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  • Summary of The Ailing Planet: The Green Movement’s Role Class 11th Chapter 6

    About the Author

    Nani Palkhivala was born in 1920 in Bombay to middle-class Parsi parents. His family name derives from the profession of his forefathers who had been manufacturers of palanquins. He was educated at Masters Tutorial High School, and later at St. Xavier’s College in Bombay. He was a dedicated scholar. At college, he earned a master’s degree in English literature.

    Upon graduating, Palkhivala applied for a position as lecturer at Bombay University but was not awarded the post. Soon found himself trying to obtain admission to institutions of higher learning to further his academic career. It is late in the term, most courses were closed, and he enrolled at Government Law College, Bombay, where he discovered that he had a gift for unraveling the intricacies of jurisprudence. He was an excellent barrister at his time.

    Nani was taken critically ill on December 7, 2002, and taken to Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai. He died on Wednesday, December 11, 2002.

    Introduction

    More than ever the planet earth is losing its vitality and freshness. Due to human development activities, our earth has become highly polluted, highly irreparable and highly damaged. We have taken out petroleum, coal and a lot of natural resources from the earth. We have removed more than half of world’s vegetation and emitted a large quantity of carbon and a lot of other chemicals. We have destroyed marine life and made rivers dry. Moreover, our greed for more and more wealth resulted in depleting the protective ozone layer and invited all harmful rays to the earth’s surface. Besides, we have brought out a great imbalance between humans and the other species of the earth.

    Summary in Points

    1. First Nation-wide Green Party: established 1972, New Zealand

    2. Worldview shifted from mechanistic to holistic and ecological

    3. The realization that the planet is a living organism in declining health due to human impact on its natural resources

    4. Sustainable development – Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their needs – the key to human survival and prosperity in the future

    5. We, today is known as the ‘world’s most dangerous animal’, are custodians of the future.

    6. Undiscovered species exist in large numbers but we may never discover their identity if we do not conserve their habitats

    7. Lester R. Brown’s book ‘The Global Economic Prospect’ identifies four principal biological systems of the earth as fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands. They provide food supply and raw material for our survival.

    8. Over-fishing and deforestation, coupled with the uncontrolled population explosion, has led to the collapse of fisheries, the disappearance of forest cover, conversion of grasslands to barren wastelands and the deterioration of crops.

    9. We lose an acre and a half of forests every second and the World Bank estimates a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting to cope with the demand for fuelwood.

    10. Article 48 A of the Constitution – “The State shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country”. The author laments that laws are never respected or enforced in India.

    11. Fertility falls as incomes rise, education spreads, and health improves. Thus development which may ensure raised incomes is the best contraceptive. But development itself is not possible without a control over our population explosion. More children mean more hungry mouths which imply poverty as well as increased demand on our natural resources.

    12. India’s current population is estimated to be 1.3 billion while the world population is about 7.5 billion. Hence, we hold the major chunk of the world. The author questions whether we recognize this fact and are at least now willing to make a change in our awareness of the human impact on the environment.

    13. The era of responsibility – the awareness of our role and the need for sustainable development

    14. The author claims that the industry must join the cause and work towards becoming eco-friendly just as Du Pont under the leadership of Mr. Edgar S Woolard.

    15. We are tenants of the planet and are required to keep it repaired and well-maintained for generations to come – Margaret Thatcher, Lester Brown

    Summary

    Our Earth is an enormous living organism, of which we are parts. This is our planet, its destruction will make us all homeless. We are dependent on Earth and not the other way round. However, the thankless creature, man, is unconcerned about the dangers that pose threats to our survival. The article by Nani Palkhivala deals with the concerns of the environmentalists at this eleventh hour and talks about the new awareness that has dawned upon our race. A holistic and ecological view of the world has been brought into consideration. The Green Movement launched in 1972 has never looked back. There is a growing need of sustainable development, which was popularised by World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987.

    Man is the most dangerous creature, as it was declared by a Zoo in Lusaka, Zambia. Human beings are taking too much time to realize the need of the hour. One of the members of Brandt Commission, Mr.L.K.Jha, raised a vital question, are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes, and ailing environment? Mr. Lester R. Brown expressed his worry over the fact that our four biological systems are reaching an unsustainable level. The tropical forests, the powerhouse of evolution, as Dr. Meyers called them, are being destroyed causing the extinction of several species.

    The fear hovers, what if the words, forests precede mankind and deserts follow, come true. And the reality is that India is losing its forests at the rate of 3.7 million acres a year. The Article 48A of the Indian Constitution provides that the State shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forest and wildlife of the country. To conserve the environment and to bring down the population of the world, which is 5.7 billion, Palkhivala suggests that development is the only solution. Fertility falls as the income rises, education spreads, and health improves. Nani supports compulsory sterilization and defends it by saying that there is no other alternative but coercion.

    The population of India today is 920 million, which is more than the entire population of Africa and South America. What is happening today is that rich are getting richer and poor are begetting children, which begets them to remain poor. Now the folks have realized what endangers our race. It is not about the survival of human race but the survival of the planet Earth.

