as temporary (“I just have a million things going on
right now”) even though you can’t remember the last time you took a breather?
Do you define stress as an integral part of your work or home life (“Things are
always crazy around here”) or as a part of your personality (“I have a lot of nervous energy,
that’s all”)?
Do you blame your stress on other people or outside events, or view it as entirely
normal and unexceptional?
Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining it, your
stress level will remain outside your control.
Tip 2: Practice the 4 A’s of stress management
While stress is an automatic response from your nervous system, some stressors
arise at predictable times: your commute to work, a meeting with your boss, or family
gatherings, for example. When handling such predictable stressors, you can either change
the situation or change your reaction. When deciding which option to choose in any given
scenario, it’s helpful to think of the four A’s: avoid, alter, adapt, or accept.
The four A’s – Avoid, Alter, Adapt & Accept

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Avoid unnecessary stress
It’s not healthy to avoid a stressful situation that needs to be addressed, but you
may be surprised by the number of stressors in your life that you can eliminate.
Learn how to say “no.” Know your limits and stick to them. Whether in your personal
or professional life, taking on more than you can handle is a surefire recipe for stress.
Distinguish between the “shoulds” and the “musts” and, when possible, say “no” to taking
on too much.
Avoid people who stress you out. If someone consistently causes stress in your
life, limit the amount of time you spend with that person, or end the relationship.
Take control of your environment. If the evening news makes you anxious, turn off
the TV. If traffic makes you tense, take a longer but less-traveled route. If going to the
market is an unpleasant chore do your grocery shopping online.
Pare down your to-do list. Analyze your schedule, responsibilities, and daily tasks.
If you’ve got too much on your plate, drop tasks that aren’t truly necessary to the bottom of
the list or eliminate them entirely.
Alter the situation
If you can’t avoid a stressful situation, try to alter it. Often, this involves changing
the way you communicate and operate in your daily life.
Express your feelings instead of bottling them up. If something or someone is

bothering you, be more assertive and communicate your concerns in an open and respectful
way. If you’ve got an exam to study for and your chatty roommate just got home, say up
front that you only have five minutes to talk. If you don’t voice your feelings, resentment will
build and the stress will increase.
Be willing to compromise. When you ask someone to change their behavior, be

willing to do the same. If you both are willing to bend at least a little, you’ll have a good
chance of finding a happy middle ground.
Create a balanced schedule. All work and no play is a recipe for burnout. Try to find
a balance between work and family life, social activities and solitary pursuits, daily
responsibilities and downtime.
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Adapt to the stressor
If you can’t change the stressor, change yourself. You can adapt to stressful
situations and regain your sense of control by changing your expectations and attitude.
Reframe problems. Try to view stressful situations from a more positive perspective.
Rather than fuming about a traffic jam, look at it as an opportunity to pause and regroup,
listen to your favorite radio station, or enjoy some alone time.
Look at the big picture. Take perspective of the stressful situation. Ask yourself how
important it will be in the long run. Will it matter in a month? A year? Is it really worth getting
upset over? If the answer is no, focus your time and energy elsewhere.
Adjust your standards. Perfectionism is a major source of avoidable stress. Stop

