Activities

If Rudyard Kipling About the Author and Text        Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) was an English poet and novelist who is remembered for his children's books, including the ever popular The Jungle Book and Kim , and for his many stories and poems written about the British in India during the Raj. He was a strong advocate of the British Empire. Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, and was offered a knighthood several times, though he declined the honour.        The following poem is written from the perspective of a father offering advice to his son. In it, he expounds the virtues of stoicism and behaving in a manner that befits a gentleman. This simple inspirational poem is often quoted and anthologised. In 1995, it was named 'Britain's favourite poem' in a BBC survey.     If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself wh...

The Felling of the Banyan Tree Dilip Chitre About the Author and Text Dilip Chitre (1938-2009) was a teacher, painter, film-maker and magazine columnist. A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, Chitre lived and taught in Ethiopia and the USA. He was a bilingual writer, writing mostly in Marathi. His major translations from Marathi into English include the 1968 collection An Anthology of Marathi Poetry (1945-1965) and Says Tuka (1991). Travelling in a Cage (1980) was his first and only collection of English poetry. Exile, alienation, self-disintegration and death are major themes in Chitre's poetry. His poems reflect a cosmopolitan culture and urban sensibility, and use oblique expressions and ironic tones to explore the vicissitudes of urban life. This poem is about the cutting down of an ancient banyan tree that stood in the yard of the poet's ancestral house. The cutting down of the banyan seems to signify the cutting down of roots and the movement to a different a...

Good Manners J. C. Hill About the Author and Text The essay "Good Manners' is adapted from the book An Introduction to Good Citizenship (1941) by J.C. Hill. If our attitudes and behaviour must change for the better as we grow up, we must be able to have a deeper understanding of human relationships and how they work. If one is open and willing to change one's perspective then we become better individuals. Values that make us sensitive to other's needs results in good manners. Hill discusses good manners in action, good manners in speech, and in general behaviour. Good Manners J. C. Hill There was once a young man who was strong and healthy and enjoyed his work. In every way he felt on top of life, and had no sympathy for the uninteresting folk who seemed to form such a large proportion of the population. One day he got an attack of influenza. He had had it before and paid little attention to it, but this time he developed pneumonia and was dangerously i...