Lesson 4: The Wheel of Cyclone

A Read the following excerpt from Amitabh Ghosh's The Great Derangement and answer the questions.

On the afternoon of March 17, 1978. the weather took an odd turn in north Delhi. Mid-march is usually a nice time of year in that part of India: the chill of winter is gone and the blazing heat of summer is yet to come; the sky is clear and monsoon is far away. But that day dark clouds appeared suddenly and there were squalls of rain. Then followed an even bigger surprise: a hailstorm.

I was then studying for an MA at Delhi University while also working as a part-time journalist. When the hailstorm broke, I was in a library. I had planned to stay late, but the unseasonal weather led to a change of mind and I decided to leave. I was on my way back to my room when, on an impulse, I changed direction and dropped in on a friend. But the weather continued to worsen as we were chatting, so after a few minutes, I decided to head straight back by a route that I rarely had occasion to take.

I had just passed a busy intersection called Maurice Nagar when I heard a rumbling sound somewhere above. Glancing over my shoulder I saw a gray. tube-like extrusion forming on the underside of a dark cloud: it grew rapidly as I watched, and then all of a sudden it turned and came whiplashing down to earth, heading in my direction. Across the street lay a large administrative building. I sprinted over and headed toward what seemed to be an entrance. But the glass-fronted doors were shut, and a small crowd stood huddled outside, in the shelter of an overhang. There was no room for me there so I ran around to the front of the building. Spotting a small balcony, I jumped over the parapet and crouched on the floor.

The noise quickly rose to a frenzied pitch, and the wind began to tug fiercely at my clothes. Stealing a glance over the parapet, I saw, to my astonishment, that my surroundings had been darkened by a churning cloud or dust. In the dim glow that was shining down from above, I saw an extraordinary panoply of objects flying past-bicycles, scooters, lampposts, sheets of corrugated iron, even entire teastalls. In that instant, gravity itself seemed to have been transformed into a wheel spinning upon the fingertip of some unknown power.

I buried my head in my arms and lay still. Moments later the noise died down and was replaced by an eerie silence. When at last I climbed out of the balcony, I was confronted by a scene of devastation such as I had never before beheld. Buses lay overturned, scooters sat perched on treetops, walls had been ripped out of buildings, exposing interiors in which ceiling fans had been twisted into tulip-like spirals. The place where I had first thought to take shelter, the glass-fronted doorway had been reduced to a jumble of jagged debris. The panes had shattered and many people had been wounded by the shards. I realised that I too would have been among the injured had I remained there. I walked away in a daze.

Long afterward, I am not sure exactly when or where I hunted down the Times of India's New Delhi edition of March 18, I still have the photocopies I made of it. "30 dead", says the banner headline, "700 Hurt As Cyclone Hits North Delhi."

(Abridged)

Answer the following questions from your understanding of the above text

1. What do you mean by the title "The Great Derangement"? What reasons are there for our environment to be deranged?
2. Describe the weather of 17th March 1978 in your own words.
3. What job did the author do while studying in Delhi?
4. What steps did the author take to save himself when the cyclone hit North Delhi?
5. Did you ever see any natural calamity around you? Describe what you saw in your own words.

B Match the following group of words in column A with the meanings given in column and translate each words/group of words into Bengali.

| A | B | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | the chill of winter | Changing a decision | | Squalls of rain | Moving suddenly and forcefully like a whip being cracked | | Blazing heat of summer | Doing something suddenly | | On an impulse | At that moment | | Glancing over | The coldness of winter | | There is no room | Something unexpected | | Stealing a glance | Greatly amazed | | Took an odd turn | No space | | Change of mind | Tremendous heat of summer | | Dumbfounded | Sudden violent gust of rain | | Whiplashing | Inspecting quickly | | In that instant | To look quickly |

C 1. Find out published news about natural calamity in Bangladesh and bring that paper cutting to class. Discuss in groups of four classmates on how journalists report news of disasters.

2. Write a news report describing a natural calamity in your locality in 100 words.

D Write a personal diary entry in 100 words, describing a day in your life that did not go as you had planned. A Sample diary entry is given below:

30th September 2024

Dear Diary,

Today was one of the worst days of my life. I had started for school right on time around 7.30am. Usually, my father gives me a ride to the school on his bike. But today, he had to go earlier to his office and asked me to take a rickshaw.

I knew that it would take a longer time to reach school on a rickshaw, and so I had decided to leave earlier. As I stood in front of my house to call a rickshawpuller, I found that all the rickshaws had already been taken by school students and their guardians. I waited there for 10 minutes and found one vacant rickshaw and rode on it.

On my way, suddenly it began raining heavily and I was soaked from head to toe. Just imagine! What a disaster the day was for me. I entered my class drenched as a crow!

Will write to you tomorrow again. I have to sleep now so that I can be up early for school tomorrow.

Goodnight :-)