Pratheek Prose

PRATHEEK PROSE PRATHEEK PRAVEEN KUMAR G B , HAY ES HAL L , HAY ES RO AD , B ANG AL O RE-5 6 0 0 2 5 ( Ka r n a t a k a , I ND I A) p r y th e e k @ y a h o o .c o m / p r y t h e e k @ g m a il. c o m Ph o n e : 0 8 0 -4 1 1 2 5 3 0 9 Mo b i l e s : 9 9 0 1 9 7 9 5 6 7 / 9 9 4 5 3 3 6 8 4 9

PRATHEEK PRAVEEN KUMAR

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PRATHEEK PROSE

PRATHEEK PRAVEEN KUMAR

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CONTENTS Humility Is The Greatest Virtue Role Of Students In Road Safety The Killer Tsunami Gopal’s Friends Harry Potter Books Mother Teresa Honesty Is The Best Policy Will And Determination Helen Keller Importance Of Reading Newspaper Dinner In A Forest The Fisherman Dinosaurs War Is Destructive

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HUMILITY IS THE GREATEST VIRTUE

Humility, which is the greatest among all virtues known to mankind. Humility in Latin is humilis, means low. Humility is being low outside while high inside. It is selfeffacing and the denial of self-importance. Humility is the antithesis of arrogance and false pride. It is the law of the nature that people who are strong and virtuous inside always remain low outside. We have examples of Jesus Christ, Gauthama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, and Basaveshwara nearer in our own state. They are all called as great souls because of their humility. Humility is the antithesis of arrogance and false pride. Arrogance and false pride are the worst evils of the mankind and sure ways of destruction. Ravana in the Ramayana saw his end because of his arrogance. Duryodhana in the Mahabharatha carved out his destruction due to his false pride. Nearer in time, unlimited arrogance destroyed both Hitler and Saddam Hussain. Humility is a rare and the greatest virtue mankind has ever known. People with this great virtue in abundance stand out and shine like the Sun. They are liked by all. Everybody hates arrogance and the arrogant people. Mythology and History are full of stories that show how the forces of humility triumphed over the forces of arrogance. Only a pure soul can have humility. And the humility brings about all other virtues including simplicity, honesty, patience, love, kindness and above all self-confidence. Humility sprouts from the heart. It is never practised for effect or benefit. Therefore, everybody trusts people who are filled with humility. Humility saves the world from all evils like deception, greed, hatred, anger, competition, suspicion and discontentment. It spreads simplicity, peace, harmony and contentment in humankind. Jesus Christ spread the doctrine of showing the right cheek as well, when somebody slaps you on the left cheek. He also said that if anybody sues you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. He died on the cross for the sins of the humanity at large. Ramayana is the story of the clash between the forces of humility represented by Rama and the forces of arrogance represented by Ravana, and the ultimate triumph of humility over arrogance. Mahabharatha is the story of the clash between the forces of humility represented by the Pandavas and the forces of arrogance represented by the Kauravas, and the ultimate triumph of humility over arrogance. Mahatma Gandhi vowed not to wear a shirt or travel first class in train until all the people in India could afford it. He discarded all the luxuries of the life and willingly lived the poorest of the poor life. This is humility. Basaveshwara, the Prime Minister of the king of Bijjala of Kalyana called himself a servant of the servants of the noble people. It is humility. Humility is not easy to come. It needs cleansing of the soul from the evils of arrogance and false pride. And the Satan of the arrogance and false pride has strong hold on our life and cannot be shed easily. Only great souls with extra-ordinary strength inside can reach the higher levels. They are called as great souls. We can only try towards that end. If 4

we succeed to any degree, we can be called as great. Humility is the true path towards peace, harmony and advancement to the divine end. Humility is civility. Humility is utility. Humility is humanity. Humility is divinity. The best are those who live in humility, That brings to life greatness, easy felicity; Those who have this aplenty are blessed, And always stand out as the very best.

