A Horse and Two Goats: Summary

Set in Kritam, ‘‘probably the tiniest’’ of India’s 700,000 villages, ‘‘A Horse and Two
Goats’’ opens with a clear picture of the poverty in which the protagonist Muni lives. Of the
thirty houses in the village, only one, the Big House, is made of brick. The others, including
Muni’s, are made of ‘‘bamboo thatch, straw, mud, and other unspecified materials.’’ There is
no running water and no electricity, and Muni’s wife cooks their typical breakfast of ‘‘a
handful of millet flour’’ over a fire in a mud pot. On this day, Muni has shaken down six
drumsticks (a local name for a type of horse radish) from the drumstick tree growing in front
of his house, and he asks his wife to prepare them for him in a sauce. She agrees, provided
he can get the other ingredients, none of which they have in the house: rice, dhall (lentils),
spices, oil and a potato. Muni and his wife have not always been so poor. Once, when he
considered himself prosperous, he had a flock of forty sheep and goats which he would lead
out to graze every day. But life has not been kind to him A Horse and Two Goats:
Introduction 2 or to his flocks: years of drought, a great famine, and an epidemic that ran
through Muni’s flock have taken their toll. And as a member of the lowest of India’s castes,
Muni was never permitted to go to school or to learn a trade. Now he is reduced to two goats,
too scrawny to sell or to eat. He and his wife have no children to help them in their old age,
so their only income is from the odd jobs his wife occasionally takes on at the Big House.
Muni has exhausted his credit at every shop in town, and today, when he asks a local
shopman to give him the items his wife requires to cook the drumsticks, he is sent away
humiliated. There is no other food in the house, so Muni’s wife sends him away with the
goats. ‘‘Fast till the evening,’’ she tells him. ‘‘It’ll do you good.’’ Muni takes the goats to
their usual spot a few miles away: a grassy area near the highway, where he can sit in the
shade of a life-sized statue of a horse and a warrior and watch trucks and buses go by. The
statue is made of weather-beaten clay and has stood in the same spot for all of Muni’s
seventy or more years. As Muni watches the road and waits for the appropriate time to return
home, a yellow station wagon comes down the road and pulls over. A redfaced American
man dressed in khaki clothing gets out and is asking Muni where to find the nearest gas
station when he notices the statue, which he finds ‘‘marvelous.’’ Muni’s first impulse is to
run away, assuming from the khaki that this foreigner must be a policeman or a soldier. But
Muni is too old to run any more, and he cannot leave the goats. The two begin to converse—
if ‘‘conversation’’ can be used to describe what happens when two people speak to each
other in separate languages, neither understanding the other. ‘‘Namaste! How do you do?’’
the American says in greeting, using his only Indian word. Muni responds with the only
English he knows: ‘‘Yes, no.’’ The American, a businessman from New York City, lights a
cigarette and offers one to Muni, who knows about cigarettes but has never had one before.
He offers Muni his business card, but Muni fears it is a warrant of some kind. Muni launches
into a long explanation of his innocence of whatever crime the man is investigating, and the
American asks questions about the horse statue, which he would like to buy. He tells Muni
about a bad day at work, when he was forced to work for four hours without elevators or
electricity, and seems completely unaware that Muni lives this way every day. By now he is
convinced that Muni is the owner of the statue, which he is determined to buy. The two talk
back and forth, each about his own life. Muni remembers his father and grandfather telling
about the statue and the ancient story it depicts, and tries to explain to the American how old
it is. ‘‘I get a kick out of every word you utter,’’ the American replies. Muni reminisces
about his difficult and impoverished childhood working in the fields, and the American
laughs heartily. Muni interprets the statue: ‘‘This is our guardian. . . . At the end of Kali
Yuga, this world and all other worlds will be destroyed, and the Redeemer will come in the
shape of a horse.’’ The American replies, ‘‘I assure you this will have the best home in the
U.S.A. I’ll push away the bookcase. . . . The TV may have to be shifted. . . . I don’t see how
that can interfere with the party—we’ll stand around him and have our drinks.’’ It is clear
that even if the two could understand each other’s words, they could not understand each
other’s worlds. Finally, the American pushes one hundred rupees into Muni’s hand—twenty
times Muni’s debt with the shopkeeper. He considers that he has bought the horse, and Muni
believes he has just sold his goats. Muni runs home to present the money to his wife, while
the American flags down a truck, gets help breaking the horse off its pedestal, and drives
away with his purchase. Muni’s wife does not believe her husband’s story about where the
money came from, and her suspicions only increase when the goats find their way home. As
the story ends, she is shrieking at him, and Muni appears to be not much better off than he
was at the start.
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The Cow of the Barricades by Raja Rao