setting yourself up for failure by demanding perfection. Set reasonable standards for yourself
and others, and learn to be okay with “good enough.”
Practice gratitude. When stress is getting you down, take a moment to reflect on
all the things you appreciate in your life, including your own positive qualities and gifts. This
simple strategy can help you keep things in perspective.
Accept the things you can’t change
Some sources of stress are unavoidable. You can’t prevent or change stressors
such as the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or a national recession. In such cases,
the best way to cope with stress is to accept things as they are. Acceptance may be
difficult, but in the long run, it’s easier than railing against a situation you can’t change.
Don’t try to control the uncontrollable. Many things in life are beyond our control,
particularly the behavior of other people. Rather than stressing out over them, focus on the
things you can control such as the way you choose to react to problems.
Look for the upside. When facing major challenges, try to look at them as
opportunities for personal growth. If your own poor choices contributed to a stressful
situation, reflect on them and learn from your mistakes.
Learn to forgive. Accept the fact that we live in an imperfect world and that people
make mistakes. Let go of anger and resentments. Free yourself from negative energy by
forgiving and moving on.
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Share your feelings. Expressing what you’re going through can be very cathartic,
even if there’s nothing you can do to alter the stressful situation. Talk to a trusted friend or
make an appointment with a therapist.
Tip 3: Get moving
When you’re stressed, the last thing you probably feel like doing is getting up and
exercising. But physical activity is a huge stress reliever—and you don’t have to be an
athlete or spend hours in a gym to experience the benefits. Exercise releases endorphins
that make you feel good, and it can also serve as a valuable distraction from your daily
worries.
While you’ll get the most benefit from regularly exercising for 30 minutes or more, it’s okay
to build up your fitness level gradually. Even very small activities can add up over the
course of a day. The first step is to get yourself up and moving. Here are some easy ways
to incorporate exercise into your daily schedule:
• Put on some music and dance around
• Take your dog for a walk
• Walk or cycle to the grocery store
• Use the stairs at home or work rather than an elevator
• Park your car in the farthest spot in the lot and walk the rest of the way
• Pair up with an exercise partner and encourage each other as you work out
• Play ping-pong or an activity-based video game with your kids
• The stress-busting magic of mindful rhythmic exercise
While just about any form of physical activity can help burn away tension and stress,
rhythmic activities are especially effective. Good choices include walking, running, swimming,
dancing, cycling, tai chi, and aerobics. But whatever you choose, make sure it’s something
you enjoy so you’re more likely to stick with it.
While you’re exercising, make a conscious effort to pay attention to your body and
the physical (and sometimes emotional) sensations you experience as you’re moving.
Focus on coordinating your breathing with your movements, for example, or notice how
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the air or sunlight feels on your skin. Adding this mindfulness element will help you break
out of the cycle of negative thoughts that often accompanies overwhelming stress.
Tip 4: Connect to others
There is nothing more calming than spending quality time with another human being
who makes you feel safe and understood. In fact, face-to-face interaction triggers a cascade
of hormones that counteracts the body’s defensive “fight-or-flight” response. It’s nature’s
natural stress reliever (as an added bonus, it also helps stave off depression and anxiety).
So make it a point to connect regularly—and in person—with family and friends.
Keep in mind that the people you talk to don’t have to be able to fix your stress.
They simply need to be good listeners. And try not to let worries about looking weak or
being a burden keep you from opening up. The people who care about you will be flattered
by your trust. It will only strengthen your bond.
Of course, it’s not always realistic to have a pal close by to lean on when you feel
overwhelmed by stress, but by building and maintaining a network of close friends you can
improve your resiliency to life’s stressors.
Tips for building relationships
• Reach out to a colleague at work
• Help someone else by volunteering
• Have lunch or coffee with a friend
• Ask a loved one to check in with you regularly
• Accompany someone to the movies or a concert
• Call or email an old friend
• Go for a walk with a workout buddy
• Schedule a weekly dinner date
• Meet new people by taking a class or joining a club
• Confide in a clergy member, teacher, or sports coach
• Tip 5: Make time for fun and relaxation

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Beyond a take-charge approach and a positive attitude, you can reduce stress in
your life by carving out “me” time. Don’t get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that
you forget to take care of your own needs. Nurturing yourself is a necessity, not a luxury. If
you regularly make time for fun and relaxation, you’ll be in a better place to handle life’s
stressors.
Set aside leisure time. Include rest and relaxation in your daily schedule. Don’t
allow other obligations to encroach. This is your time to take a break from all responsibilities
and recharge your batteries.
Do something you enjoy every day. Make time for leisure activities that bring you
joy, whether it be stargazing, playing the piano, or working on your bike.
Keep your sense of humor. This includes the ability to laugh at yourself. The act of
laughing helps your body fight stress in a number of ways.
Take up a relaxation practice. Relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and

deep breathing activate the body’s relaxation response, a state of restfulness that is the
opposite of the fight or flight or mobilization stress response. As you learn and practice
these techniques, your stress levels will decrease and your mind and body will become
calm and centered.
Tip 6: Manage your time better
Poor time management can cause a lot of stress. When you’re stretched too thin
and running behind, it’s hard to stay calm and focused. Plus, you’ll be tempted to avoid or
cut back on all the healthy things you should be doing to keep stress in check, like socializing
and getting enough sleep. The good news: there are things you can do to achieve a healthier
work-life balance.
Don’t over-commit yourself. Avoid scheduling things back-to-back or trying to fit too
much into one day. All too often, we underestimate how long things will take.
Prioritize tasks. Make a list of tasks you have to do, and tackle them in order of
importance. Do the high-priority items first. If you have something particularly unpleasant
or stressful to do, get it over with early. The rest of your day will be more pleasant as a
result.
Break projects into small steps. If a large project seems overwhelming, make a
step-by-step plan. Focus on one manageable step at a time, rather than taking on everything
at once.
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Delegate responsibility. You don’t have to do it all yourself, whether at home, school,
or on the job. If other people can take care of the task, why not let them? Let go of the
desire to control or oversee every little step. You’ll be letting go of unnecessary stress in
the process.
Tip 7: Maintain balance with a healthy lifestyle
In addition to regular exercise, there are other healthy lifestyle choices that can
increase your resistance to stress.
Eat a healthy diet. Well-nourished bodies are better prepared to cope with stress,
so be mindful of what you eat. Start your day right with breakfast, and keep your energy up
and your mind clear with balanced, nutritious meals throughout the day.
Reduce caffeine and sugar. The temporary “highs” caffeine and sugar provide often
end in with a crash in mood and energy. By reducing the amount of coffee, soft drinks,
chocolate, and sugar snacks in your diet, you’ll feel more relaxed and you’ll sleep better.
Avoid alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Self-medicating with alcohol or drugs may
provide an easy escape from stress, but the relief is only temporary. Don’t avoid or mask
the issue at hand; deal with problems head on and with a clear mind.
Get enough sleep. Adequate sleep fuels your mind, as well as your body. Feeling
tired will increase your stress because it may cause you to think irrationally.
Tip 8: Learn to relieve stress in the moment
When you’re frazzled by your morning commute, stuck in a stressful meeting at