ROLE OF STUDENTS IN ROAD SAFETY Roads are the arteries of a country; they are the networks of the lifelines that keep the country healthy and intact. Stoppages in the arteries damage the heart and lead to the death of the body. It is the same with the country. Unsafe roads lead to the damage of the nation. Safe roads are as important to the national life as are safe arteries to a healthy body. Roads are a public utility network. The Government builds and maintains roads for the public good. Safe roads are its responsibility. It meets the responsibility through its Engineering, Transport and Traffic Police wings. But, this does not prevent the public from its responsibility towards safe roads. Actually, the role of the public in the matter as the ultimate beneficiary of the road-network is the key of safe roads in any country. Students are the future of a country. Some day, they are going to be in the helm. Safe roads are their responsibility also. They are the builders of the future of the country and their ideas constitute its direction. As citizens and the hopes of the future, they have their own responsibilities towards the country that strives to better the future for their benefit. Their responsibilities towards safe roads are one of them. They must try to raise road safety awareness in the public and help the traffic police in controlling the traffic during the rush hours. They can also be the model road users. What they need is a determination to try and provide safety in roads. Rudyard Kipling in “Diversity Of creatures” says, “Transportation is civilization”. This is a very profound truth. Without transport and the movement of goods and people, there can be no civilization and culture. The increase in the standard of living in many countries in the world in recent years has been almost entirely due to the strides made in transport especially by the introduction of the motor vehicle with its flexibility and ability to get into places otherwise inaccessible even by railways. Danger is unavoidable in the world of transportation. There has never been a time when travel was not dangerous. L. G. Norman in his Public Health Paper for the World Health Organisation in 1962 says, “The problem of road traffic accidents on a large scale has arisen for the first time in the present century. All other epidemics throughout history have been due to the onslaught of agencies external to man, principally the protozoa, bacteria and viruses; but road accidents are due to man himself. A terrible penalty of mortality has already been paid as the cost of

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integrating the motor vehicle into modern life.” The three E’s, Engineering, Education and Enforcement that are the heart of the accident problem constitutes the answer to the traffic safety problem while three P’s namely Pressure, Prejudice and Politics cause the road safety measures go haywire. A good approach to the problem of the road safety must take all these three positive E’s and negative P’s into account for a solution. While Engineering is the job of the engineering department and Enforcement of the police and the transport departments, the students certainly can help Education as a segment of the general public. Students can also partake in rendering the negative influences of the three P’s on the road safety ineffective. The role of the students in the road safety measures is limited to three functions namely model road-users, road safety educators and pressure groups for safe roads. They act as model road users in the first while as educators of the same measures to the larger public, especially the unenlightened and the uneducated in the second, and pressure groups for the same measures through powerful parents and self-efforts in the third. They can be a great source of advantage in stopping the normal pressures of life, prejudices and self-interested political maneuvers that work against the needs of safe roads. Students as the interest groups of the safe roads certainly turnout to be great assets of the future of the country by virtue of their knowledge, experience and passion for safe road efforts. This is why introduction of safe road measures as a subject in the secondary education system of the country will prove a great advantage for the advancement of the country. Safe roads of the modern world involve road dividers, zebra crossings, speed limits, parking slots, one-way traffics, road signboards, traffic signals, traffic booths, road safety literature, and above all safe road educational and awareness programmes. Violation of traffic rules like wrong parking, joy riding, over-speeding, crossing the roads at wrong spots are the major causes of traffic snarl-ups. Students can be of immense help in traffic management in preventing these road nuisances that can lead to serious consequences by being model road users, educators to the unenlightened public and pressure groups towards the end. Pressures of money and power and political influences always played adverse role against the interests of the safe road by stalling the process of the enforcement of traffic rules. Students as a model group can play an important role in creating healthy public opinion against such holes in the due process of the law-enforcement and make roads safe for all. Safe roads assure safe return home and ensure a happy and more confident life back home. This means happier life and less tense outside activities. Safe roads certainly enhance the quality of life. Students who constitute the future of the country and for whose benefits all efforts of the present world are streamlined must actively partake in performing their role towards the maintenance of the safe roads and improving the quality of the life.

