TANSCHE- General English- Unit II

 

Unit II

PROSE

JRD Tata was the founder of Tata Airlines, which went on to become Air India. Way back in the 1940s and 1950s, this airline was the first Indian global entity, proudly taking the Indian flag to international skies. In 1948, Air India inaugurated its first international service, from Mumbai to London, a proud moment for the country.

1. JRD

- HARISH BHAT

JRD was determined to make Air India the best airline in the world, notwithstanding the fierce competition from a host of other global airlines. For him, this was essential, because Air India was not just an airline, but a proud carrier of India’s image across the world. During the inaugural international flight, on which he also flew, he watched carefully for the reactions of passengers, and was greatly relieved when everything went very well, including landing in London right on time. He said, ‘It was for me a great and stirring event…. seeing the Indian flag displayed on both sides of the Malabar Princess [the name of the aircraft] as she stood proudly on the apron at the airports of Cairo, Geneva and London filled me with joy and emotion.’

"I think that Air India International has played not an unimportant part in raising the prestige of India abroad. So, congratulations.” - Jawaharlal Nehru

Thereafter, he was obsessed with making the airline special, and he knew that this required the highest standards of customer service and excellence. He told the airline’s employees, ‘I want that the passengers who travel with us do not have occasion to complain. I want to establish that there is no airline which is better liked by passengers, that is safer and more punctual, where the food and services is better, and which sets a better image than Air India.’

As early as 1949, with constant attention to every small detail, these aspirations were coming true. In fact, the prime minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote to JRD Tata on 7 May 1949, specifically complimenting him on the high quality offered by the airline. Nehru wrote, “This is just a brief letter to express my great appreciation of the quality of the Air India International service. I have now travelled on four occasions between India and England, and the more experience I have of it, the better I like it. I think that Air India International has played not an unimportant part in raising the prestige of India abroad. So, congratulations.”

Air India soon became legendary for its punctuality. Legend has it that people in Geneva, in those years, could set their watches to the time at which the Air India flight flew over the city. In those initial days, JRD would fly one of the aircraft himself once every fifteen days. During these flights, he would insist on such high standards of accuracy that other pilots tried to dodge flying with him. The historian RM Lala tells us that on one such flight, JRD asked his co-pilot, Capt Visvanath for the ground speed. ‘145 miles per hour,’ replied Visvanath. JRD was not satisfied. He took out his slide rule, worked out his own calculations, and responded, ‘It’s 145.5.’ Those were the standards of accuracy he expected if the airline were to keep perfect time.

"His personal quest for excellence, his attention to detail and his ability to keep abreast of new technologies relating to aviation and the airline business, provided the leadership that made Air India an airline of choice, and gave it true global stature." - Ratan Tata

JRD Tata’s blue notes were extraordinary in their attention to detail and relentless push for excellence in all matters big and small. After every Air India flight that he took, he would send these ‘blue notes’ to the management, summarizing his observations, including encouraging comments and scathing criticism. Here are some extracts from his notes in the year 1951, after he had flown Air India to Europe and back home: ‘Chairs: I found on VT-DAR that some of the seats recline much more than the others. As a result, those seats are more comfortable. I suggest that all our seats be adjusted for a maximum reclining angle, except, of course, the rearmost seats which are limited by bulkheads.’

And even more interesting is this note: 'The tea served on board from Geneva is, without exaggeration, indistinguishable in colour from the coffee… I do not know whether the black colour of the tea is due to the quality (of tea leaves) used or due to excessive brewing. I suggest that the Station Manager at Geneva be asked to look into the matter.’

Because of such meticulous attention to detail and excellence, Air India topped the list of airlines in the world in 1968 as per a survey done by the Daily Mail, London. In fact, in that same year, 75 per cent of Air India’s passengers were foreigners who came from countries with their own airlines. I have also heard that when Singapore wanted to launch an airline (now it is famous as Singapore Airlines), Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew advised his team to study the high standards that had been set by Air India.

Ratan Tata, writing in a beautiful commemorative book where many Air Indians have offered tributes to JRD Tata, said of him:

"Many of us who knew Jeh (JRD Tata) intimately knew that Air India was as important to him as the industrial empire he headed. While he led the Tata empire with distinction, Air India was his personal creation and personal passion. He built it and it became the airline recognized by many international carriers as the gold standards of service. No other enterprise in the country enjoyed that type of international recognition. His personal quest for excellence, his attention to detail and his ability to keep abreast of new technologies relating to aviation and the airline business, provided the leadership that made Air India an airline of choice, and gave it true global stature."

In my office, for the past three decades, stands a quote from JRD Tata, which guided his own actions, and which inspires me every single day. He said: ‘One must forever strive for excellence, or even perfection, in any task however small, and never be satisfied with the second-best.’

Remember, for instance, his note on tea and coffee.

 

About the Author

Harish Bhat is the brand custodian, Tata Sons. An avid marketer, he has helped create many successful Tata brands. Harish is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad. He won the IIMA gold medal for scholastic excellence and later, the British Chevening Scholarship for young managers. He writes extensively and is a columnist for The Hindu Business Line and Mint. His first book, TataLog, was published by Penguin in 2012. He is the author of several books including Tatastories: 40 Timeless Tales to Inspire You. This is an excerpt from this book.

