Sat 2018 October passage 1 2 3

This passage is adapted from Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance. ©1995 by Rohinton Mistry. Maneck Kohlah, a teenager from a remote mountain village in India, has been away at boarding school. A new road has just been built to the village, where Maneck’s famliy owns a store.

The promised rewards began rolling up the road into the mountains. Lorries big as houses transported goods from the cities and fouled the air with their exhaust. Service stations and eating places sprouted along the routes to provide for the machines and their men. And developers began building luxury hotels.

That year, when Maneck came home for the holidays, he was puzzled (and later alarmed) to discover his father perpetually irritable. They found it impossible to get through the day without quarrelling, breaking into argument even in the presence of customers.

“What’s the matter with him?” Maneck asked his mother. “When I’m here, he ignores me or fights with me. When I’m at school, he writes letters saying how much he misses me.”

“You have to understand,” said Mrs. Kohlah, “people change when times change. It does not mean he doesn’t love you.”

Stomach churning, Mr. Kohlah was absorbed in watching the growth of development in the hills. His friends and he agreed it was a malevolent growth. The possibility of increased business at the General Store was no consolation. All his senses were being assaulted by the invasion. The noxious exhaust from lorries was searing his nostrils, he told Mrs. Kohlah, and the ugly throbbing of their engines was ripping his eardrums to shreds.

Wherever he turned, he began to see the spread of shacks and shanties. It reminded him of the rapidity with which the mange had overtaken his favourite dog. The destitute encampments scratched away at the hillsides, the people drawn from every direction by stories of construction and wealth and employment. But the ranks of the jobless always exponentially outnumbered the jobs, and a hungry army sheltered permanently on the slopes. The forests were being devoured for firewood; bald patches materialized upon the body of the hills.

Then the seasons revolted. The rain, which used to make things grow and ripen, descended torrentially on the denuded hills, causing mudslides and avalanches. Snow, which had provided an ample blanket for the hills, turned skimpy. Even at the height of winter the cover was ragged and patchy.

Mr, Konian feft a perverse satisfaction at nature’s rebellion. It was a vindication of sorts: he was not alone in being appalled. But when the seasonal disorder continued year after year, he could take no comfort in it. The lighter the snow cover, the heavier was his heart.

Maneck said noting, though he thought his father was being overly dramatic when he declared. “Taking a walk is like going into a war zone:’ Mrs. Kohlah had never been one for walking. “I prefer to enjoy the view from my kitchen,* she said whenever her husband invited her. “It’s less tiring.”

But for Mr. Kohlah, long, solitary rambles were the great pleasure of his life, especially after winter, when every outing was graced by delicious uncertainty—what lay round the next bend? A newborn rivulet, perhaps? Wildflowers he had not noticed yesterday? Among his more awesome memories was a mighty boulder riven by a shrub growing out of it. Sometimes he was the victim of a sweet ambush: a prospect of the valley from a hitherto unseen ankle.

Nowadays, every stroll felt like a deathwatch, to see what was still standing and what had been felled. Coming upon a favourite tree, he would stop under its branches a while before moving on. He would run his hand along the gnarled trunk, happy that an old friend had survived another day. Many of the rocky ledges that he used to sit on to watch the sunset had been removed by dynamite. When he did find one, he rested for a few minutes and wondered if it would be here for him the next time.

Before long they began talking in town about him. “Mr. Kohlah’s screw is getting a little loose they said. “H a speaks to trees and rocks, and pats them like they were his dogs.”

When Maneck heard the gossip, he burned with shame, wishing his father would stop this embarrassing behaviour. He also boiled with anger, wishing to slap some sense into the ignorant, insensitive people.

PASSAGE 2

This passage is excerpted from a speech delivered by African American composer and musician Edward Kennedy”Duke” Ellington to a group of Los Angeles, California, churchgoers on February 12, 1941.

There is a good deal of talk in the world today. Some view that as a bad sign. One of the Persian poets, lamenting the great activity of men’s tongues, cautioned them to be silent with the reminder that, “In much of your talking, thinking is half-murdered”. This is true no doubt. Yet in this day when so many men are silent because they are afraid to speak—indeed, have been forbidden to speak—I view the volubility of the unrestricted with great 1 satisfaction. Here in America, the silence of Europe—silent, that is, except for the harsh echoes of the dictators’ voices—has made us conscious of our privileges of free speech, and like the dumb suddenly given tongue, or the tongue-tied eases of restraint, we babble and bay to beat the band. Singly, as individuals, we don’t say much of consequence perhaps, but put together, heard in chorus, the blustering half-truths, the lame and halting logic, the painfully sincere convictions of Joe and Mary Doaks’ compose a powerful symphony which, like the small boy’s brave whistle in the dark, serves notice on the hobgoblins that we are not asleep, not prey to the unchallenged attack. And so it is with the idea in mind of adding my bit to the meaningful chorus that I address you briefly this evening.