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THE KILLER TSUNAMI

December 26, 2004 turned out to be one of the most tragic single days in the living memory of the human history. The killer tsunami that triggered on that day in Asia recorded the death of more than 150 thousand innocent children, women and men and devastation of millions in South and South-east Asia in the course of just three hours. This tsunami turned out to be the fourth worst natural disaster since the end of the nineteenth century after the quakes in China in 1976, 1927 and 1920, which claimed 255, 200 and 200 thousand lives respectively. Devastation The countries worst hit by the Killer Tsunami of Asia are Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand in that order. Other countries which saw the fury of the tsunami include Malaysia, Burma, Bangladesh and far away East African countries like Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles. Indonesia, which was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake that caused the tsunami accounted for about one-lakh deaths while India’s toll exceeded ten thousand. The Aceh province of Indonesia was the first and worst affected region. The worst affected regions in India were the state of Tamil Nadu and the islands of Andaman and Nicobar. The Indian naval base in Andaman and Nicobar was washed away by the killer waves. The southern tips of India and the Indian mainland namely Indira Point in Andaman and Nicobar islands and Kanyakumari in the mainland were badly hit by the Tsunami. Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa were also hit by the Tsunami. What is a Tsunami? Tsunami in Japanese means ‘harbour wave’. It is triggered by a vertical disturbance in the oceans caused by an earthquake, landslide or volcanic eruption. The result is mammoth waves several meters high crashing into coastal areas. The present tsunami was triggered by an earthquake of the magnitude of nine in the Richter scale near Sumatra of Indonesia. The earthquake was caused while about 1,200 km of the edge of the Burma plate of the Earth’s crust suddenly slid fifteen meters high above the Indian plate on the fateful day morning around 6.29IST near Sumatra. This was the result of the pressure built up by the two giant tectonic plates while grind against each other causing the India plate slip six centimetres northeast a year below the Burma Plate. Such geological phenomena causing earthquakes and such major earthquakes on the ocean floor causing tsunami are natural processes. However, India was caught by surprise by this tsunami, as it was the first of its kind to hit India in its living memory. Relief Efforts The relief efforts India saw for the tsunami victims has been as never before. TV telecast and media coverage helped sensitize people to the disaster. Both Indian government and private agencies provided

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mammoth relief efforts. India refused USA offer of help and showed that it can handle such disasters by its own resources. India even helped Sri Lanka in its relief operations. Newspapers, film actors, cricketers, all contributed to the relief efforts. India’s response to the tsunami was slow in the beginning. However, as time passed, it picked up life. The Indian government has decided to build a Tsunami Warning System on the ocean basin and has kept aside twenty seven million US dollars to build it. A Disaster Management Authority has also been set up to deal with natural disasters like tsunamis in future. These are the positive outcomes of the horrific tragedy India underwent in the last week of the year 2004.

