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Question
How did a casual incident in a hospital help Dr. Barnard perceive a new dimension of life?
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Solution
Initially, Dr. Barnard was grumbling. He wondered why on earth he and his wife should have been subjected to agony and inconvenience. He couldn’t take his dad’s view that suffering ennobles human beings. But the little boys taught him a profound lesson of life. One should get on with the business of living irrespective of whatever misfortune strikes one. You don’t become a better person because you suffered, your suffering does not ennoble you. But you become a better person because you have experienced suffering. It is not what you have lost that is important. What is important is what you have left. We can appreciate light better once we have experienced darkness. Similarly, we can appreciate warmth only after experiencing cold.
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Para 18
My first feelings were of relief–
relief that there were no more steps to
cut, no more ridges to traverse, and no
more humps to tantalize us with hopes
of success. I looked at Tenzing. In spite of
the balaclava helmet, goggles, and oxygen
mask – all encrusted with long icicles–that
concealed his face, there was no disguising
his grin of delight as he looked all around
him. We shook hands, and then Tenzing
threw his arm around my shoulders and
we thumped each other on the back until
we were almost breathless. It was 11.30
a.m. The ridge had taken us two and a
half hours, but it seemed like a lifetime
To the east was our giant
Describe the feelings of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing as they reached the top of the Summit. (Para 18)