The story has two main characters- the Master and Gauri, the cow. The people of
Suryanarayana Street pay respects to Gauri who visit the Street every Tuesday. Her arrival
gives a kind of awareness to the people who are very eager to know her. She would come to
her Master who would give her food. People take the cow to be a strange creature, which
would disappear after paying a visit and only the Master knew about her whereabouts. Every
time after a well reception she would leave the Street without any further halt.

Everybody liked, loved and respected her. People thought her to be Goddess Lakshmi.
Different kinds of people would come to her with various wishes to be graced and fulfilled.
Students for good marks, girls for handsome husbands, widows for purity, childless for
children and the like. Therefore, every Tuesday there was a well-prepared procession of men
and women at the Master’s hermitage. But Gauri would pass by them all unaffected by the
attention she received.
The scene changes to a fight for freedom and on the advice of the Master, people stop buying
foreign cloth, stop serving the Englishmen’s government and refuse to pay taxes. The
workmen build barricades to prevent the army from entering the city. But the Master
said: “No barricades in the name of the Mahatma, for much blood will be spilt. No, there
shall be no battle, brothers.”
When the city is about to be assaulted by the British, Gauri clambers to the top of the
barricades. The crowd begins to chant the hymn Vande Mataram. Angered at this, the chief
of the army fires a shot and kills Gauri. Only then is peace restored.

The story is set in the thirties when Gandhi began his non-violent movement against the
British. The cow becomes symbolic of the synthesis between carrying on of traditions and
yet adapting to the changing times- the image of the sacred cow and how people worship the
animal which becomes a repository of traditional values and when the cow is shot in the
head by a British officer, saving several lives it becomes a martyr in the cause of the Indian
freedom struggle. Raja Rao has given a realistic portrayal of India as well as the beliefs that
people hold. The Master is Mahatma Gandhi while the cow stands for Mother India.
Published in 1947, the story is a part of a collection of stories and hold relevance for the
times in which it was written.

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Building A Wall – Story of The Great Wall Of China

Plz refer the link below :

http://www.history.com/topics/great-wall-of-china

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Mending Wall

Summary
A stone wall separates the speaker’s property from his neighbor’s. In spring, the two meet
to walk the wall and jointly make repairs. The speaker sees no reason for the wall to be
kept—there are no cows to be contained, just apple and pine trees. He does not believe in
walls for the sake of walls. The neighbor resorts to an old adage: “Good fences make
good neighbors.” The speaker remains unconvinced and mischievously presses the
neighbor to look beyond the old-fashioned folly of such reasoning. His neighbor will not
be swayed. The speaker envisions his neighbor as a holdover from a justifiably outmoded
era, a living example of a dark-age mentality. But the neighbor simply repeats the adage.

Commentary
I have a friend who, as a young girl, had to memorize this poem as punishment for some
now-forgotten misbehavior. Forced memorization is never pleasant; still, this is a fine
poem for recital. “Mending Wall” is sonorous, homey, wry—arch, even—yet serene; it is
steeped in levels of meaning implied by its well-wrought metaphoric suggestions. These
implications inspire numerous interpretations and make definitive readings suspect. Here
are but a few things to think about as you reread the poem.
The image at the heart of “Mending Wall” is arresting: two men meeting on terms of
civility and neighborliness to build a barrier between them. They do so out of tradition,
out of habit. Yet the very earth conspires against them and makes their task Sisyphean.
Sisyphus, you may recall, is the figure in Greek mythology condemned perpetually to
push a boulder up a hill, only to have the boulder roll down again. These men push
boulders back on top of the wall; yet just as inevitably, whether at the hand of hunters or
sprites, or the frost and thaw of nature’s invisible hand, the boulders tumble down again.
Still, the neighbors persist. The poem, thus, seems to meditate conventionally on three
grand.