GOPAL’S FRIENDS Gopal was a young man in king Krishnadevaraya’s court. He was a friend of a minister in the king’s court. He was a poor and foolish man. As he was foolish, he was practically a servant of the minister. The minister was very rich and owned lots of land. One day, the minister asked him to cut weeds of one of his fields. Gopal went to the field and attempted to pull off the weeds. While he was doing so, he was so busy that he did not see where he was going and slipped on a banana peel and fell down. When he his trying to get up, he again stepped on another banana peel and again fell down. Gopal was convinced that the banana peel was angry with him. So he went crawling forward for some distance and got up. He walked a few more steps and tripped on a grapevine; but this time, he fell on a patch of leaves and due to his weight, it gave way. When he got up, his jaw sagged open in astonishment. It was gold, lots and lots of gold! Gopal took a few gold pieces and went home. When he was going home, he bumped straight to the minister. The gold pieces fell out of his hand. The minister asked Gopal from where he got the gold. Gopal blabbered on about how he had got the gold. The minister was very happy, as all the gold in the field was his as the field belonged to him. He, as happy as he was, gave Gopal lots of money and also some land. Gopal was very happy. When the king heard of this, he honoured both Gopal as well as the minister and gave to Gopal all the gold Gopal had found in the field. The minister became red with anger; but his anger soon cooled down. Gopal became one of the richest men in the kingdom with all the gifts of the minister and the gold he had found. Soon, however, Gopal made worthless friends. These useless friends introduced him to a kind of alcoholic drink called as madhupana. They also introduced Gopal to gambling and other vices. Gopal, now used to go early in the morning to the city’s market place, and go to a pub and drink and gamble. He started losing the wealth he had gained by luck. His wife and mother tried to dissuade him from going to the pub; but habits do not wear off easily. Soon, like many other rich people fallen to bad ways, Gopal became a poor person.

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His friend, the minister, tried to help the family; but all the money he gave them finally came to Gopal’s hands and he inevitably used it on gambling and alcoholic beverages. The family’s condition was deteriorating. However, it was soon to change. Only, felicitas multos habet amicos. Gopal had lost almost all of his friends. Only one friend remained with him. He was a man called Raj. Raj had been a soldier in the army of king Krishnadevaraya; but he had lost his hands in one of the numerous battles fought by king Krishnadevaraya. He had retired from the army after being awarded a huge booty as reward. However, he too had squandered his money like Gopal on vices. He understood the position Gopal was in, as he too had been in the same state. He advised Gopal to give up drinking; but it fell on deaf ears. Gopal even though lost a lot of wealth, he had not shed his stupidity. He was a very stupid person and everyone he met took advantage of this fact. His mother tried to grind some sense to Gopal’s head, but always failed. Soon their condition was as it was before Gopal got the gold. They became very poor. His mother and wife soon started begging on the roadside. But, all the money they got was spent by Gopal on madhupana. Soon, Gopal’s mother died. Gopal had loved his mother a lot and the loss of his mother struck him hard. He resolved to give up his vices and start to work to earn some money. However, old habits die hard. He got a job of cutting wood. The job earned him an amount of ten bronze coins every day. However, he spent the coins on alcohol as soon as he got it. He tried his level best to try and stop drinking. He started using different route for going home, so that he could not smell alcohol from the roadside pub. Soon, he stopped going to pub daily. He then started going to pub only weekly and then succeeded not go to the pub at all. His wife, who was a sensible woman, had taken over the charge of the finance of the house and had done her work superbly. Gopal also had got a new job in the king’s army with a little help from Raj and had risen to a high rank because of his hard work. Even though Gopal was a brave and foregoing warrior, he was only foolishly so. His wife, who was the daughter of a rich man, had some education while young and started teaching Gopal some of the things she had learnt. There was also an adult literacy programme and Gopal became a student there. So, Gopal became a learned man. He, soon, with the help of his wife, became a rich man. Gopal had learnt his lesson. He learnt not to entertain worthless friends who squandered his many. Gopal soon became known in his society as a man who was scholarly, generous and good to people. However, Gopal had one thing to tell all the people he met and that was to be wary of one’s friends and that one should study people for a long time before making friends, who if good, can become blessings whereas wrong people as friends are always curses and ruin one’s life. Friendship is the beginning of many a relationships, That never fails in the turbulence of jerks and slips; Friendship is a sweet commitment, a true fairyland, Where people meet and play with sweet magic wand.