work, or fried from another argument with your spouse, you need a way to manage your
stress levels right now. That’s where quick stress relief comes in.
The fastest way to reduce stress is by taking a deep breath and using your senses—
what you see, hear, taste, and touch—or through a soothing movement. By viewing a
favorite photo, smelling a specific scent, listening to a favorite piece of music, tasting a
piece of gum, or hugging a pet, for example, you can quickly relax and focus yourself. Of
course, not everyone responds to each sensory experience in the same way. The key to
quick stress relief is to experiment and discover the unique sensory experiences that work
best for you.
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5.8.4 Time Management
“Time management” is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your
time between specific activities. Good time management enables you to work smarter –
not harder – so that you get more done in less time, even when time is tight and pressures
are high. Failing to manage your time damages your effectiveness and causes stress.
Benefits of Time Management
The ability to manage your time effectively is important. Good time management
leads to better efficiency and productivity, less stress, less wasted time, and a more
successful life. Here are some benefits of managing time effectively:
1. Stress relief
Making and following a task schedule makes a person feel less stressed and
reduces anxiety.
2. More time
Good time management gives you extra time to spend in your daily life. People who
can time manage effectively enjoy more time to spend on hobbies or other personal pursuits.
3. More opportunities
Managing time well leads to more opportunities and less time wasted on trivial
activities. Time management is a key quality that employers look for. The ability to prioritize
and schedule work is extremely desirable to any organization.
4. Ability to realize goals
Individuals who practice good time management are able to better achieve their
goals and objectives, and do so in a shorter length of time.
List of Tips for Effective Time Management
After considering the benefits of time management, let us look at some ways to
manage time effectively:
1. Set goals correctly
Set goals that are achievable and measurable to improve time management. Use
the SMART method when setting goals. In essence, make sure the goals you set are
specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
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2. Prioritize wisely
Separate your tasks on how important and urgent they are in order to achieve good time
management. For example, look at your daily tasks and determine which are:
Ø Important and urgent: Do these tasks right away.
Ø Important but not urgent: Decide when to do these tasks.
Ø Urgent but not important: Delegate these tasks if possible.
Ø Not urgent and not important: Do these tasks later.
3. Set a time limit to complete a task
Setting a time constraint will cause you to be more focused and efficient. For example,
instead of working on a project and thinking of doing it until it’s done, set a limit of, say, three
hours.
4. Take a break between tasks
When doing a lot of tasks without a break, it is harder to stay focused and motivated. Allow
some downtime between tasks by performing some mind-clearing exercises like taking a
quick nap, going for a short walk, or meditating.
5. Organize yourself
Utilize your calendar by writing down the deadline for projects or tasks on them. Determine
which days should be dedicated to which tasks.
6. Remove non-essential tasks/activities
It is important to remove excess activities or tasks that add no value to your life. Determine
what is significant and what deserves your time. Removing non-essential tasks/activities
frees up more time.
7. Plan ahead
Make sure you start every day with a clear idea of what you need to do. For example, the
night before, you can write down a list of to-dos for the next day.
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Implications of Poor Time Management
Now that the benefits of time management with some tips for effectively managing your
time are discussed, let’s consider the effects of poor time management skills.
1. Poor workflow
The inability to plan ahead and stick to goals means poor efficiency. For example, if there
are several important tasks to complete, an effective plan would be to complete similar
tasks first. If you do not plan ahead, instead jumping from one task to another, it can lead to
low productivity and workflow.
2. Wasted time
Poor time management results in wasted time. For example, by talking to friends on social
media while doing an assignment, you are distracting yourself and wasting time.
3. Loss of control
By not knowing what the next task is, or not formulating a plan on how to achieve your
goals, you suffer from loss of control of your life. That can contribute to higher stress levels
and anxiety.
4. Poor quality of work
Poor time management will make the quality of your work suffer. Trying to complete tasks
at the last minute compromises quality.
5. Poor reputation
If clients or your employer cannot rely on you to manage your time to complete tasks, their
expectation and perception of you is adversely affected. If a client cannot rely on you to get
something done on time, they will take their business elsewhere.
Importance of Time Management
Time management allows you to reduce stress and anxiety, free up more time in your daily
life, pursue more opportunities, achieve your goals, and so much more. Managing time
well is not only important for your personal life – but also for career success.
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5.9 THE FIRST WRITTEN ENCOUNTER : WRITING SKILLS
5.9.1 Cover Letter
When you are applying for a job, how you format your cover letter is important
because the letter is one of the first impressions you’ll make on an employer. In fact, how
you format your letter is almost as important as what you write in it. A cover letter that is
formatted incorrectly, or is difficult to read, can quickly eliminate you from the pool of
candidates, so it’s critical to pay just as much attention to the formatting of your letter as to
its content.
Remember, “formatting” includes factors such as page margins, font type and size,
line, paragraph and section spacing, and document type. For example, a letter without the
correct spacing between paragraphs, or with too much text on a page, is going to look
cluttered, or a letter saved as a file type that is not meant for a text document (such as a
.jpg or a .png) may prevent the reader from opening and viewing it.
Adhering to typical standards in formatting is especially important considering that