Berlin Wall

Themes: barrier-building (segregation, in the broadest sense of the word), the doomed
nature of this enterprise, and our persistence in this activity regardless.
But, as we so often see when we look closely at Frost’s best poems, what begins in folksy
straightforwardness ends in complex ambiguity. The speaker would have us believe that
there are two types of people: those who stubbornly insist on building superfluous walls
(with clichés as their justification) and those who would dispense with this practice—
wall-builders and wall-breakers. But are these impulses so easily separable? And what
does the poem really say about the necessity of boundaries?
The speaker may scorn his neighbor’s obstinate wall-building, may observe the activity
with humorous detachment, but he himself goes to the wall at all times of the year to
mend the damage done by hunters; it is the speaker who contacts the neighbor at wall-
mending time to set the annual appointment. Which person, then, is the real wall-builder?
The speaker says he sees no need for a wall here, but this implies that there may be a need
for a wall elsewhere— “where there are cows,” for example. Yet the speaker must
derive something,some use, some satisfaction, out of the exercise of wall-building, or
why would he initiate it here? There is something in him that does love a wall, or at least
the act of making a wall.

The Berlin Wall was built by the communist government of East Berlin 1961. The wall
separated East Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing
East Berlin. In many ways it was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that separated the
democratic western countries and the communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the
Cold War. How it All Started After World War II the country of Germany ended up dividing
into two separate countries. East Germany became a communist country under the control of
the Soviet Union. At the same time West Germany was a democratic country and allied with
Britain, France, and the United States. The initial plan was that the country would eventually
be reunited, but this didn't happen for a long time. The City of Berlin Berlin was the capital
of Germany. Even though it was located in the eastern half of the country, the city was
controlled by all four major powers; the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and France.
Defections As people in East Germany began to realize that they did not want to live under
the rule of the Soviet Union and communism, they started to leave the eastern part of the
country and move to the west. These people were called defectors. Over time more and more
people left. The Soviet and East German leaders began to worry that they were losing too
many people. Over the course of the years 1949 to 1959, over 2 million people left the
country. In 1960 alone, around 230,000 people defected. Although the East Germans tried to
keep people from leaving, it was fairly easy for people to leave in the city of Berlin because
the inside of the city was controlled by all four major powers. Building the Wall Finally, the
Soviets and the East German leaders had had enough. On August 12th and 13th of 1961 they
built a wall around Berlin to prevent people from leaving. At first the wall was just a barbed
wire fence. Later it would be rebuilt with concrete blocks 12 feet high and four feet wide.
The Wall is Torn Down In 1987 President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Berlin where he
asked the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to "Tear down this Wall!"
President Ronald Reagan giving speech Around that time the Soviet Union was beginning to
collapse. They were losing their hold on East Germany. A few years later on November 9,
1989 the announcement was made. The borders were open and people could freely move
between Eastern and Western Germany. Much of the wall was torn down by people chipping
away as they celebrated the end to a divided Germany. On October 3, 1990 Germany was
officially reunified into a single country. Interesting Facts About the Berlin Wall The Eastern
Germany government called the wall the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. The Western
Germans often referred to it as the Wall of Shame. Around 20% of the East German
population left the country in the years leading up to the building of the wall.

*The country of East Germany was officially called the German Democratic Republic or
GDR.

*There were also many guard towers along the wall.

*Guards were ordered to shoot anyone attempting to escape.

*It is estimated that around 5000 people escaped over or through the wall during the 28
years it stood. Around 200 were killed trying to escape.
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 11/9 Versus 9/11
As the title suggests this chapter is about two dates that have forever changed not only the
United State but also the world. 11/9 was about tearing down walls and opening up the world
“so every human being would realize his or her full potential.” During that time, we saw the
world open up like never before and for the first time ever we had the opportunity to be truly
global. The events of 9/11 served a different purpose. Hate and power forced us to put up
walls once again and served to close up the world.

What Friedman focuses on here is both of these events took imagination. With the tools we
have available to us today we really have the power to create almost anything. We are only
limited by our imagination. This reinforces one of themes throughout the book, the power of
the individual. Never before has an individual had so much power as we do today. In earlier
posts and comments, I was concerned about how we are to compete in this flat world and
this chapter made me realize something. We as individuals have as much access to the flat
world as anyone in India or China. We as individuals need to focus on how we can utilize
this to our advantage! I love the quote from the text, “We need to think more seriously than
ever about how we encourage people to focus on productive outcomes that advance and
unite civilization- peaceful imaginations that seek to minimize alienation and celebrate
interdependence rather than self-efficiency, inclusion rather than exclusion. The phrase
describes how we can ensure future world changing events are more in line with 11/9 and
not 9/11. As Friedman put it, we have the options of brining everyone up to the same level or
bringing everyone down to the same level.