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HARRY POTTER BOOKS There are many famous children’s books like ‘Secret Seven’ and ‘Famous Five’ are around. They are read and greatly admired by children. One of such books widely read and liked by children all over the world is the Harry Potter series of four books that include ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. Its author is J.K.Rowling. The series is about the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends Ron and Hermione in Hogwarts, which is a wizarding school. I consider the fourth book of the series namely ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, which runs to voluminous 636 pages in the popular paperback edition as the magnum opus of the author among the lot. The series is about a young wizard called Harry Potter who lost his parents during Halloween when he was one year old and brought up by his aunt and uncle and sent to Hogwarts, a wizarding school. The four books concern about his adventures in Hogwarts. The books are full of funny and awful incidents that make the books interesting to children and capture their imagination. The main characters of the Harry Potter series are Harry Potter himself as the hero of the story, Hagrid who rescued Harry Potter from the Dursleys, the uncle and aunt of Harry Potter, Dumbledore who is the headmaster of Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione as the best friends of Harry, Draco Malfoy as his enemy, Lord Voldemort as his bete noire and the villain of the piece, and Professors of Hogwarts like Snape of Slytherin House, Mcgonagall of Gryffindor House, Sprout of Hufflepuff House and Flitwick of Ravenclaw House. All these characters make interesting reading by their variegated oddities and antic. The characters are well knit to the story. Some of the incidents in the series make lasting impressions on the readers. A funny incident I fondly recall from ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ relates to Professor Moody transforming Draco Malfoy into a ferret and bouncing him up and down. Another incident from the same book that caught my imagination is the fight between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. The hilarious combat involves Harry Potter after being hit by Cruciatus and Imperius curses of Lord Voldemort, stopping his Avada Kedavra curse and escaping from the latter in a tight moment while he really had no place to go. A funny incident I recollect is from ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ wherein Hagrid makes a pig’s curly tail come out of Dudley Dursley’s pant for Dursleys being rude to him. ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ portrays the death day party of a ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, with piles of rotten food to be eaten by ghosts attending from all over the wizarding England. An interesting incident from ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ concerns the unfriendliness of Ron and Hermione. Ron accuses Hermione’s cat of killing his pet rat called Scabbers. Hermione says sorry and both make up their differences. The incident of Hagrid meeting Harry Potter on a rock way out on sea in ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ also makes interesting reading.

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The incident that touched me most in the extravaganza of the four volumes of more than 1300 pages of J.K.Rowling is from ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ concerns the meeting of Sirius Black and Harry Potter wherein the latter learns that Sirius Black was really his godfather and had nothing to do with the death of Harry’s parents, James and Lily Potter. He found out in the meeting that it was his parents’ another friend, Peter Pettigrew, who was responsible for the tragedy. Both of them meet Peter Pettigrew and find out the truth about what happened in the fateful night. It is really a touching event in the life of Harry Potter. I hope that J.K.Rowling will continue to write many more books like Harry Potter and continue to enthrall children all over the world by her imaginative and colourful stories. It is interesting to know that J.K.Rowling is presently working on three more books on the Harry Potter series, and children from all over the world are eagerly waiting for them. I hope that the books will be as interesting as the first four of the series.

MOTHER TERESA Very few people show pity for poor, weak and sickly people. Mother Teresa is one of the few people who showed it to the unfortunate lot of the humanity. She even helped and and cared for the people who had dangerous and highly contagious diseases. She really is love and kindness personified in human form. A Catholic nun named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in 1910 in Skopje, now in Yugoslavia. She studied in Ireland and went to teach in Kolkatta in India. When she was travelling on a train one night, she heard a soft voice telling her to leave the convent and help the poor people who have no one to help them. This entirely changed her life. She wore a sari and went barefoot to the poorest slums of Kolkatta to serve the poorest of the poor. In 1948, the Church let her set up a new order of Nuns, called the Missionaries of Charity. Since then, Mother Teresa and her nuns of the Missionaries of Charity have saved babies left on the wastages on the roadsides, looked after lepers and cared for the old, sick and dying. Her Order had more than 300 branches throughout the world by the time of her death in 1998. She was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for her great service for the humanity and the greatest Indian award, the Bharata Ratna, in recognition of her service to India. The angel of the human kind died in 1998 just before she reached the age of eighty-nine. It is because of her love, kindness and service that many suffering people found hope and light in their life. Her simple love and service for humanity raises her to the level of godliness. Yes, her death gave a lot of grief to the poor people and the entire humanity, but they still have hope because of her.