communication skills are important in nearly every field, and failing to compose a readable
cover letter will certainly not inspire confidence in your abilities. On the other hand, a cover
letter that is saved correctly and uses sufficient white space, a simple, reasonably sized
font, and an appropriate salutation and closing will make a positive impression on your
potential employers.
Here’s information on cover letter formatting guidelines including setting page

margins, choosing a font style and size, paragraph and section spacing, and more tips on
how to format cover letters for employment.
Cover Letter Format Example
Your Contact Information
Name
Address
City, State Zip Code
Phone Number
Email Address
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Date
Employer Contact Information (if you have it)
Name
Title
Company
Address
City, State Zip Code
Salutation
Dear Mr./Ms. Last Name,
Cover Letter Greeting Examples: Note: If you do not have a contact name, you can
skip the salutation entirely. Or, you can use Dear Hiring Manager, To Whom It May Concern,
or one of the other examples listed in the link. Ideally, you will be able to address your cover
letter to a specific person. Doing research can help you figure out who is the most appropriate
person to receive the letter. Note: If you do not know the gender of your contact, you can
write out the person’s full name, e.g., “Dear Cory Smith”or “Dear Jordan Parish.”
Body of Cover Letter
The body of your cover letter lets the employer know what position you are applying
for, why the employer should select you for an interview, and how you will follow-up. Organize
the body of your cover letter into the following paragraphs:
First Paragraph
The first paragraph of your letter should include information on why you are writing.
Mention the position you are applying for and where you found the job listing. Include the
name of a mutual contact, if you have one.
Middle Paragraph(s)
The next section of your cover letter should describe what you have to offer the
employer. Mention specifically how your qualifications match the job you are applying for.
Think of this section of the cover letter as where you’re making a pitch for your fit as an
employee and show what makes you a great candidate.
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Make the connection between your qualifications and the job requirements clear.
Use this section to interpret your resume—don’t repeat from it verbatim.
Final Paragraph
Conclude your cover letter by thanking the employer for considering you for the
position. Include information on how you will follow-up. Optionally, you can briefly restate
why you would be a good fit for the position.
Complimentary Close
Respectfully yours,
Signature
Handwritten Signature (for a hard copy letter)
Typed Signature
Sample Covering Letter
Molly Smith
21 Spring Street,
Anycity,
NY 12000 • 555-122-3333 •
msmith@email.com
August 1, 2018
John Brown
Sales Manager
Acme Corp.
123 Business Rd.
Business City, NY 54321
Dear Mr. Brown,

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I wish to apply for the sales position advertised on Monster.com. Terry Johnson suggested
that I contact you directly, as we have worked together, and he felt that I would be a good fit
with your team.
For the past two years I have been working in sales for Goodman & Co. I have consistently
exceeded my targets and I was recognized last quarter for outstanding service. As an avid
cyclist and user of many of your products, I’m aware that Acme Corp. is a company with
tremendous potential. I am confident that my experience, communication skills, and ability
to convey product benefits effectively would enable me to excel in the sales role.
I would be delighted to discuss with you how I might be an asset to the Acme Corp. sales
team. Thank you for your consideration; I look forward to hearing from you.
Respectfully yours,
Molly Smith
5.9.2 Resume
What Is a Resume?
A resume is a one- or two-page formal document that job hopefuls submit to hiring
managers and employment recruiters as a means of itemizing their work experience,
educational background, and special skills. Successful resumes entice potential employers
to invite applicants to interview for the position. Resumes are traditionally accompanied by
cover letters, in which applicants champion their relevant skills and tout their specific
qualifications for a given position.
Understanding Resumes
Typically required for applying to white-collar positions, resumes enable recruiters

to screen out applicants who lack the skills needed to effectively occupy roles. Successful
resumes highlight specific accomplishments applicants have achieved in former positions,
such as cutting costs, transcending sales goals, increasing profits, and building out teams.
Requirements of Resumes
Resume structures traditionally begin with one or two lines that detail an applicant’s
career goals and highlight the industry in which he or she seeks employment. This is
generally followed by a candidate’s job history, beginning with his or her current or most
recent position, followed by a chronological list of previously held positions, with the older
jobs placed toward the bottom of the page.
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Recruiters examine job histories for significant employment gaps or patterns of

briefly-held positions that might flag an applicant’s inability to sustain employment over the
long haul. Some human resources professionals recommend eliminating the oldest
positions, to make room to highlight newer positions that emphasize more relevant skills.
This is particularly true for a high-tech company seeking to assemble cutting edge,
technology-forward teams. In fact, less relevant legacy skills may even detract from a
resume, by subconsciously implying a candidate’s obsolescence. In other words, the most
powerful resumes underline how an applicant can thrive in a specific role.
Finally, the rise of electronic resume submissions has dramatically changed the
dynamics of resumes. While documents of the past were strictly text-based, digital
submissions often include charts, graphs or other illustrative elements that visually
pronounce an individual’s relevant strengths and unique skill sets.
Sample Resume
987 Northridge Drive
Omaha, Nebraska 68123
(402) 543-1234
imasample4@xxx.com
OBJECTIVE: Position in market research or financial analysis where strong technical