Another key thing to pull from this chapter is the fact that we cannot live in fear of what
could happen. We cannot let events like 9/11 change us into a fearful nation. When we do we
all become small minded and essentially put ourselves in our own cave.

This chapter also answered a question for me. Why are things like Wikkipedia and open-
source communities so popular? I honestly could not see what could motivate people outside
of the financial gain. Well apparently, the sense of ownership is enough to motivate people
to contribute. People also get a validation that is perhaps greater than any financial award.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

'Girl', a Prose Poem

'Girl' is a prose poem written by Jamaica Kincaid that was published in The New Yorker in
1978.
'Girl' was Kincaid's first piece of published work. Kincaid is from Antigua, and most of her
work contains stories of Antiguan life as a colony of Great Britain and as an independent
nation dealing with the aftermath of colonial rule. As a woman of African descent, Kincaid
explores gender, race and class issues in her work. 'Girl' is no exception and poignantly
exemplifies many of these themes.
Let's take a closer look!

Summary
A prose poem reads like prose, but it follows the rules of conventional poetry. The only
characters in 'Girl' are a mother and a daughter. 'Girl' is a somewhat of a stream-of-
consciousness narrative of a mother giving her young daughter advice on important life
issues and concerns. The poem is one long sentence of various commands separated by semi-
colons.
The advice consists of how to do certain domestic behaviors, including making Antiguan
dishes, as well as the more assertive points of being a respectable woman and upholding
sexual purity. There is a lot of discussion from the mother about how the daughter must
interact with people as well as how to behave in a romantic relationship with a man.
The daughter only speaks twice in the story. First she stands up for herself against one of her
mother's questions that turned into an accusation, and again at the end where she asks her
mother a clarifying question. It concludes abruptly with a rhetorical question from the
mother wondering if her daughter didn't understand how to behave based on everything she
was told.

To Mother By S.Usha

The presented poetry “To Mother” has been composed by S.usha. The poet has drawn the
picture of an alert mother who takes care of the activities of her daughter who wants to lead
a free life different from her.
The poem begins with a demand of the daughter from her mother forbidding following her
all traditional instructions. In the modern era the society is pervaded with corruption in such
age, the poem has great relevance. It can be summarized in following ways: -
Pleading of daughter: - The poet is pleading with her mother to allow her to grow up on her
own terms breaking traditions.
Actually in tradition, usually parents lay down code of conducts and their siblings have to
follow. But the daughter clines to follow them.
The poet requests the mother not to spread out her sari to dry in such a way that its shades
snatch the life of green plant without sunlight. She means to say that her mother should not
impose traditional code of conducts; otherwise she will not grow up bold.
Warning of mother: - The poet says that her mother keeps on warning. She warns in
following ways: - Firstly she prohibits to behave like a child. Secondly she prohibits to show
off before strangers in the street. Thirdly the mother warns her to flirt with any individual
passing through. Finally she prohibits her to act like a tom boy.
Traditional obligation: - The poet appeals her mother and says that she will not follow
traditional obligations without questions. She too, appeals, not to be force her to live in the
same way as the girls of her ages have been living.
The girl denies dancing to the snake charmer’s tune played by her mother and following the
customs and norms laid down by the society.
She is willing to use the opportunities for the trial of her powers.
Dislikes and denies: - The poet denies to live like a traditional housewife, who decorates her
home and remains cut off from light and air. She does not want to be submissive to mother’s
dictates. Actually she does not intend to live like a fish in a bowl.
She is keen to enjoy freedom and flow like a river in floods breaking out dams. Finally she is
willing to decide her course an lead her own destiny.
Conclusion: - S.usha, the poetess has been playing the character of the girl in the poem
herself. She has tried to make us clear about that fact that the young generation rebels out to
challenge age tradition and authority. The girl says her mother must not expect her to be like
her, a traditional house wife submissive to all trivial customs, traditions and norms of the
society. She wants to live life freely without any boundaries.

