ICE BREAKERS
(i) Most of the civilizations have flourished on the banks of the rivers. Discuss the reasons in the class. One is done for you.
(a) Availability of water
(b)
(c)
(d)
(ii) Write down the names of the famous cities that are situated on the banks of the rivers given below. One is done for you.
River City
Ganga Varanasi
Yamuna
Godavari
Varada
Krishna
Tapi
(iii) Write down the names of the rivers on the banks of which following cities have prospered:
City River
London
Cairo
New York
Paris
(i) Divide your class into groups and discuss the changes that might have taken place when the cities grow on the banks of the rivers.
(ii) Share your views in the class on the topic ‘Conservation of Rivers and Development of the Cities.’
Mamang Dai (born 1957) is a poet, novelist, journalist and former civil servant from Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, who writes in English as well as Adi language. She is also an active radio and TV journalist covering news programmes and interviews for All India Radio and , Doordarshan Itanagar. She was a programme officer with World Wide. Fund for Nature and worked with Biodiversity Hotspot Conservation. Programme. She has received Padmashree Award in 2011 and Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017. Mamang Dai is a strong voice. from the North East, a writer and a poet par excellence whose work has the fragrance of her land and her people.
The poem, ‘Small Towns and Rivers’ is taken from the collection of. the poems,’The River Poems’, published in 2004. The poem describes a landscape and Nature where river is a dominant phenomenon. Through the concepts like ‘river has a soul’ and ‘river knows immortality of water,’ the poet makes us aware of the lively nature around her hometown ‘Pasighat’ and the eternity of the natural elements. She finds that even life and death are transient. The poem is based on the belief of the tribal people from the North East, that the souls of the beloved ones always continue to dwell in The natural elements around. So she remembers death when she sees the towns. The towns, she implies, have prospered when Nature has been destroyed. The poet has expressed anxiety at. the developments in the small towns.
Small towns always remind me of death.
My hometown lies calmly amidst the trees,
it is always the same,
in summer or winter,
with the dust flying,
or the wind howling down the gorge.
Just the other day someone died.
In the dreadful silence we wept
looking at the sad wreath of tuberoses.
Life and death, life and death,
only the rituals are permanent.
wreath: an arrangement of
flowers, leaves and stems
fastened in a ring and used
for decoration or laying on
a grave or a dead body
rituals: religious or solemn
ceremony consisting of a
series of actions performed
according to a prescribed
way The river has a soul.
In the summer it cuts through the land
like a torrent of grief. Sometimes,
sometimes, I think it holds its breath
seeking a land of fish and stars
The river has a soul.
It knows, stretching past the town,
from the first drop of rain to dry earth
and mist on the mountaintops,
the river knows
the immortality of water.
A shrine of happy pictures
marks the days of childhood.
Small towns grow with anxiety
for the future.
The dead are placed pointing west.
When the soul rises
it will walk into the golden east,
into the house of the sun.
In the cool bamboo,
restored in sunlight,
life matters, like this.
In small towns by the river
we all want to walk with the gods.
- Mamang Dai
#shrine: a place regarded as holy because of its associations with divinity or a sacred person or relic marked by a building or other construction
Give reasons -
#The dead are placed pointing to the west.
#Describe the river in the 3rd stanza.
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