skills,
mathematical/statistical background and problem solving abilities can be applied towards
the successful achievement of business goals and objectives
PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
• Exceptionally well organized, resourceful and highly motivated with the ability to handle
multiple projects and produce timely, high quality work.
• Strong analytical and human relations skills; especially effective in helping customers
and associates resolve issues and concerns.
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PROFESSIONAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Analysis and Problem Solving
• Researched and developed a survey instrument, subsequently used to obtain

information from customers regarding their satisfaction with products purchased.
• Compiled and analyzed statistical data to identify potential target markets for future
sales and marketing efforts.
• Completed independent research project on the use of mathematical/statistical

models as tools for solving various business problems.
• Conducted quality control inspections, analyzed results and developed action plans
to address areas of concern.
Communications and Customer Relations
• Received Customer Service Satisfaction Award for high quality of services provided
to both vendors and customers.
• Handled customer inquiries and sales; effectively represented company to vendors

and prospective customers, resulting in a 15% increase in sales in just six months.
• Provided orientation, training and guidance to new employees.
EDUCATION
• Bachelor of Science, Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE (June, 20xx)
• Major: Computer Information Systems in Business Minor: Mathematics
• Graduated summa cum laude GPA: 3.98/4.00
TECHNICAL SKILLS
• Java, PERL, ASP, PHP Scripting, Relational Databases, SQL
• Inferential Statistics, Data Analysis, Calculus & Mathematical Analysis, SPSS
WORK EXPERIENCE
• Intern-Market Research, Mutual of Omaha, Omaha, NE (Fall Semester, 20xx)
• Sales Associate & Machinist Assistant, Precision Tool, Omaha, NE (20xx to present)
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5.9.3 CV
A summary of a job applicant’s professional experience and educational background,

along with other relevant information regarding the candidate’s qualifications. The curriculum
vitae is similar to a resume, but is used more frequently by candidates who have published
works in journals, such as scientists or academic professionals.
CV vs. Resume
A CV and resume are similar in that they’re both documents that summarize your
professional history, education, skills and achievements. They’re also both documents
you might provide an employer for consideration for an open position.
It is important to note that in the United States and most of Europe, resumes and
CVs are not interchangeable. A resume is a shorter-form document that provides a concise
overview of your previous roles, skills and details about your education. (The French word
résumé translates to “abstract” or “summary.”) A CV, on the other hand, is typically a
longer, more detailed document focused largely on academic coursework and research.
There are a few exceptions, however. In India, South Africa and Australia, the terms
CV and resume are interchangeable.
How to write a CV
Most CVs include the following information:
• Contact information
• Academic history
• Professional experience
• Qualifications and skills
• Awards and honors
• Publications
• Professional associations
• Grants and fellowships

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• Licenses and certificates
• Volunteer work
• Personal information (Optional)
• Hobbies and interests (Optional)
Some employers, especially postsecondary institutions, may offer their own CV

template and CV examples to help make sure you include all required information in the
format they prefer. Before you submit your application, look for any special CV guidelines
the employer has outlined. For example, some institutions may require you to list only
relevant coursework, fieldwork, dissertations and professional references.
CV Example Template
1. Contact information
Full name
Address (including city, state and zip code)
Phone number
Email address
For example:
Joe Smith
1234 Main Street, Atlanta, GA 30308
770-555-1234
joe.t.smith@email.com
2. Academic history (in reverse-chronological order)
Post-doctoral program
Graduate school
Undergraduate school
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High school
For example:
Ph.D. in Sociology, 2018
University of Texas College of Liberal Arts, Austin, TX
3. Professional experience
Organization or institution
Job title/position
Dates employed
Details about duties, experience and achievements
For example:
University of Southern California
Professor, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry | 2012–2018
Taught multiple undergraduate and graduate courses in orthodontics.
Fostered student commitment to lifelong learning and excellence in dentistry.
Acted as student advisor to first-year dentistry school students.
4. Qualifications and skills
Hard skills
Soft skills
Accreditations and certifications
For example:
Team leadership
Seminar instruction
Fluent in English, Spanish and French

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Certification in Occupational Therapy
Related: Best Skills to Include on a Resume
5. Awards and honors
Award name
Year awarded
Organization that gave award
Award details (how often the award is given, how many people receive the award, etc.)
For example:
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018
Columbia University
Awarded for excellence in fiction literature to one individual in the U.S. each year.
6. Publications and presentations
Publication citation (including authors, date, summary, volume, page, DOI number)
Presentation details (including title, date and place of presentation)
For example:
Yang, J., Sanchez, C., Patel, A., Johnson, L., (2017) “Study of cocoa product component
theobromine and danger to canines.” Journal of Modern Veterinary Medicine. 272: 1234-
56789.
7. Professional associations and affiliations
Name of organization
Geographic location or chapter
Dates of active membership

