Water – The Elixir of Life – Sir C V Raman

In the essay ‘Water – The Elixir if Life’ Sir C V Raman praises the importance of water, which is the life giving force to all. The scientist says that man attempted to seek an imaginary elixir of life, the divine Amrita, to confer him immortality. But it ended in vain. According to him, water is the true elixir of life. One day he stood on the line that separated the Libyan Desert from the valley of Nile in Egypt. On one side he could see the Libyan Desert where there is no existence of life. It is a desert because of the shortage of water. On the other side he could see the fertile areas crowded with people. This remarkable difference is brought out by the Nile River from its source, till it flows down in to the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River makes lands fertile and life happy and this magic is possible because of the availability of water.

Further, the author C V Raman speaks of the importance of the water stream or pond is a pleasing sight. The cattle quench their thirst from the stream or pond. South India is known for its rain fed tanks. When they are full they cheer us. But they are not maintained properly. They are shallow and often misused. If these tanks and ponds were not there, South India will be desert. Agriculture is not possible without water. If south Indian Agriculture is sound, it is because of the water in the tanks and ponds.

The sources of water reflects the mood of the hour, being bright ad gay when the sun shines, turning to dark and gay when the sun shines, and turning to dark and gloomy when the sky is overcast.  He says that water adds beauty to the countryside water in stream or pond is pleasing sight. South India is known for its tanks and ponds. In Mysore, rice is given in meal because of the presence of these tanks. Some tanks are unimaginable large. To see the sunrise and the sunset in them is a beautiful sight. He compares water in landscape to the eyes in human face. When the sky shines the water reflects the bright and gay sun. When the sky is overcast it looks dark and gloomy.

Thus the author C V Raman is trying to incorporate the idea of importance of water presence and how regular maintenance of tanks and water bodies can ward off the imminence of famines and shortage of food for millions. 

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Our Civilization – C. E. M. Joad (Additional English II Semester)

The celebrated essayist C E M Joad praises “Our Civilization” because it assures order and safety for every citizen. Without order and safety, those higher activities of mankind which make up civilization could not be possible. The higher activities which are the epitomes of civilization.  The inventor could not invent, the scientist could not find out anything new and the artist could not make any beautiful thing if not security assured. All disputes between man and man are settled in the courts of law. Thus, order and safety are the great achievements of our civilization today.

Our civilization is more secure than previous civilizations because it is much more widely spread. Most of the previous civilizations came to an end because savage (uncivilized) people broke in and destroyed them. This was the fate of Babylon, Assyria, India, China, Greece and Rome. Previous civilizations were specialized and limited like an oasis in a surrounding enormous desert of savagery. Eventually, the desert engulfed in and oasis was no more. But today, it is the oasis which spreading all over the desert. Practically no part of the world is untouched by it.

In modern civilization man’s life starts in the early morning with the use of machines as they are the gifts of modern civilization. People enjoy comforts and luxuries from morning till late at night either at their offices or at their workplace. More and more machines are used in day to day to make their life easy.  Countless number of machines and gadgets are invented to help us in every stage of man’s life.  All these machines are extra limbs to travel and extra arms to do some extra work, or even extra wings to fly for distant places.  Thus, man invented all these machines and made them his slaves to work for him.

Further, C E M Joad expresses his apprehension that one day or the other day man may become a slave to his own machines. Machines may become the masters over the men. They may dictate and govern all human beings as we rule our brainless animals today. So man has to engage himself to satisfy their (machines) needs and demands or else they may sulk and refuse to work.

For the first time, the entire world has now a chance of becoming a single whole unit. Today the food we eat comes from all over the world. The things in a grocer’s shop are from the ends of the earth. Today the world is beginning to look more like one enormous box. Therefore, there is little danger upon our civilization from outside. But the danger comes from only within; it is danger from among us. Thus, CEM Joad brings out the defects of our civilization.

DEFECTS OF OUR CIVILIZATION

The first Defect: Disparity in sharing of the National Income

Today, the sharing of national wealth, food, clothing, houses and other amenities is still very unfair. In England alone, in sharing the National Income, we find that one half of it is shared among every sixteen and the other half goes to seventeenth person. So, some people live in luxury and many others do not have enough to eat, drink and wear. Today, in England, thousands of people live in dreadful surroundings. There many families with eight to ten persons live in a single room. In this room they are born and in this same room they die, because, they are too poor to afford another room. Until everyone gets his proper share of necessary things our civilization will not be perfect.

