Dream your own dream – Rama Govindarajan (Summary)

Dream your own dream – Rama Govindarajan (Summary)

Rama Govindarjan’s essay “Dream your own dream” is the finest exemplary and inspirational success story for younger generations of students. The students who dream big will certainly achieve. She encourages the students to dream their dreams in order to set their goals in their lives to achieve them. Rama Govindarajan was also as ordinary student as others were. At the end of her school education she was not able to scribble in the autograph books of her friends more than the prosaic words like ‘housewife’, ‘graduate’ or ‘bank employee’ under the query “your ambition is to become a……….”.   She was not even able to understand the term “Research Scientist” for several years.

Rama Govindarajan was greatly influenced by her grandmother, Alamelu and her mother Shakuntala. Alemelu, as a young bride, who fought tooth-and-nail for what she believed was right and never obeying a rule of which she was not convinced. She never compromised though she risked ostracism by her own community.  When, she was socially boycotted she prepared to adjust in a small hut with a Dalit family and ate “meenkozhambu” with them. Shakuntala, Rama Govindarajan’s mother, was practically a single and working woman, who had worked hard to create a home. The home in which poetry and laughter were able to substitute luxury. Rama was always regretting that all her achievements fall far short of her mother’s sacrifice.

It was a great opportunity and superb experience to study B. Tech. in IIT Delhi. She studied her course of B. Tech by heart than by simply memorise. She enjoyed the fun of discussing science matters with her peers. With all these efforts, Rama emerged as a topper of her class with lot of confidence and self-assurance. She developed the attitude of “can do anything”. In spite of all these, she is blessed with a home where completely no gender bias and its manifestations, which unleashed her to have the best education and heavy-duty determination.

Later, Prof. Roddam Narashimha as her Ph. D. advisor in Fluid Mechanics was biggest influence on her scientific career. He taught her to do her research in the right way, which includes a thorough and critical understanding of the subject with extreme care in methods and zero exaggeration in making claims. With all her commitment and determination in her research, she was the first choice among the students for scientific discussions.

Soon after her graduation, she got a job in Mumbai as an engineer. She used to travel in a packed women’s compartment of a local train to her work place that starts very early morning by 6.57. Slowly, she adjusted to her situation and tried to understand the incredible hard work of various women who are hurrying to their jobs in the early morning trains.  Sometimes the stories of those women are too terrible to describe. With all these experiences, she understood that the important ingredient for success is the willingness to accept the hard work.

After two months of her service as an engineer in Mumbai, she realized that she was not satisfied with the present job. She decided to do M.S. in US to launch herself in a planned orbit in an industrial R&D.  As soon as she returned to India from US, she married to a person who is confined to Banglore city. With her conjugal relations, she was forced to stay in Banglore though it was not suitable place for chemical engineer's career. She tried in software industry when it was in its boom. She felt joining in software industry is just like wrong person in a wrong job. Later she went into the defense-related aerospace industry in Bangalore, wherein she wanted to develop the indigenous systems of control and computing skills instead of importing them from the other countries.

In due course of time, she joined as a professor in Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, in which she has independence and constant exposure to other researchers, which always unveil crucial research results.  She was fulfilled with the job satisfaction, which gave her an opportunity to focus on research. Now she was recipient of the most covetous Shanti Swarup  Bhatnagar Award for the year 2007 for her outstanding contribution to the nation in the field of research. Thus, Rama Govindarajan released her dreams who dreamt to be a ‘Research Scientist’.   

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Telephone Conversation – Wole Soyinka (Summary)

Telephone Conversation – Wole Soyinka

“Telephone Conversation” by Wole Soyinka, is a poetic satire against the widespread racism, which is still dominant in the modern western society. As the title suggests, the poem depicts a telephone conversation between a West African man and a British landlady who shockingly changes her attitude towards the man soon after he reveals his racial identity.

In the poem “Telephone Conversation”, the mode of telephone conversation is employed by the poet to a broader level where racial bigotry is ridiculed in the context of human intelligence and portraying the poet’s wit and his ingenious sense of humour.

The poem begins on a peaceful note, befitting to the narrator’s satisfaction for having found the right house.

“The price seemed reasonable, location

Indifferent.”

The landlady also emphatically mentioned that she lived ‘off premises’, thereby ensuring that the tenant would enjoy absolute privacy and freedom. The conversation however drifted to an unpleasant turn of events, soon after the man surprisingly decided to make a self-confession to reveal his nationality.

“Madam,” I Warned,

I hate a wasted journey – I am African.”

A sudden unexpected silence followed and the awkward pause in the conversation is strengthened by a caesura, trying to emphasize the impact of the African’s race being revealed to the landlady.  An uneasy atmosphere is created and the word ‘silenced’ reiterates the sudden change in the landlady’s attitude as well as the man’s intuitive sensitivity towards the unfriendliness on the other end of the phone.

