LESSON –I

A DRAWER FULL OF HAPPINESS

‘ A drawer full of happiness ‘ is an article which was published in a news daily The Hindu on 25th
March 2018 by Anchal jagnani. The writer is a graduate in business management .She has been
working in the area of content writing and social media marketing for more than three years .
In this article , The author Anchal Jagnani depicted the contrast between 1990s with that of
present day. The author,her sister and her niece had no more intensions to turn up their minds towards old
things, they might think that they were obsolete and they seemed to be no more decorative to their
habitance. It was due to that reason the drawer of the dressing table was remained locked for 25 years.
In 1989 ,there was a dressing table at the writer’s house in Delhi . Even their family was transferred to
Ahmedabad ,it was continuously present with them for many years . it was locked for twenty years . The
writer and her sisters were more eager to open the drawer and to see what was hidden in it . They had
often tried with unmatched keys to unlock the drawer . but all their efforts were in futile .
The writer and her sisters compelled their father to unfasten the lock with a hammer . Her father
agreed and unfastened the dressing table’s drawer with a hammer . The writer and all her sisters
hurriedly to the drawer and found that there were wooden hair pins , metal Bindi stamps , Bindi powder ,
Kum kum cases , Eye shadow kit , Mascara , a collection of lipsticks . The writer was marveled at the
uniqueness of the products and the ways in which woman used everyday products .
In this article the writer found herself having to do a balancing act between things and happiness.
She stated that in 1990s things were unintentionally happened in a balance way. The author was
bewildered when she saw the products were still in usable condition and the mascara is in its consistency
as much as the gorgeous berry and burgundy lipsticks retained their creaminess. The author knew that the
decade of 2000s, women in a typical Indian household used metal stamps of intricate designs, dipped in
the chosen colored powder to emboss a bindi between their eyebrows.

LESSON -2
(Nehru’s letter to daughter Indira on her birthday)
The present lesson is a letter written by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru from Naini Jail to his daughter, Indira
Gandhi, on the latter’s thirteenth birthday. Through his letter Pandit Nehru tells Indira that one can get to
the right answer only after discussion. We must not believe that since we have learned everything we
have become wise.
Pandit Nehru goes on to tell her how Bapu ji motivated the common man to become a part of the
struggle for freedom. He cited the example of how common men and women who generally cannot think
beyond their household, rise above petty considerations to become heroes when they fight for a cause.
Pandit Nehru also tells Indira about the importance of understanding and doing what is right. He says that
fighting for freedom was the right thing to do. She should not fear of being part of the movement.
Pandit Nehru finally blesses Indira by saying that she may grow up into a brave soldier in the
service of the nation.
Nehru’s letters to a young Indira have been immortalised in the famous collection ‘Letters from a
Father to his Daughter’, this one holds a special significance because it reflects Nehru’s own ideals of
honest, fearless living. As a closely watched public figure, this could not have been an easy ideal to live
by. Despite that, he advises Indira to aspire to a life of courage and openness as she stands on the
threshold of young adulthood. He suggested his daughter in three dimensions : 1.How to be fearless :
'Never do anything in secret or anything that you would wish to hide. For the desire to hide anything
means that you are afraid, and fear is a bad thing and unworthy of you. Be brave, and all the rest follows.''
2. On the idea of race and colour : ''We find that people's complexions are the result of the climate they
live in. They have nothing to do with the worthiness or goodness or beauty of a person.'' 3.Money cannot
buy everything :''We must remember that money is no good by itself. It only helps us to get other things
that we want. It helps us to exchange goods...Some foolish people imagine that money itself is a good and
they collect and hoard it, instead of using it. This shows that they do not know how money came to be
used and what it really is.
 LESSON -3
STEPHEN HAWKING- A POSITIVE BENCH MARK

Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England He died in March
14, 2018, Cambridge, He is an English theoretical physicist whose theory of exploding black holes drew
upon both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. He also worked with space-time singularities.
An Unparalleled Genius :An unparalleled genius that conquered the odd at personal and
cosmological levels, Steven W.Hawking influenced and inspired many a generation. He is widely
regarded as one of the most shining minds in the spheres of Cosmology and Astrophysics, an heir
apparent to Einstein himself. Given two years to live, in 1963, he was diagnosed with a rare and
debilitating motor-neuron disorder called Lou Gehrig’s disease or ALS(Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
He did not accept the writing on the wall and lived for another 55 years. Deprived of the abilities to write
or move, he used his powers to bring out something of his thought and creativity.
His achievements : Among his many achievements, the post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge for
three decades was a highlight. The post was once honoured by Sir Isaac Newton himself. He was awarded
the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1982, an honour just second to knighthood.
At the age of 32, he was inducted as one of the youngest Fellows in the Royal Society. Even though he
was a British citizen, he was awarded the American Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
A man of miracles, he refused limitations of circumstance many times. Just like when he survived
Pneumonia by having a Tracheotomy in 1985 which left his speech impaired. Undefeated, he started
using a computerized speech synthesizer. And miraculously the progression of his ALS froze to almost
static.
Other side of Hawking : Far from being perfect, he did have his faults and follies. His first wife Jane
Wilde considered him to be a very egotistical, misogynistic and unflattering image of the man. Perhaps he
was not even the best Physicist of his time and famously lost a few bets with his peers like
the ’information paradox i.e. loss of physical information stored in a black hole at its demise’ or that the
discovery of ‘Higgs-Boson particle’ was not possible.
The fact that he never won a Nobel Prize does not help the claim of him being the most successful in his
field. Even though he did win a plethora of otherawards like Albert Einstein Award, the Fundamental
Physics Prize etc and had an incredible 12 Honorary Degrees.
A Good Man :
The iconography of a wheelchair-bound man with head rested on side spinning the most magnificent
of ‘scientific fairy tales’ will surely withstand the test of time and space.
He regarded aggression as the biggest human failing or a relic from the ‘Caveman’ days and archaic for
the present age. He had his reservations about Artificial Intelligence and shared concerns about the
environment and human tendency to self-destruct.

LESSON -4

A Brief essay on ------Like a Tree, Unbowed ( Wangari Maathai )

Wangarĩ Muta Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a renowned Kenyan social,
environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize. She was educated
in the United States at Benedictine College and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of
Nairobi in Kenya.
In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental
organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. In 1984,
she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award. Maathai was an elected member of Parliament and served
as assistant minister for Environment and Natural resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki
between January 2003 and November 2005. She was an Honorary Councillor of the World Future
Council. She was affiliated to professional bodies and received several awards. On Sunday, 25 September
2011, Maathai died of complications from ovarian cancer.
Some people, in fact, have likened her to a tree, perhaps one of the ficus trees or elms she has
planted throughout Kenya -- solid and unbowed. It is trees that Dr. Maathai has used to build her
women's movement. Through her efforts, women across Africa have planted tens of millions of trees and
done their part to stop the deforestation that has stripped much of the continent bare. Dr. Maathai's Green
Belt Movement has also nurtured as many women as it has acacias or cedars.
Her movement, begun in 1977, started with just a handful of seedlings in her backyard. It grew to
include hundreds of tree nurseries throughout Africa, where seedlings are doled out to women, who plant
them on both public and private lands. For every tree that takes root, the woman who planted it earns a
small sum. For many women, tree planting is now a good deed that also helps make ends meet.
Many women wondered decades ago why Dr. Maathai was so devoted to saving trees. It is Africa's
women, after all, who trek out in the morning with small axes in hand in search of firewood to cook the
family meal. Some women wondered whether Dr. Maathai had turned on her fellow women in favor of
the tree.
The answer, of course, was no. Her movement has always been as much about women as about
trees. Dr. Maathai's work has gone beyond trees. She has played a role in fighting for the cancellation of
African governments' foreign debts and campaigned against land grabbing, in which members of Africa's
elite claim public land as their own. Fighting corruption has also been one of her causes.

LESSON-5
STAY HUNGRY - STAY FOOLISH

Steve Jobs’s life-story is one of great resolution and fortitude. It is a story of adversity overcome through
sheer perseverance and creative ingenuity. But one thing stands out – he did what he loved. It is a lesson
for all- to follow your heart and do what you love and to trust your instincts even if some things do not
make sense at the time, such as dropping in on a calligraphy course after dropping out of Reed College.
But Jobs says, “It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was
very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.” That was after he used his lessons in calligraphy to
design the beautiful typography in the Macs we use. “If I had never dropped in on that single course in
college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And
since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them,” Jobs added
tongue-in-cheek.
Jobs’s insights on love and loss are refreshing. His call for people to believe in something and
live with the notion that some day we will all die is a marked contrast to the notion of the
materialistic American entrepreneur we have come to know. “You have to trust in something – your gut,
destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in
my life.” It is this trust that enabled Jobs, after being fired from Apple, to found the world’s most
successful animation company “Pixar” and “NeXT” whose innovations, Jobs says, “ are at the heart
of Apple’s current renaissance.” “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that happened to me,” says
Jobs, a bracing idea for a young graduate to fathom. He attributes his success to his realization that
despite the setback he still loved what he did. “I had been rejected, but I was still in love,” comments Jobs
perhaps with a pun intended for he met his future wife, Laurene, during this time.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the lesson Jobs imparted – follow your heart. I end with Jobs’
parting wisdom to the Stanford graduates, a timeless quote and inspiring truism valid as much as the one
that began this essay – “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”