    It is an Era of Responsibility. The industrialists have to understand the present concern with most consideration. The view of the Chairman of Du Pont, Mr. Edgar S. Woolard is much appreciable, our continued existence as a leading manufacturer requires that we excel in environmental performance. Let us be grateful to mother nature and keep Margaret Thatcher’s felicitous words, No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy with a full repairing lease. In the words of Mr. Lester Brown, We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from our children.

  • NCERT Solutions of The Voice Of The Rain Class 11th Chapter 5 (Poem)

    Page No: 42
     
    I. Think It Out 
     

    1. There are two voices in the poem. Who do they belong to? Which lines indicate this?

    2. What does the phrase “strange to tell” mean?

    3. There is a parallel drawn between rain and music. Which words indicate this? Explain the similarity between the two.

    4. How is the cyclic movement of rain brought out in the poem? Compare it with what you have learnt in science.

    5. Why are the last two lines put within brackets?

    6. List the pair of opposites found in the poem. 

    Answer

    1. The two voices in the poem are the voice of the rain and the voice of the poet. The poem begins in a conversational tone. The lines are “And who art thou? Said I ……..” and ‘I am the poem of Earth’.
    2. The phrase ‘strange to tell’ means that it is an unusual and extraordinary answer given by the rain drops to the poet who asked who ‘it was’.

    3. ‘I am the poem of Earth’
    ‘For song, issuing from its birth place
    After fulfillment, wandering, reck’d orUnreck’d, duly with love returns. They both return to the place of their origin after fulfilling their tasks.

    4. The poet explains that the rain drops in the form of water vapour rise up from land and sea and then descend again on the earth and dry land in order to wash it down and hence comes back to its origin. This is the cyclic movement explained by the poet.

    5. The last two lines are put within brackets because they do not form the voice of the rain or the poet. They only contain a general observation made by the poet about the course of a song.

    6. (a) Day, night
        (b) Reck’d, unreck’d
        (c) Rise, descend

    2. Notice the following sentence patterns.
    1. And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower.
    2. I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain.
    3. Eternal I rise
    4. For song…duly with love returns
    Rewrite the above sentences in prose.

    Answer

    1. I enquired the soft-falling rain about its identity. 

    2. The voice of the rain introduced itself as the Poem of Earth.

    3. The voice of the rain explained its upward movement towards the sky as eternal.

    4. The poet says that, similar to the natural cycle of the rain, a song originates from the heart of the poet, travels to reach others and after fulfilling its purpose (whether acknowledged or not), it returns to the poet with all due love.

  • Summary of The Voice Of The Rain Class 11th Chapter 5 (Poem)

    About the Poet

    Walt Whitman, one of America’s most influential poets was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Long Island, New York. He was the second of nine children and was immediately nicknamed “Walt” to distinguish him from his father. At 11, Walt Whitman was taken out of school by his father to help out with household income. He started to work as an office boy for a Brooklyn-based attorney team and eventually found employment in the printing business. In 1836, at the age of seventeen, he began his career as a teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career.

    At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a “cleansed” life. He worked as a freelance journalist and visited the wounded at New York City–area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D. C. in December 1862 to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years. Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. In Washington, he lived on a clerk’s salary and modest royalties.

    But in 1873 his life took a dramatic turn for the worse. In January of that year he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. In May he traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to see his ailing mother, who died just three days after his arrival. Whitman found it impossible to continue with his job in Washington and relocated to Camden to live with his brother George and sister-in-law Lou.

    On March 26, 1892, Walt Whitman passed away in Camden.

    Poem: The Voice of the Rain

    And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
    Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
    I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
    Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
    Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, and
    Yet the same,
     
    I descend to lave the droughts, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
    And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
    And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
    And make pure and beautify it;

    (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
    Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)

    Introduction

    ‘The Voice of the Rain’ is an imaginary dialogue between the poet and the rain. The poet casually asks the rain who it is. To his surprise, the rain answers the question and tells about its birth and end. The poet understands the tale of rain and translates it for the readers.

    Summary

    The poet once asked the soft falling rain who it is. Strangely, the raindrops replied and said that it is the music of the Earth which is its birth place. It is born out of the land and sea in the form of water vapours and rises up in the sky to form clouds. Yet, at its core, it remains the same as it was at birth. It then returns to earth as little droplets which wash away the layers of dust, waters the soil and helps the seeds sprout again. It gives back life to the earth. It purifies and makes it beautiful over and over again. This cycle goes on eternally.

    The poet compares the rain to a song. A song rises from the heart of a poet. Once it is complete, it is passed on from one person to another. It doesn’t matter to him whether anyone listens to it or not. After the poet has sung his song, it settles back into his heart which is its birth place. The song keeps rising again and again from there. Thus it purifies the poet’s heart and make it beautiful.

    Main points

    1. Poem – an imaginary dialogue between the poet and the rain.
    2. Poet asks who it is.
    3. Surprisingly, rain answers and tells how it originates.
    4. It rises unseen from land and sea.
    5. It forms clouds in the sky.
    6. It returns to earth in the form of rains.
    7. It gives back life to the earth and make it beautiful.
    8. This cycle goes on forever.