A RING TO ME IS BONDAGE
-By Mina Assadi
Summary
Mina Assadi is a well known Iranian writer living in exile. As a writer-activist, Mina Assadi
has always championed the cause of women. She has also raised her voice against the regime
in Iran. “A Ring to Me is Bondage” could be read as a poem where the poet introduces
herself. It is very evident that the speaker in the poem is a very determined self. Her attitude
towards religion and relationships is openly stated in the poem. Religion in her eyes consists
of elements of subjugation. She prefers not to think of prayer-mats and confinement. A free
outdoor life initiates in her a religious experience. The contradictory spirit of the poet is
evident in the second stanza. She fails to comprehend affection, she is not bothered by
national boundaries, aloneness and solitude mean happiness to her, a lonely desert is home to
her and anything that evokes sadness is ‘love’ to her. The poet also pledges her allegiance to
nature. Anyone who plucks a flower is blind in her eyes; anyone who traps a fish is a
murderer. The sea is a source of constant fascination. A ring, particularly a wedding ring,
ought to signify bonding rather than “bondage’ which is hwat it means to her. Mina Assadi
seems to criticize the age old institutions of Family, Religion and even Government that
subjugate women. Also prominent in the poem are the images of fight and confinement. She
seems to associate movement and outdoor life with freedom. Thus words like roads,
sparrows, walk etc. signify the positive spirit. Phrases like prayer-mats, net, cage, gaoler etc.
signify unhappiness. In theme as well as in treatment, Assadi’s poems provide a different,
‘contrary’ experience.

THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

-By Aldous Leonard Huxley

Summary of the text

Huxley’s essay discusses the phenomenon called “Beauty Industry” where large amount of
money is spent on enhancing physical beauty. He is critical of such manufactured beauty.
Aldous Huxley expresses his wonder at the fact that the beauty industry in America seemed
to be unaffected even by the great depression of 1929. Women still spend money on
beautifying themselves. But 156 million pounds a year is a huge sum to spend on beauty
industry, according to Huxley. He does not know what the European figures are. It may be
less because Europe is poor. The women would probably satisfy themselves using soap and
dreaming of a miraculous change like that of the ravishing creatures who smile so rosily and
creamily, so peachily and pearlily, from every hoarding. But even in Europe more money is
spent on beauty than it was in the past. Huxley probes into the reasons for this change. It
may be general prosperity. The rich have always cultivated their personal appearance. So the
poor who are a bit better off than their previous generation also might have become
interested in beauty. But the modern cult of beauty seems not exclusively the function of
wealth. It may be due to changes that have taken place outside the economic sphere. The
change is in the status of women and of the changes in our attitude towards the ‘merely
physical’. Women are freer than in the past to exercise the privilege of being attractive. Since
the Christian dogmas of asceticism which do not bother them, they can do justice both to the
body and soul by enhancing strength and beauty. School of Distance Education Reading
Literature in English 17 Huxley doubts whether all the efforts used to maintain physical
beauty actually gives any positive result. All the time, money and energy spent on massage,
health motors and skin foods seems to be both a tremendous success and a lamentable
failure. It depends on how you look at the results. It is good that more women retain their
youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past. ‘Old ladies’ are becoming rare. In a few
years, they will be extinct. The ‘old lady’ image would become old fashioned. The new age
crone will be golden, curly and cherry-lipped, neatankled and slender. This may be due to
the modern cosmetics and improved health. Ugliness is considered as one of the symptoms
of disease and beauty that of health. Hence, a campaign for beauty also become a campaign
for health. Huxley agrees that if every woman becomes healthy and beautiful naturally it is
good. But will such a situation occur? He says no. For real beauty is as much an affair of the
inner as of the outer self. He sites the example of a porcelain jar which has a beautiful shape.
It may be empty or dirty inside. But that does not matter. But a woman is alive and so her
beauty is not skin-deep. Huxley identifies numerous forms of psychological ugliness. There
is an ugliness of stupidity, of unawareness, greed, lasciviousness or avarice. This brings on
an expression of badtempered boredom which ruins their charm. Such women are repulsive.
Another common problem is hardness that spoils pretty faces. It is not due to psychological
reasons but because of over painting. This makes them cease to look like human forms. One
has to search hard to find the living softness beneath. But most often the face is not soft, and
its hardness comes from within. They are outward visible signs of some emotional or
instinctive disharmony, often of a sexual nature. Huxley points out that so long as
disharmony and boredom exists the beauty industry will thrive. To him outward
beautification is not an important part of life. He asserts that all men and women will be
beautiful only when the social arrangements give to everyone of them an opportunity to live
completely and harmoniously in a world without vices. But Huxley knows that it is not easy.
Still he hopes that at least fewer ugly human beings will be present in the world in the future.

WISH YOU ALL THE VERY BEST FOR YOUR FINALS !!!

By –
Sudhindra Mudhol
BBA ‘C’(R15Bm215)
REVA UNIVERSITY