The Second Defect: The Danger of war:

A still greater danger comes from war. Four years from 1914 to 1918, the most destructive was that the world has known, took place between the great nations of Western Europe. (CEM Joad had known only World War I at the time of writing this essay) the chief causes for this war were fear and pride. Each nation was afraid of the power of the other nation and each nation was too proud to admit it. Today, each nation is spending its greater part of its budget on war preparations thus leading to another which will probably burn up entire civilization altogether. However, to prevent the impending danger, all nations decide to set up League of Nations, the chief hope of the world, to settle disputes between the nations and ensure peace.

The Third Defect: The Danger from Machines:

The third great defect of our civilization is that we do not know how to manage our machines. Machines were made to be man’s servants; yet, they have grown to become his masters. Moreover, the machines are very stern masters. They must be fed with coal, given petrol to drink, oil to wash with and they must be kept at the right temperature. So, we have to wait upon them attentively and do all that we can to keep them in a good temper. The time may come when they rule us altogether, just as we rule the animals.

Thus, in this essay “Our Civilization” C E M Joad praises the remarkable progress that mankind has made in the field of civilization like order, safety and security. He also points out the dangers of our civilization in the form of dis-satisfaction, war and machines. The author feels that machines are not civilization but aids to civilization. If man will give his time and energy to removing the causes of quarrels between nations and discovering how to remove poverty then, our civilization would be greatest and the lasting that has ever been flourishing. 

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On Possession – A. G. Gardiner (II Sem Additional English)

On Possession – A. G. Gardiner

According to A. G. Gardiner ‘Possession’ is a kind of itch to own something for the mere pride. Possession is a disease of the petty and vulgar minds. Once Gardiner had come across a lady, who talked very vivaciously about her experiences of places, acquaintances of persons, books she read and other rare things she possessed. He noticed that she was only interested in them as long as they were her exclusive property. She felt unhappy and changes her topic on some other topic in a moment when she came to know that someone had already seen the place or possessed same thing that she had possessed or met a person with whom she had acquaintance. Similarly, her enthusiasm disappeared about the Hon’ble Ulik de Tompkins when she found that Gardiner himself had the honour of meeting with that eminent person. Thus, she had the itch of possession. The value of a thing of somebody’s possession ceases when some other person also possesses the same kind of thing. She ceased to enjoy either the person or the place. She could not have Tangier (an international tourist place in Morocco) all to herself but she felt it as if it is her own. Similarly, many people have the mania or madness of owning things that really do not need to be owned in order to be enjoyed

In general, his or her experiences must be exclusive or they have no pleasure in them. The man countermanded his order with a designer who produce a design on metal or glass with chemical action for taking the same order from some other person. Hence, Gardiner said that it was a petty and childish notion to possess something that no one had got it.

Thus, he goes on quoting several examples of exclusive possessions. Here, another person who hangs a picture of Ghirlandajo, a Florentine Painter, though it was duplicate copy, in his house but it gave him unexplainable pleasure. Though Ghirlandajo painted portraits of many of his contemporaries though he did not possess any of those pictures of his except this painting of bottle nosed old man looking at his grandchild.  This portrait is rarest of the rare kind that was hung in his room gave him more pleasure as it was an imponderable treasure stored in the galleries of the mind than any memorable sunsets he had seen and the books he had read and beautiful actions or faces that he remembered. He could enjoy more pleasure whenever he recalled all the tenderness of humanity that was seen in the face of the bottle nosed old man by the painter long centuries ago.  In case of, William Wordsworth was also not exceptional. He did not feel happy when De Quincy wrote poem adoring the Nature, because he believed that he was the high priest of the Nature.  

A. G. Gardiner concludes by stating that he cannot conceive a society in which private property is approved and he said that it will not be a necessary condition of life. He may be wrong since the war has poured human society into the melting pot. Hence, he said that he would be a daring person who ventured to forecast the shape in which it will emerge a generation or two. He did not believe in the concept of private property. He believed that mankind can live more conveniently and more happily without private property. According to him private property is only a human arrangement. However, he neither desire nor expect to the abolition of present private ownership. The itch to own things for the mere pride of possession is the disease of petty, vulgar minds. People are becoming richer in the materialistic acquisition than spiritual acquisition.  In the words of a great preacher “his hands were full but his soul was empty, and empty soul makes empty world”. So, it is not bad rule the pilgrimage of this world to travel light and leave the luggage to those who take a pride in its abundance. 

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