A TIGER IN THE ZOO BY LESLIE NORRIS

A TIGER IN THE ZOO BY LESLIE NORRIS 

This poem contrasts a tiger in the zoo with the tiger in its natural habitat. The poem moves from the zoo to the jungle, and back again to the zoo. Read the poem silently once, and say which stanzas speak about the tiger in the zoo, and which ones speak about the tiger in the jungle. 

He stalks in his vivid stripes 

The few steps of his cage, 

On pads of velvet quiet, 

In his quiet rage. 

He should be lurking in shadow, 

Sliding through long grass 

Near the water hole 

Where plump deer pass. 

He should be snarling around houses 

At the jungle’s edge, 

Baring his white fangs, his claws, 

Terrorising the village! 

But he’s locked in a concrete cell, 

His strength behind bars, 

Stalking the length of his cage, 

Ignoring visitors. 

He hears the last voice at night, 

The patrolling cars, 

And stares with his brilliant eyes 

At the brilliant stars.

YOU’RE ON THE 87th FLOOR, AND SOMETHING’S TERRIBLY WRONG BY ADAM MAYBLUM

YOU’RE ON THE 87th FLOOR, AND SOMETHING’S TERRIBLY WRONG 

BY ADAM MAYBLUM 

Adam Mayblum enjoyed the storms that rumbled off the Atlantic. As they lashed his windows and strafed the steel beams, Adam would scoff: You think that’s power? I’m on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center. That’s power. 

During the worst storms, the cords on his window shades would appear to sway a few inches, but it was an illusion. They actually hung straight, held steady by gravity. It was the tower that swayed, to absorb the weather. 

When Adam felt the first rumble Tuesday morning, he glanced at the cords. They were oscillating like a pendulum, 3 feet in either direction. 

He shot from his desk, turning his back on breakfast and e-mails to face the Statue of Liberty. Outside, pieces of paper fluttered through the air, “gently,” he would say later, “on a breeze.” He looked down at the tiny people staring up at him from 876 feet below and offered them a New York retort: 

“What’re you looking at?” 

They were looking at terrorists ripping apart the World Trade Center. 

It was 8:45 a.m., and American Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles, had just torn into the north side of Adam’s building, the trade center’s north tower. At 9:03, United Flight 175 would strike the south tower. At 9:50 a.m., the south tower would collapse. The north tower would follow at 10:28. 

Adam Mayblum would find out all that much later …………………….

PALANQUIN BEARERS BY SAROJINI NAIDU

PALANQUIN BEARERS BY SAROJINI NAIDU 

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along, 

She sways like a flower in the wind of our song; 

She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream, 

She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. 

Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing, 

We bear her along like a pearl on a string. 

Softly, O softly we bear her along, 

She hangs like a star in the dew of our song; 

She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide, 

She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride. 

Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing, 

We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Appreciation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Appreciation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

The essential story of “Pride and Prejudice” is precisely that – pride and prejudice and how these two can come as a serious barrier in deep, intimate love. 

The story involves 4 sisters and with 4 suitors. And each sister and her suitor, has a particular difficulty. The main couple here is Elizabeth and Darcy. 

The conflicts came from both outside and also inside. It is the 4 stories of 4 different couples reflecting the variety of ways in which barriers are set up to stop the fulfillment of love, by society and by our own lack of self knowledge. 

So, the plot goes in a variety of twists, leading to a climax that had to be happy. 

The prime barriers highlighted are pride and prejudice, the title of novel itself. 

Pride does not allow us to reveal beyond a point. Prejudice is common in life, where we make a judgment of a person that is contrary to fact. Yet what conquers finally is that quality that alone can break such barriers, ultimately and that is LOVE. 

The novel shows that in all the ways that actually happen in real life and which Austen had observed. 

She technically crafted it with beauty, clarity and especially with sympathetic humor and great depth of feeling too. It is her greatest work, and also the most celebrated, precisely for all these qualities presented in a beautifully integrated way.

**********************

Appreciation of Gulliver Travels by by Jonathan Swift

Appreciation of Gulliver Travels by Jonathan Swift

Gulliver’s Travels is the story of one Mr Lemuel Gulliver, a strange fantasy story. 

It strikes as very real and a statement of the world around, and gives a total clarity about how the world really is and even the fact that we all know it. But, we hide it from ourselves, limiting ourselves, blinding ourselves and living a debased life and not even knowing that we are living such a worthless life. 

Now, how does a sensitive, knowledgeable, fully experienced person, who knows the world, not as a complicated thing, but utterly obviously, SHOW such a world? 

To show it like a normal story, would be in a way not effective, and even insulting,. The one great tool is satire. 

The satire in this is not personally harsh. It would have been harsh, dark, and depressing, had the author been affected by the world he is showing. 

But the main point is that the author finds the world actually ridiculously trivial, and idiotic. 

And he shows 4 aspects of the world as 4 voyages. 

In the first voyage, Gulliver reaches the land of Lilliputs, The people there are very energetic, hard working, planned men, but they are devoid of any purpose, and their being Lilliputs, tiny people, makes the point openly and almost idiotically clear. 

It is as if the world of Lilliput is precisely that - a small world, and you cannot take it seriously, even if put under arrest by them, even when they admire you, even when they use your services in stupid wars, that world is too stupid to take seriously and yes, it IS our world!! That is the satire!! 

The next voyage Gulliver undertakes is the opposite now. He goes to the world of giants, who are powerful, but only physically so and in no other way. 

They are bestial, cheap, and indulgent. 

The third voyage Gulliver travels is to a land where people are using their brains for studies and researches but with no purpose and no meaning whats ever. 

The final voyage is to a place where the beings are beautiful, but they are not humans, but noble horses, and here Gulliver shows the nobility of beings by showing horses, not men!! 

But men too live in this world. They are called Yahoos, and they are enslaved by the noble horses. The yahoos are dull, stupid and cannot create or manage anything with deeper values. 

With this satire, fantasy, and detached themes which reflect starkly our world, Gulliver finished his life purpose. 

Satirizing on a grand plane, he shows the world for what exactly it is and thus indirectly, this book, is a reminder of our follies, of our idiocy, lack of meaningful goals, and it stands as a message of how to be, by showing mainly how we are and how, thus we should NOT be. 

It reaches the noble soul deep within the reader and thinker, in all of us, the person in us, who really asks in innocence, disbelief and wonder- what is this world? And finds only evil, stupidity and chains. 

Gulliver travels takes him on a height of liberation, by directing the MIND of the reader, that forces the reader, while deeply entertaining him, to look within and without and reach the level of proper, natural human nobility. 

By that detached satire, and lack of sadness and tragedy and by its very ruthlessness and cutting theme and presentation, Gulliver goads us, but as a laughter, to BE human and to reach human grandeur. 

No wonder, this book has never gone out of print for centuries and has become a legendary work of art and stands in the hall of fame of the greatest and most inspiring and liberating books ever written, but with deep sage like sympathy, wisdom, clarity, humbleness and simplicity.