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HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY Honesty is the best policy; so it was, is and will be. Dishonesty always leads to the doom of the person who practises it. On the other hand, honesty leads to greatness. Many great people were honest. People who are notorious are usually dishonest. We must be honest if we want to prosper. So, friends, we must be honest. What is honesty? Honesty is truthfulness, honesty is integrity, and honesty is fairness. Honesty basically is openness. It is being truthful to oneself. Honesty is honour. The word honesty is derived from the French root “honeste” and the Latin root “honestus”, meaning honour. Honesty makes people great. Gandhiji is called Mahatma or Great Soul because he was an honest person. Gandhiji fought for truth and became an apostle of honesty and peace. He refused to copy the spelling of the word “kettle” even on the suggestion of his teacher during an inspection of his class and this shows that Gandhiji was honest from his childhood. Dishonesty may bring temporary relief. But, it certainly harms in the long run. It darkens our soul and breeds fear in our hearts. It shakes our confidence and hurts our selfrespect. On the other hand, honesty breeds confidence and nourishes self-respect. It makes us upright and honorable. Honesty brings its own glory and joy. Honesty begets honesty. Others trust honest people. Even cruel animals behave differently with honest people. Honesty implies pure and simple heart and a great soul. Honest people are nearer to the nature and to the God. Some may wonder when it is said that honesty sometimes may involve lies also. But it is true. A lie said with a good intention like saving an innocent life from a gang of thieves as in a story of Mahabharata epic amounts to honesty. The test of honesty is doing good to others. Such acts endear us to all. Simplicity and kindness are the life-blood of honesty. Only honesty with its simplicity and kindness makes us true human beings.

WILL AND DETERMINATION

Will and determination is the spice of life. Without this quality, none can become great. Will and determination is the power behind talent and intelligence. Without will and determination, the talent and intelligence just wither. There are umpteen examples of will and determination pushing a person to greatness. Helen Keller Sudhachandran and Louis Braille are just a few instances of such persons. Helen Keller who was born in America was blind, deaf and dumb. But, she learnt to talk and write in a very short time. She also wrote books.

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Sudhachandran is a dancer who lost her legs in an accident. She used artificial legs and continued with her dance career. Louis Braille was not born blind. He became blind because of an owl he was playing with in his father’s workshop when he was just four years old. Later, he devised Braille system of language for the benefit of blind people. There are many such examples as these wherein sheer will and determination took far ahead in life for great accomplishments. Will and determination do raise a person to greater heights. Humans in themselves must develop such a quality. Will and determination, truly crowning passion, Built and pulled down crowns and nations; The inward strength, truly unparallel’d wealth, Hoisted zealots to life’s to unsurpass’d zenith.

HELEN KELLER

Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia in America. Severe brain fever rendered her blind, dumb and deaf before she was even two years old. But, the handicap did not take away her determination to lead a successful life. Actually, it added to her inner strength and resolve to reach higher and accomplish great things. She learnt to talk and write by herself and mastered Braille language meant for blind. A lady by name Anmam Field Salivan who was dedicated to the service of blind found Helen Keller and helped her to read and write. She used to keep a doll in Helen’s hand and lead Helen’s fingers to write the word doll on a sheet of paper. Thus, the first word learnt by Helen was doll. Later, Helen learnt to talk in a school for the deaf. Soon, she developed a sense for recognizing everything. She also wrote many books and became very famous. Helen Keller lived for 88 years and died in 1968.

