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Question
How is the essence of the poem captured in the lines 'two tickets to Happiness'?
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Solution
The narrator and his partner are homeless and they have nothing to go back to. They grieve in their loss of identity and home. Desperate to be happy, they are ready to pay for it. The picture presented is piteous and lamentable. Though they can not have the happiness, in reality, they imagine an express that goes to a land of happiness and wish to purchase two tickets of it, one for the narrator and other for his partner. The narrator desperately looks for someplace to board the train but every coach was full. It is death present everywhere and they can not afford to be happy as Hitler has called the whole of Europe that “they must die”. Even in the end on land far stretched with the whiteness of snow everywhere, it is displeasing to see the Nazi army hunting the Jew couple, obviously, to kill them.
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• ____________________
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|
The call of the seas has always found an echo in me. Not being rich enough to roam in a private yacht, I have taken the poor man's way out. I swim across them. I have always been fascinated by the Indian ocean, whether at Mumbai, at Puri or at Gopalpur. I have swam in all these places and have felt the thrill. But the idea of swimming the Palk Strait did not occur to me until after I swam in the English channel. Steeped in the history and tradition of this nation, practically unconquered. teaming with hair-raising hazards, the sea between India and Sri Lanka had all the elements of challenge, danger and difficulty that tempted me. By the way, for preparation, I continued a strict and rigorous course of training which began in 1960. I also had to collect a comprehensive range of facts and information about this sea. Neither of these was easy. Despite all the information I had gathered, I soon found that very little was known about the Palk Strait, especially about the tides and currents. Everything about the English channel is known-there is the Channel Swimming Association, there are trained pilots there are wants to be hired, accurate weather forecasts, dependable tide tables and every other form of assistance was readily available. All that one needed was money. Here in the Palk Strait one has to find out firstly from where information could be obtained and then decide how much of it could be incorrect or misleading! |
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- I also had to collect a comprehensive range of facts and information about this sea.
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A2. Explain: (2)
What does the writer man by saving, "Steeped in the history and tradition of this nation, practically unconquered, teeming with hair-raising hazards, the sea between India and Sri Lanka had all the elements of challenge, danger and difficulty that tempted me"?
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A4. Personal Response: (2)
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A5. Grammar:
Do as directed: (2)
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A6. Vocabulary: (2)
Give the synonyms of the following words:
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