1. Warm up activity:
Discuss the following questions in pairs.
□ Have you ever travelled by boat, launch or steamer along a river? Write down your experience in 500-600 words.
□ Before the beginning of air travel, people travelling between continents had to do so by ships. What do you think were the pleasures and the dangers of those journeys?
During the colonial era (1757-1947) the English came to India in great numbers in search offortune. Many young women in quest of husbands also travelled to India.
George Orwell (1903-1950) spent a part of his early life in Burma (now Myanmar), -then an English colony-serving as a police officer. In the following extract taken from his Burmese Days (1934), we get the picture of the journey of a young English woman Elizabeth, across the sea by ship and her arrival in Burma. She has a typical colonial mind-set, and fantasizes a glorious life in India. Her attitude to the colony is also characteristic of the colonizers psyche that liked the land and the landscape but was dismissive of the people-called 'natives'-and their way of life.
2. Now read the text and answer the questions that follow:
Elizabeth spent thirty pounds on summer frocks and set sail immediately. The ship, heralded by rolling porpoises, ploughed across the Mediterranean and down the Canal into a sea of staring, enamel-like blue, then out into the green wastes of the Indian Ocean, where flocks of flying fish skimmed in terror from the approaching hull. At night the waters were phosphorescent, and the wash of the bow was like a moving arrowhead of green fire. Elizabeth 'loved' the life on board ship....
She was going to love India, she knew. She had formed quite a picture of India, from the other passenger's conversation; she had even learned some of the more necessary Hindustani phrases, such as 'idher ao,' jaldi,' 'sahibta^ etc. In anticipation she tasted the agreeable atmosphere of Clubs, with punkahs flapping and bare-footed white turbaned boys reverently salaaming; and maidans where bronze Englishmen with little clipped moustaches galloped to and fro, whacking polo balls. It was almost as nice as being rich, the way people lived in India.
They sailed into Colombo through green glassy waters, where turtles and black snakes floated basking. A fleet of sampans came reaching out to meet the ship, propelled by coal-black men with lips stained redder than blood by betel juice. They yelled and struggled round the gangway while the passengers descended. As Elizabeth and her friends came down, two sampan-wallahs, their prows nosing against the gangway, besought them with yells.
"Don't you go with him, missie! Not with him I Bad wicked man he, not fit taking missio!"
"Don't you listen him lies, missie! Nasty low fellow! Nasty low tricks him playing. Naaty native tricks!"
"Ha, ha! He is not native himself Oh no! Him European man, white skin are same, missie. Ha ha I"
"Stop your bat, you two, or TU fetch one of you a kick," said the husband of Elizabeth's friend-he was a planter. They stepped into one of the sampans and woe rowed towards the sim-bright quays. And the successful sampan-wallah turned and discharged at his rival a mouth fill of spittle which he must have been saving up for a very long time."
This was the Orient. Scents of coco-nut oil and sandalwood, cinnamon and turmeric, floated across the water on to Mount Lavinia where they bathed in a lukewarm sea that foamed like Coca-Cola. She came back to the ship in the evening, and they reached Rangoon a week later.
North of Mandalay the train, fuelled with wood, crawled at twelve miles an hour across a vast parched plain bounded at its remote edges by blue rings of hills. White egrets stood poised, motionless, like herons, and piles of drying chillis gleamed crimson in the sun. Sometimes a white pagoda rose from the plain like the breast of a supine giantess. The early tropic night settled down, and the train jolted on, slowly, stopping at little stations where barbaric yells sounded from the darkness. Half-naked men with their long hair knotted behind their heads moved to and fro in torchlight, hideous as demons in Elizabeth's eyes. The train plunged into the forest, and unseen branches brushed against the windows. It was about nine o'clock when they reached Kyauktada, where Elizabeth's uncle and aunt were waiting with Mr. Macgregor's car, and with some servants carrying torches. Her aunt came forward and took Elizabeth's shoulders in her delicate, saurian hands.
"I suppose, you are our niece Elizabeth? We are so pleased to see you," she said, and kissed her.
Mr. Lackersteen peered over his wife's shoulder in the torchlight. He gave a half-whistle, exclaimed, "Well, I'll be damned!" and then seized Elizabeth and kissed her, more warmly than he need have done, she thought. She had never seen either of them before.
3. Answer the following questions:
a. How did the waters of the Indian Ocean look like during the night?
b. What frightened the flocks of flying fish?
c. Why did Elizabeth think that she would like India?
d. What is polo? Who played the polo?
e. What did the sampanwallahs fight for?
f. Where did Elizabeth go from Rangoon?
g. Did Elizabeth enjoy her stay in Colombo?
4. Put T (true) and F (false) beside the following statements based on the above extract.
a. Elizabeth unwillingly undertook the sea voyage.
b. Her companions were unfriendly.
c. Before she got into the Indian Ocean she sailed across the Mediterranean.
d. The Indians lived a glamorous life.
e. The train journey to Kyauktada was a long one.
5. Discuss the following questions in pairs :
a. What picture of the sea do you find here?
b. The narrator is rather critical of the local people. What evidence do you find of the narrator's disapproval of the local people?
c. Narrate the competition between the sampanwallahs.
6. Choose the right words from the box to fill the blanks in the sentences given below:
floated anticipation ploughed skimmed crawled gleamed
a. The ship…………. through the Mediterranean.
b. The fish…………. in terror from the approaching hull.
c. In…………. she imagined the agreeable atmosphere.
d. The black snakes…………. basking.
e. The train…………. at twelve miles an hour.
f. Piles of drying chilli…………. crimson in the sun.
7. What colours and spices have been mentioned in the passage?
8. Give synonyms of the following words:
a. delicate
b. warmly
c. discharge
d. lukewarm
e. hideous
f. supine
g. parched
9. The narrator has on several occasions compared one thing with another using the word 'like'. For example, sea foam has been compared to Coca-Cola.
Find five more examples from the text where the word 'like' has been used for comparison.
If you want to read the next lesson of this unit please click the link below:
Lesson 3: Imaginary Travel
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