“Silence. Silence transmission of

Pressurized good-breeding.”

After considerable period of silence when the landlady spoke again, her words seemed to come from between lipstick coated lips that held between them a long gold-rolled cigarette-holder and impression she gave off was that as if her status in the society was all of a sudden upgraded. Undoubtedly, the poet’s power of imagination enables him to visualize an affluent and sophisticated British landlady belonging to the so-called progressive and urban world on the other side.

Tension rises with the explicit racial discrimination conveyed through the question---

“How Dark?”……

The landlady’s effort in seeking clarification in something quite irrelevant that is, his skin colour, in the course of the conversation is emphasized. She repeated her question, reinforcing the racist overtone in the English society.

The narrator is jolted back into reality from his trance like state and he makes a frantic attempt to ascertain the situation. The revelation comes with the repetition of the question by the landlady with varying emphasis.

“ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT? You mean-like plain or milk chocolate?”

It was soul shattering to the narrator that the landlady could so insensitive to his feelings. Fuming with anger, the man decided to inflict similar humiliation in the racist woman choosing a superior vocabulary and replying in an acutely sarcastic tone.

“West African Sepia – and as afterthought, ‘down in my passport.”

He quickly forces her into submission and exposes the ignorance of the landlady clearly illustrating that beneath the lady’s glossy and lavish exterior, she was just a shallow judgmental racist. Paying no attention to the landlady’s disrespect for him, he took a firm control over the conversation defending the dignity and integrity of his ethic identity form the ruthless onslaught of the landlady. He goes on to describe the various colours one could see on him;

“Facially, I am brunette, but, madam, you should see the rest of me.”

Unabashedly, he goes on to state that the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet are peroxide blonde and that friction by sitting down had turned his bottom – raven black. With a slow but furious realization the lady began to set the receiver down. ‘sensing….’ the man rushed to ask sarcastically:

“Madam”, I pleaded, “Wouldn’t you rather see for yourself?” 

The quasi politeness of the tone of the poet can hardly conceive the ultimate insult inflicted on the land lady and shows how indignant the man was, also ending the poem with a tremendous sense of humour apart from the obvious sarcasm.

“Telephone conversation” is a favourite, both for its excellent use of rich language and the timeless message it conveys, that is to avoid silent resignations to such policies of the racist society and also that intellectual superiority is not determined by racial colour.

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Courtesy: I$C English

Of Travel – Francis Bacon (Summary)

Of Travel – Francis Bacon  

Francis Bacon is one of the most celebrated prose writers of the sixteenth century from where the modern age begins. This age is particularly noted for its religion, philosophy, science and travel. He represented the age in his works about its patriotism, high aims and lofty ideals. His earliest and chief interest in life was the reformation of scientific method of approach. He is considered ‘the brightest, the wisest and the noblest of the humankind and he is known as the father of English Essay and Modern Prose. 

Bacon’s essays on verities of subjects apparently deal with the ethical qualities of men or with the matters pertaining to the governments of states. All his essays are full of practical wisdom of life. His style is aphoristic, formal, impersonal and informative. They are all full of quotable quotes. 

In this essay, “Of Travel” Bacon expresses advantages and benefits of travels. He says that the travel is a part of education for the younger people and it is an experience to the elderly people. One must learn some knowledge of reading as well as writing of language before he/she undertakes a travel. Either some tutor or grave servant must accompany the young persons, while they undertake a travel. These people with their previous experience will help traveler to follow what exercises or discipline the country may demand while travelling in such a country. 

He advised that the traveler must keep a diary with him and record his observations in it. It will be a strange thing in sea-voyages where there is nothing to be seen except the sky and the sea. However, in land-travel, there is so much to be observed and registered in his diary but most of it will be omitted. The enthusiastic traveler must observe and register in his dairy about the courts of princes especially when they give audience to ambassadors, the courts of justice, while they sit and hear the causes, the churches and monasteries, walls and fortifications of cities and towns, havens and harbours, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations, houses and gardens, great cities, warehouses armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers besides masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions and whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go. 

He advised the travelers that they must carry a card or a book that can describe the country where he travels. He said that it is not advisable to stay one place for a long time in one city or a town and let him change his lodging from one part of the town to another and be isolate himself from the company of his fellow citizens. Let him see and visit the eminent persons who have great name and fame in those countries of abroad. Moreover, the travelers must be cautious of quarrels, quarrelsome people who will engage him into their quarrels and of contagious diseases like cholera and others. When a traveler returns home, he should not leave those countries behind but maintain correspondence with those of his acquaintances which of those most important. Finally, he advised that the traveler do not change his country manners for those of foreign parts but only prick some flowers of those that has learned abroad into the customs of his own country. Thus, Bacon reveled all the benefits of travel through his essay ‘Of Travel’. 

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