I have been asked to take as the subject of my remarks the title of a very significant poem, “We, Too, Sing America:’ written by the distinguish poet and author Langston Hughes.

In the poem, Mr. Hughes argues the case for democratic recognition of the Negro on the basis of the Negro’s contribution to America, a contribution of labor, valor, and culture. One hears that argument repeated frequently in the race press, from the pulpit and rostrum. America is reminded of the feats of Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, black armies in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the World War. Further, forgetful America is reminded that we sing without false notes, as borne out by the fact that there are no records of black traitors in the archives of American history. This is all well and good, but I believe it to be only half the story.

We play more than a minority role in singing “America:’ Although numerically but 10 percent of the mammoth chorus that today, with an eye overseas, sings “America” with fervor and thanksgiving, I say our 10 percent is the very heart of the chorus: the sopranos, so to speak, carrying the melody; the rhythm section of the band; the violins, pointing the way.

I contend that the Negro is the creative voice of America, is creative America, and it was a happy day in America when the first unhappy slave was landed on its shores. There, in our tortured induction into this “land of liberty:’ we built its most graceful civilization. Its wealth, its flowering fields, its handsome homes, its pretty traditions, its guarded leisure, and its music were all our creations.

We stirred in our shackles, and our unrest awakened justice in the hearts of a courageous few, and we re-created in America the desire for true democracy, freedom for all, the brotherhood of man, principles on which the country had been founded.

We were freed and as before, we fought America’s wars, provided her labor, her music, kept alive her flickering conscience, prodded her on toward the yet unachieved goal, democracy, until we became more than a part of America! We—this kicking, yelling, touchy, sensitive, scrupulously demanding minority—are the personification of the ideal begun by the Pilgrims almost 350 years ago.

It is our voice that sang “America” when America grew too lazy, satisfied, and confident to sing, before the dark threats and fire-lined clouds of destruction frightened it into a thin, panicky quaver.

We are more than a few isolated instances of courage, valor, achievement. We’re the injection, the shot in the arm, that has kept America and its gotten principles alive in the fat and corrupt years intervening between our divine conception and our near-tragic present.

Passage 3

Marine reserves, areas that are closed to all fishing, have been attracting much attention for their dual potential as conservation and fishery management tools. A synthesis of more than 100 studies of reserves worldwide shows that protection from fishing leads to rapid increases in biomass, abundance, and average size of exploited organisms and to increased species diversity. Such effects are of great interest to fishery managers because rebuilding exploited populations in reserves offers prospects of fishery enhancement.

Because reserves contain more and larger fish, protected populations can potentially produce many times more offspring than can exploited populations. In some cases, studies have estimated order-of-magnitude differences in egg production. Increased egg output is predicted to supply adjacent fisheries through export of offspring on ocean currents. In addition, as protected stocks build up, reserves are predicted to supply local fisheries through density-dependent spillover of juveniles and adults into fishing grounds.

Whereas the effects of reserves within their boundaries have strong empirical support, evidence that they enhance fisheries is sparse. Several studies have suggested export by showing higher densities of exploited species or greater catch per unit effort adjacent to reserve borders. When a reserve in the Philippines was reopened to fishing, catches collapsed in nearby areas, which suggests that the reserve had previously supported fisheries. Catches rose again after renewed compliance. However, none of these studies showed an increase in total production after reserve creation. We investigated the effects on neighboring fisheries of marine reserves in Saint Lucia.

The Soufriere Marine Management Area (SMMA) was created in 1995 along the southwest coast of the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. It encompasses 11 km of coast and includes a network of five marine reserves that constitute about 35% of coral reef fishing grounds. This network was designed to rehabilitate the severely overexploited reef fishery.

The marine reserves had a rapid impact on reef fish populations. Visual censuses of reserves and adjacent fishing areas revealed that combined biomass of five commercially important fish families tripled in reserves in 3 years. Biomass doubled in adjacent fishing areas, despite redirection of fishing effort from reserves. In the last 2 years, biomass held fairly steady, with further increases probably prevented by damage to reefs from Hurricane Lenny in late 1999.

We studied the reef fishery in the SMMA for two 5-month periods, in 1995-1996, immediately after reserves were created, and in 2000-2001, after 5 years of protection. We collected data from two trap-fishing methods—large traps soaked overnight and small drop-and-lift traps, baited and soaked for 1 or 2 hours—that account for 70% of fish caught. Catches increased significantly between 1995-1996 and 2000-2001. Mean total catch per trip for fishers with large traps increased by 46%, and for fishers with small traps by 90%. Catch per trap increased 36% for big traps and by 80% for small traps.

Our findings indicate that in 5 years, reserves have led to improvement in the SMMA fishery, despite the 35% decrease in area of fishing grounds. There were more fish in the sea, and evidence for little initial impact of reserves on total catches in the first year of implementation, together with constant fishing effort since protection began, indicates a greater weight of total landings. Interviews with local fishers (conducted in Creole via an interpreter) showed that most felt better off with reserves than without. Younger fishers were especially positive about the benefits.

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