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For example:
American Cancer Society (2011–Present)
Society for Cancer Research (2013–Present)
SAMPLE CV
EMILY WILLIAMS
42 Oak Drive, Center City, Indiana, 46278
Phone: 555-555-5555
Cell: 555-666-6666
email@email.com
EDUCATION
Ph.D., History, University of Center City, 2018
Dissertation: “Traveling West: A History of the Railroad, 1850-1900”
Dissertation Advisors: William James (first reader), Tatiana Ayole (second reader)
M.A., History, University of Center City, 2015
Dissertation: “The Golden Spike: The Role of the Railroads in the Industrial Revolution”
Dissertation Advisor: John Murray
B.A., American Studies, Rogers College, 2010
Graduated Summa Cum Laude
HONORS AND AWARDS
Best Dissertation Award, University of Center City, 2018
Received award for best dissertation in the humanities. Three awards are given each year
to Ph.D. graduates in humanities, physical sciences, and social & behavioral sciences.
James Doe Award, University of Center City, 2017

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Given to the graduate student who earned the highest GPA in their school.
Phi Beta Kappa, Invited Junior Year at Rogers College, 2009
Dean’s List, Rogers College, 2007-2010
PUBLICATIONS
“The Role of the Railroad in the Development of Philadelphia, 1840-1860.” Journal of

American History and Technology. Vol. 71, no. 8 (Spring 2018): 88-101.
“Book Review: Michael Weston’s Travels through Philadelphia.” Philadelphia History Journal.
Vol. 71, no 2 (Fall 2017): 121-123.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor, University of Center City, 2016-2018
American History, 1865-Present
History of Technology
Teaching Assistant, University of Center City, 2014-2016
World History
Popular Culture in America
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“The Rise of the Easton Railroad Company.” History of America Conference. Philadelphia,
PA, 2018.
“The Railroad in American Literature.” American Railroad History Conference. Trenton, NJ,
2017.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
President, University of Center City Graduate Student Association, 20XX
Conference Organizer, Graduate History Conference, University of Center City, 20XX

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COMMUNITY SERVICE
Co-organizer, Center City Cares, University of Center City Outreach Program, 20XX
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Historians Organization
Organization of American Technology
Languages
English: Native Language
Spanish: Fluent, Advanced Reading and Writing
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5.9.4 Essay writing
An essay is generally a short piece of writing outlining the writer’s perspective or

story. It is often considered synonymous with a story or a paper or an article. Essays can
be both formal as well as informal. Formal essays are generally academic in nature and
tackle serious topics. We will be focusing on informal essays which are more personal
and often have humorous elements.
· Types of Essays: The type of an essay will depend on what the writer wants to
convey to his reader. There are broadly four types of essays. Let us see.
· Narrative Essays: This is when the writer is narrating an incident or story through
the essay. So these are in the first person. The aim when writing narrative essays
is to involve the reader in them as if they were right there when it was happening.
SO make them as vivid and real as possible. One way to make this possible is to
follow the principle of ‘show, don’t tell’. So you must involve the reader in the story.
· Descriptive Essays: Here the writer will describe a place, an object, an event or
maybe even a memory. But it is not just plainly describing things. The writer must
paint a picture through his words. One clever way to do that is to evoke the senses
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of the reader. Do not only rely on sight but also involve the other senses of smell,
touch, sound etc. A descriptive essay when done well will make the reader feel the
emotions the writer was feeling at the moment.
· Expository Essays: In such an essay a writer presents a balanced study of a

topic. To write such an essay, the writer must have real and extensive knowledge
about the subject. There is no scope for the writer’s feelings or emotions in an
expository essay. It is completely based on facts, statistics, examples etc. There
are sub-types here like contrast essays, cause and effect essays etc.
· Persuasive Essays: Here the purpose of the essay is to get the reader to your
side of the argument. A persuasive essay is not just a presentation of facts but an
attempt to convince the reader of the writer’s point of view. Both sides of the
argument have to presented in these essays. But the ultimate aim is to persuade
the readers that the writer’s argument carries more weight.
5.9.4.1 Learn more about Letter Writing here in detail
· Format of an Essay: Now there is no rigid format of an essay. It is a creative

