Humans and Environment (Unit 05)

Read the following passage and answer questions

His mother saw that he had forgotten to close the little door and called after him, "Close the cage door, Seryozha, or your bird might fly out and hurt itself."

No sooner had she said this than the siskin found the door, spread its wings happily and flew across the room to the window. But it did not see the glass pane. It hit the pane and fell to the windowsill.

Seryozha came running, picked up the little bird and took it back to the cage. The siskin was alive, but it lay on its breast with its little wings spread out and was breathing jerkily.

Seryozha began to cry.

"Mamma! What'll I do?"

"There's nothing you can do now."

Seryozha did not leave the room that day. He kept gazing at the siskin. The siskin lay on its breast as before, breathing jerkily.

When Seryozha went to bed that night the siskin was still alive.

Seryozha could not fall asleep for a long while. No sooner would he close his eyes than he would imagine the siskin lying there, gasping for breath.

When Seryozha went up to the cage the next morning he saw the siskin lying on its back with its legs curled up. It was dead.

Never again did Seryozha catch another bird.

Two Alaskan Kodiak bears joined a small circus where the pair appeared in a nightly parade pulling a covered wagon. The two were taught to somersault, to spin, to stand on their heads, and to dance on their hind legs, paw in paw, stepping in unison. Under a spot-light the dancing bears, a male and a female, soon became favourites of the crowd. The circus went south on a West Coast tour through Canada to California and on down into Mexico, through Panama into South America, down the Andes the length of Chile to those southernmost isles of Tierra del Fuego. There a jaguar jumped a juggler, and afterwards, mortally mauled the animal trainer; and the

shocked show people disbanded in dismay and horror. In the confusion the bears went their own way. Without a master, they wandered off by themselves into the wilderness on those densely wooded, wildly windy, subantarctic islands. Utterly away from people, on an out-of-the-way uninhabited island, and in a climate they found ideal, the bears mated, thrived, multiplied, and after a number of generations populated the entire island. Indeed, after some years, descendants of the two moved out onto half a dozen adjacent islands; and seventy years later, when scientists finally found and enthusiastically studied the bears, it was discovered that all of them, to a bear, were performing splendid circus tricks.

On nights when the sky is bright and the moon is full, they gather to dance. They gather the cubs and the juveniles in a circle around them. They gather out of the wind at the center of a sparkling, circular crater left by a meteorite which had fallen in a bed of chalk. Its glassy walls are chalk white, its flat floor is covered with white gravel, and it is well-drained, and dry. No vegetation grows within. When the moon rises above it, the light reflecting off the walls fills the crater with a pool of moonlight, so that it is twice as bright on the crater floor as anywhere else in that vicinity. Scientists speculate that originally the full moon had reminded the two bears of the circus spotlight, and for that reason they danced. Yet, it might be asked, what music do the descendants dance to? Paw in paw, stepping in unison what music can they possibly hear inside their heads as they dance under the full moon and the Aurora Australis, as they dance in brilliant silence?

The farming teacher told the children to spades and hoes from the car and started them on weeding. He told them all about weeds: how hardy they were; how some grew faster than crops and hid the sun from them; how weeds were good hiding places for bad insects; and how weeds could be a nuisance by taking all the nourishment from the soil. He taught them one thing after another. And while he talked, his hands never stopped pulling out weeds. The children did the same. Then the teacher showed them how to hoe; how to make furrows; how to spread fertilizer; and everything else you had to do to grow things in a field, explaining as he demonstrated.

A little snake put its head out and very nearly bit the hand of Ta-chan, one of the older boys, but the farming teacher reassured him, "The snakes here ain't poisonous, and they won't hurt you if you don't hurt them."

Besides, teaching the children how to plant a field, the farming teacher told them interesting things about insects, birds, and butterflies, about the weather, and about all sorts of other things. His strong gnarled hands seemed to attest that everything he told the children, he had found out himself through experience.

The children were dripping with perspiration when they had finally finished planting the field with the teacher's help. Except for a few furrows that were a bit uneven, it was an impeccable field, whichever way you looked at it.

From that day onward, the children held that farmer in high esteem, and whenever they saw him, even at a distance, they would cry, "There's our farming teacher!" Whenever he had any fertilizer left he would bring it over and spread it on the children's field, and their crops grew well. Every day someone would visit the field and report to the head-master and the other children on how it was doing. The children learned to know the wonder and the joy of seeing the seeds they had planted themselves sprout. And whenever two or three of them were gathered together, talk would turn to the progress of their field.

Terrible things were beginning to happen in various parts of the world. But as the children discussed their tiny field -they were still enfolded in the very heart of peace.

Hakkonchandra village was situated to the cast of Kaptai dam, in the Rangamati district of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). A family in that village who belonged to the Boro Hambe clan had a son who was an ivory craftsman and was later recognized and appreciated as one of the vory first craftsmon among the Jumma population in the CHT region. His nioce is the mother whose story is given here.

It is difficult to say exactly when she was born, but she thinks she is over cighty years old now. She is my grandmother and one of the cyewitnesses of the discussed episode in the history of CHT. Her family was relatively affluent. She had six siblings-three brothers and three sisters. Their family was well-respected in the neighborhood since their father was a schoolteacher. Sushama Chakma was not acquainted with paucity and poverty in the early years of her life. When the northern parts of CHT were submerged permanently due to Kaptai dam, not just the Chakma population but some Hajong, Marma and adi-Bangali residents who had lived for long among us also lost all their possessions. The wealthiest families became displaced people. They had to constantly move from one place to the other. About 50,000 Chakma, Hajong. and Tripuri people had to leave the country and migrate permanently.

Like many others, she lost a secure life and her homeland with her relatives. Her husband had to leave his public service to live like a refugee. Her only possessions were memories of better times and the determination to survive. While moving from one location to another for resettlement in the reserve forest, they spent countless sleepless nights thinking about their uncertain future. Despite the constant struggle to find happiness in pain, the sun never shone for her family.