IMPORTANCE OF READING NEWSPAPERS

“Nulla nuova, buona nuova” meaning no news is good news is a famous Italian usage. It may be true in the ambience of too much news of disturbing nature pouring in from all directions all the time nolens volens. But, news is sine qua non for active life. None can

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ignore the milieu in which he lives. Only news keeps us in touch with the milieu in which we live. It gives us the insight to the dynamics that form the environment around us, it be in local or regional or national or international level. Keeping doors shut from news renders us deadwood and leads to isolation from the world around us and ultimately to atrophy. The main conveyor of news is newspaper. Though there are many other sources of news like magazines and books in print media, radio and television channels and Internet connections in electronic media, words of mouth and telephone and wireless communications etc, no other source ever could come near the newspaper in importance. It is true of the past and the present and it is true of the future also. Neither the advent of the television nor that of the Internet could affect the importance of the newspaper. The reason for this is the width, breadth and the depth of the news provided by the newspaper, its low cost and the ease of providing the news at our leisure and comfort as many times as we desire. Newspapers are very important in many ways. They give us lots of information about various matters at various levels that are not available anywhere. Though magazines and books also give lots of information, the scope of the news there is limited to a few selected topics. Televisions and internet connections while provide news faster than the newspapers, it cannot have the width, breadth and depth of the newspapers and do not provide the comfort of the repeated references at our leisure and comfort apart from harming our eyes because of the glare and being the source of health hazards because of radiations. People of all profession need newspapers. Engineers, doctors, scientists, professors and other professionals need them to know the day-to-day developments in their respective fields. Businessmen need newspapers to keep in touch with the economic and commercial trends in the country and see current share prices. Politicians need them to read recent political events in the country. Others read newspapers to know how changes around them affect their life. Students read newspapers to broaden their knowledge and keep abreast of the recent developments in various fields, be it in politics, economics, science, sports or art and culture. Newspaper is an important tool of the learning process for students. Advertisements in newspapers are also very informative and give lots of information about the world around us and recent trends apart from being very entertaining. The editorials and the articles in the editorial page of the newspapers are always very analytical and give insight to the news and their background. Reading newspapers is incomplete sans a glance to the editorials and the articles. Reading newspapers everyday is must for both students and adults for growth and enlightenment irrespective of the class or field of their life. For, reading newspaper everyday is highly educational, and an important informal education in that. One can ignore this important function of the life at own peril.

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DINNER IN A FOREST

There was a dense forest. Singha, a lion was its King. An elephant, Gaja was his best friend. Singha lived in a cave in the middle of the forest. Gaja lived on the bank of a river in the forest. The friends met each other every day evening when the lionwent to the river to drink water. One day, Singha invited Gaja for a dinner at his cave, It said to his friend, "My dear friend, you must attend the grand dinner in your honour. Gaja happily accepted the invitation. The dinner was on a full-moon night. All the animals and birds of the forest were invited for the dinner. Singha beautifully decorated his cave with flowers and colours. A huge dining table was set in the middle of the cave. Fresh fruits, deliciously cooked vegetables and other tasty foods were laid on the dining table. A huge chair was placed at the head 01 the dining table for the chief guest. Singha waited outside the cave for his friend. Gaja wore its best suit and set out in time for the dinner. Singha saw his friend coming. It ran to receive his friend and said, "Welcome my friend. Everything is ready. Please, come inside". The elephant was very pleased by the welcome of its friend. It majestically walked towards the cave. It followed the lion to enter the cave. But, alas, the cave was too small for the giant body of the elephant. Gaja could not enter the cave . Singha was terribly upset. His grand dinner for his best friend had become a waste. All foods were carried outside from the cave for the elephant. Gaja ate them. But, it was not like a grand dinner. Later in the night, the king Singha called an assembly of its ministers. The assembly constituted a committee of a jackal and an owl to find out why the grand dinner of their king went wrong. The committee submitted a brief report of its finding in a day. The report stated that the grand dinner went wrong becausethe king failed to "think before act".