process so it should not be confined within boundaries. However, there is a basic
structure that is generally followed while writing essays. So let us take a look at the
general structure of an essay.
· Introduction: This is the first paragraph of your essay. This is where the writer
introduces his topic for the very first time. You can give a very brief synopsis of your
essay in the introductory paragraph. Generally, it is not very long, about 4-6 lines.
There is plenty of scopes to get creative in the introduction of essays. This will
ensure that you hook the reader, i.e. draw and keep his attention. So to do so you can start
with a quote or a proverb. Sometimes you can even start with a definition. Another interesting
strategy to engage with your reader is to start with a question.
· Body: This is the main crux of your essays. The body is the meat of your essay
sandwiched between the introduction and the conclusion. So the most vital and
important content of the essay will be here. This need not be confined to one
paragraph. It can extend to two or more paragraphs according to the content.
Usually, we have a lot of information to provide in the body. And the mistakes writers
generally make is to go about it in a haphazard manner which leaves the reader confused.
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So it is important to organize your thoughts and content. Write the information in a systematic
flow so that the reader can comprehend. So, for example, you were narrating an incident.
The best manner to do this would be to go in a chronological order.
· Conclusion: This is the last paragraph of the essay. Sometimes a conclusion will
just mirror the introductory paragraph but make sure the words and syntax are
different. A conclusion is also a great place to sum up a story or an argument. You
can round up your essay by providing some moral or wrapping up a story. Make
sure you complete your essays with the conclusion, leave no hanging threads.
5.9.4.2 Tips for Essay Writing
• Give your essays an interesting and appropriate title. It will help draw the attention of
the reader and pique their curiosity
• Keep it between 300-500 words. This is the ideal length, you can take creative license
to increase or decrease it
• Keep your language simple and crisp. Unnecessary complicated and difficult words
break the flow of the sentence.
• Do not make grammar mistakes, use correct punctuation and spellings. If this is not
done it will distract the reader from the content
• Before beginning the essay organize your thought and plot a rough draft. This way
you can ensure the story will flow and not be an unorganized mess.
Web Sources
• FACE - TO – FACE
• Presentation on Interview
• https://www.jobs.ac.uk/careers-advice/interview-tips/2131/10-top-tips-for-
interview-presentations
• https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/interviewingskills/types-of-interviews/1/
• Panel interview
• https://www.thebalancecareers.com/panel-interview-1669475
141
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2014/05/19/job-seekers-7-tips-for-a-
successful-panel-interview/#4f29521e6089
• How to handle a stress interview
• https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-handle-stress-during-a-job-interview
• Group discussion
• https://gdpi.hitbullseye.com/Group-Discussion.php
• http://www.monstercollege.in/article/article_10.html
• Star technique
• https://www.themuse.com/advice/star-interview-method
• WIN THE GAME OF LIFE
• Behavioural ethics in work place
• https://workinstitute.com/resources/workplace-wisdom-blog/articleid
• SWOT Analysis
• https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-
needs-and-resources/swot-analysis/main
• https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm
• Stress Management
• https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm/
• Time Management
• https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/time-
management-list-tips/
• THE FIRST WRITTEN ENCOUNTER : WRITING SKILLS
• Cover Letter
• https://www.thebalancecareers.com/cover-letter-format-2060205
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• Resume
• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/resume.asp
• CV
• https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/what-is-a-cv
• Essay writing
• https://www.toppr.com/guides/english/writing/essay/
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Lesson - 6
GRAMMAR
Learning objectives
• identify phrases, independent clauses, and dependent clauses.
• identify and correct sentence errors
• understand sentence structure
Structure
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Phrase and clause
6.1 Introduction
Author David Crystal tells us in “The Fight for English” that “grammar is the study of
all the contrasts of meaning that it is possible to make within sentences. The ‘rules’ of
grammar tell us how. By one count, there are some 3,500 such rules in English”(Oxford
University Press, 2006)
Intimidating, to be sure, but native speakers don’t have to worry about studying
them all. Grammar, in fact, it’s actually something that’s begun being learned by every
person in their first days and weeks of life, through interaction with others. All native speakers
when they’re born and start learning it as they hear it spoken around them, such as how
sentences are put together (syntax), and the pieces that make them up (morphology).
“A preschooler’s tacit knowledge of grammar is more sophisticated than the thickest

style manual,” writes Steven Pinker in “Words and Rules.” “[Grammar should not] be
confused with the guidelines for how one ‘ought’ to speak”(Harper, 1999)
6.2 Phrase and Clause

A phrase is a collection of words that may have nouns or verbals, but it does not
have a subject doing a verb. The following are examples of phrases:
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• leaving behind the dog
• smashing into a fence
• before the first test
• after the devastation
• between ignorance and intelligence
• broken into thousands of pieces
• because of her glittering smile
In these examples above, you will find nouns (dog, fence, test, devastation, ignorance,
intelligence, thousands, pieces). You also have some verbals (leaving, smashing), but in
no case is the noun functioning as a subject doing a predicate verb. They are all phrases.
A clause is a collection of words that has a subject that is actively doing a verb. The
following are examples of clauses:
• since she laughs at diffident men
• I despise individuals of low character
• when the saints go marching in
• Obediah Simpson is uglier than a rabid raccoon
• because she smiled at him.
In the examples above, we find either a noun or a pronoun that is a subject (bold-print
and red) attached to a predicate verb (underlined and purple) in each case:
• Obediah Simpson is uglier than a rabid raccoon
• because she smiled at him

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If the clause could stand by itself, and form a complete sentence with punctuation, we
call the clause an independent clause. The following are independent clauses:
• Obediah Simpson is uglier than a rabid racoon
We could easily turn independent clauses into complete sentences by adding

appropriate punctuation marks. We might say, “I despise individuals of low character.” Or
we might write, “Obediah Simpson is uglier than a rabid racoon!” We call them independent
because these types of clauses can stand independently by themselves, without any extra
words attached, and be complete sentences.
Dependent clauses have a subject doing a verb, but they have a subordinate
conjunction placed in front of the clause. That subordinate conjunction means that the
clause can’t stand independently by itself and become a complete sentence. Instead, the
dependent clause is dependent upon another clause—it can’t make a complete sentence
by itself, even though it has a subject doing a verb. Here are some examples of dependent
clauses:
• because she smiled at him
These clauses simply do not form complete thoughts or sentences by themselves.

Those subordinate conjunctions—since, when, and because—cause the listener to expect
some extra material. The thought is incomplete. If you walked up to a friend in the dorms
and said, “since she laughs at diffident men,” and then walked away without adding an
independent clause, the friend would be completely baffled.
Check your Progress
Complete the following sentence using phrase or clause.
1. It is foolish ____________
2. It might rain ______________
3. Come home soon, so that ______________

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4. I studies well _____________
5. He failed because ______________
Web Sources
• https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/gram_clauses_n_phrases.html
• http://www.studiestoday.com/worksheet-english-cbse-class-7-english-
practice-worksheet-phrases-and-clauses-201133.html
147
MODEL QUESTION PAPER

Second Year - Third Semester
FOUNDATION COURSE
ENGLISH
Time: 3 hours Max.Marks:75
SECTION A (10 x 2 = 20marks)
Answer any TEN Questions out of TWELVE questions
All questions carry equal marks
1. What do you mean by “Dress in Communication”?
3. How are George Harrison and Ravi Shankar Connected?
4. How does Obama praise the work of his lady?
5. What is Obama’s perception on ‘change’?
6. Why do you think Abdul Kalam offers salutation to Indians everywhere?
7. What Is a Resume?
8. Who is the addresser and the addressee in the poem – ‘The Justice Of Peace”.
9. What are the two meanings of the title of Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging?”
10. What are some poetic devices in Ozymandias?
11. What kind of man and God does Tagore create?
12. What is Group Discussion?

148
SECTION B (5 x 5 = 25 marks)
Answer ANY FIVE of the following in 200 words each:
13. Bring out the importance of communication
15. Comment on the three facets of Harrison’s personality.
16. What are the qualities that distinguish a visionary and an ordinary man?
17. What is the reason for Obama oppose America’s involvement in Iraq?
18. Why did Abdul Kalam think that integrating people from various field of life is
necessary?
19. What are the greatest strengths of Indian heritage and tradition?
SECTION C (3x10=30 marks)
Answer ANY THREE of the following in 300 words each.
21. Write a critical appreciation of the poem- ‘The Justice Of Peace”.
22. Explore the ideas in the poem A Different History by Sujata Bhatt.
23. What inferences does the narrator make about Ozymandias from the way the face
of the statue looks?
24. Write a critical analysis of the story “The Avenger”.
25. Prepare a CV for applying a job of your choice.

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SFEN 21

INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

It is with a great pleasure to welcome you as a student of Institute of Distance

With best wishes from mind and heart,

Dr. V. Meena Kumari,

EDITING AND REVIEWING

© UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS, CHENNAI 600 005.

2.Fusion Music - Pt. Ravi Shankar

3. About “An Inconvenient Truth”-Davis Guggenheim

4. A Speech - N.R. Narayana Murthy

5. A Speech - Barack Obama

6. Unity of Minds - A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

1. The Justice of Peace - HillariBellock

2. A Different History - Sujata Bhatt

3. Digging - Seamus Heaney

4. I Love You Mom -

5. Ozymandias of Egypt - Percy Bysshe Shelly

6. Leave this Chanting and Singing and Telling of Beads - Rabindranath

1. Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde

2. The Story of Stanford -

3. Engine Trouble - R.K. Narayan

4. After Twenty Years - O. Henry

5. Two Gentlemen of Verona - A.J. Cronin

6. The Avenger - AntonChekhow.

Unit - IV Biographies from Inspiring Lives

4. Dr.Amartya Kumar Sen

Sl.No. Unit Title Page

3 Short Stories 047

5 Interview Skills 089

• enrich their active and passive vocabulary.

• express the ideas of the passage orally and in writing.

• enjoy reading and writing.

• develop their imagination.

• prepare the students for world citizenship.

1.2 Thematic Introduction

1.3 Dress In Communication

1.4 Fusion Music

1.5 About An Inconvenient Truth

1.7 Unity Of Minds

1.8 I Love You, Mom

1.2 Thematic Introduction

1.3. Dress In Communication - Earnest Hemingway

• Dress is considered an aspect of non-verbal communication and has social

Check your progress

1. Bring out the importance of communication

2. Critically analyse the prose.

3. What is the outcome of the prose?

4. What do you mean by “ Dress in Communiacation”?

5. What do you wear is very important in any situation? Discuss.

1. Summarize the importance of communication.

2. What is the moral of the prose?

3. Do people judge people by their clothes?

4. Can people be successful due to their outfit too?

1.4 Fusion Music - Pt. Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar was a world-renowned musician, composer, performer, and scholar

Check your progress

1. What is the moral of the prose?

2. What is the major theme explored in the prose?

3. Trace the journey from guru to father of the speaker.

4. Who is George Harrison?

5. How are George Harrison and Ravi Shankar Connected?

1. Critically analyse the prose.

2. What is the main idea of the prose?

3. Comment on the three facets of Harrison’s personality.