THE FISHERMAN It is a story from a European folklore about a fisherman whose greed destroyed him. There was an old fisherman. He was so old and sick that he could not go to sea for fishing. He caught a few fish in nearby rivers everyday and sold it in market for a living. He was very poor.

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One day he saw a huge divine bird with silvery feathers called "Kaha" alight near his hut. The bird felt kind to the old fisherman and said that it would bring a big fish every evening so that the fisherman need not go to fishing everyday. True to its words, the bird brought a big fish every evening to the fisherman. The fisherman sold the fish in market for huge money and became very rich in a short time with his own cottage and many servants. The king of the country lost his eyes and wanted blood of divine bird "Kaha" to wash his eyes to get his sight back. The king offered half of his kingdom and treasury for those who help him to catch the divine bird "Kaha". The fisherman heard this and decided to become richer. He told the king about Kaha and asked for soldiers to help him to catch the bird. The soldiers hid in the cottage of the fisherman. When Kaha arrived with a big fish next evening, the fisherman caught its one leg, called the hidden soldiers to help him. But Kaha was too smart for the fisherman and it flew to the sky with the ungrateful fisherman clutching to its leg. Nobody knew what happened to the fisherman later. There are two morals in this story. 1) Greed breeds greed, and leads to ruinous deeds. 2) Bad company makes life a sad symphony.

DINOSAURS Dinosaurs are reptiles that lived millions of years back. Many people think that all dinosaurs were very huge. But, it is wrong. There were dinosaurs, which were several times the height of elephants, and yet, there were some, who were smaller than a domestic cat. The age of the dinosaurs was from about 140 million years to about 40 million years ago. Then something happened which killed all the dinosaurs. Nobody knows what it was. There were six families of dinosaurs. They were Sauropods, Theropods, Ornithopods, Ceratopsia, armoured dinosaurs and plated dinosaurs. The Sauropods were the biggest of all the dinosaurs. All of these dinosaurs were giants and had long necks and tails. Theropods were meat-eaters that walked on two feet. The king of dinosaurs, Trynosaurus Rex, was one of those. Ornithopods were mostly plant eaters that moved on two legs. Most of them were large. The Ceratopsians were the last dinosaurs to appear. They were large plant eaters with a few horns on their face. They moved on all feet. Both the armored dinosaurs and plated dinosaurs were very much like each other. They had bumpy and bone-covered skin and were plant eaters.

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Most of all the dinosaurs walked on four feet but actually their bodies were biped. Biped animals are animals that walk on two legs. All the first dinosaurs were biped. But then, a few animals started walking on all four feet. Thus came quadrupeds came into existence. This is the story of dinosaurs.

WAR IS DESTRUCTIVE “War is a dreadful thing, Death and destruction, it does bring; Be it for land or riches, war is wrong, A swell of wastes, war is a devil’s song.” War with its lieutenants, disease and death, tries to destroy human kind when there is disagreement between countries. War has proven its strength in the first and second World Wars. In these World Wars, altogether seventy million people died. Forty-five percent of them were soldiers and the remaining fifty-five percent were civilians. In that century, altogether one hundred million people died in wars and seventy percent of them in World Wars alone. Another interesting fact is that 150 wars were fought since 1945. So it is important to stop another World War as, if another World War is fought, all the people on the face of the Earth will be wiped out due to the advanced technology. If peace gets a chance, all nations and all countries prosper. But, if war befalls on the world, I foresee that by the next century, there may be almost no one living on the watery planet, the Earth. During the Kargil war, Afghanistan war and Iraq wars, people in thousands died due to the advanced technology. We must take these examples to our mind and ask ourselves whether we want people to die. Nobody understood the evils of war and the blessings of peace more than the Mauryan Emperor, Asoka, the Great. How Kalinga war transformed him to an apostle of peace is a legend now. “Peace builds bridges and trust And leads there, where all is right.”

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