 Glossary

1.      1. Apron - a designated area of an airport where aircraft are parked, unloaded, loaded, refuelled, and boarded by passengers
2.      Quest - search
3.      Aviation - the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft especially heavier than air
4.      Stature - importance
5.      Scathing -  harshly critical
6.      Recline - to lean or lie back
7.      Bulkheads - a transverse partition
8.      Exaggeration - the act of overstating or representing disproportionately
9.      Meticulous -   uncompromising
10.  Commemorative - done or made to officially remember and give respect to a great person
11.  Decade - ten years.
12.  Strive - try hard

 I. Answer the following questions in brief

1.      What role did the blue notes play in the growth of Air India?

2.      List a few qualities which entrepreneurs and businesspeople can learn from JRD.

3.      Which area of customer service did JRD want his employees to focus on?

4.      Which are the two aspects for which Nehru congratulated Air India?

 III. Answer the following questions in detail

1.        Write an essay on the main contributions of Air India.

2.        Within how many years of its inception did Air India establish a global reputation for excellence? How was it made possible?

3.        Why was JRD particular about the high standards of Air India? How did it help him to achieve success?

 

2. UNCLE PODGER HANGS A PICTURE

- JEROME K. JEROME

You never saw such a commotion up and down a house, in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger undertook to do a job. A picture would have come home from the frame-maker's, and be standing in the dining-room, waiting to be put up; and Aunt Podger would ask what was to be done with it, and Uncle Podger would say:

"Oh, you leave that to me. Don't you, any of you, worry yourselves about that. I'll do all that."

And then he would take off his coat, and begin. He would send the girl out for sixpenny worth of nails, and then one of the boys after her to tell her what size to get; and, from that, he would gradually work down, and start the whole house.

"Now you go and get me my hammer, Will," he would shout; "and you bring me the rule, Tom; and I shall want the step-ladder, and I had better have a kitchen-chair, too; and, Jim! You run round to Mr. Goggles, and tell him, 'Pa's kind regards, and hopes his leg's better; and will he lend him his spirit-level?' And don't you go, Maria, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light; and when the girl comes back, she must go out again for a bit of picture cord; and Tom!—where's Tom?—Tom, you come here; I shall want you to hand me up the picture."

And then he would lift up the picture, and drop it, and it would come out of the frame, and he would try to save the glass, and cut himself; and then he would spring round the room, looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools, and start looking for his coat; while he would dance round and hinder them.

"Doesn't anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? I never came across such a set in all my life—upon my word I didn't. Six of you!—and you can't find a coat that I put down not five minutes ago! Well, of all the—"

Then he'd get up, and find that he had been sitting on it, and would call out:

"Oh, you can give it up! I've found it myself now. Might just as well ask the cat to find anything as expect you people to find it."

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a semi-circle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.

"There!" he would say, in an injured tone, "now the nail's gone."

And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening.

The nail would be found at last, but by that time he would have lost the hammer.

"Where's the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Great heavens! Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don't know what I did with the hammer!"

We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall, where the nail was to go in, and each of us had to get up on the chair, beside him, and see if we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to get down. And he would take the rule, and re-measure, and find that he wanted half thirty-one and three-eighths inches from the corner, and would try to do it in his head, and go mad.

And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all arrive at different results, and sneer at one another. And in the general row, the original number would be forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to measure it again.

He would use a bit of string this time, and at the critical moment, when the old fool was leaning over the chair at an angle of forty-five, and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.

And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language.

At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody's toes.

Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done.

"Oh! You women, you make such a fuss over everything," Uncle Podger would reply, picking himself up. "Why, I like doing a little job of this sort."

And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it, and Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly sufficient to flatten his nose.

Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up—very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake and everybody dead beat and wretched—except Uncle Podger.

"There you are," he would say, stepping heavily off the chair on to the charwoman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. "Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that!"

About the Author

Jerome K. Jerome was an English writer. He wrote many humorous stories. He lived his early life with immense difficulty. In 1888, he married Georgina and they spent some time after their wedding, rowing on the Thames. This trip inspired his most successful book, Three Men in a Boat. Royalties from the book helped to improve his financial condition and since then Jerome devoted his life to writing.

 

Glossary

1.      1. Commotion - confusion or noisy disturbance
2.      Hammer - a hand tool with a heavy rigid head and a handle
3.      Rule - a measuring stick
4.      Step ladder - short folding ladder with flat steps and a small platform
5.      Spirit level - a glass tube almost filled with alcohol, used by a mason for testing whether a surface is level or not
6.      Picture cord - a strong thick string or thin rope used for hanging pictures
7.      Hinder - to cause delay
8.      Charwoman - a woman hired as a cleaner in an office or a house
9.      Grovel - to lie or crawl face downwards
10.  Grunt - to make a short low sound to express disapproval or unwillingness
11.  Gaping - looking open-mouthed in surprise
12.  Sneer - an unkind facial expression that shows disapproval
13.  Slide - move smoothly along a surface
14.  Fuss - to be worried about small things
15.  Precipitated - (here) was pressed against the wall
16.  Crooked - not straight
17.  Insecure - not safe
18.  Yards - a unit for measuring length.  One yard is equal to three feet or 36 inches
19.  Rake - a garden tool consisting of a row of metal or wooden teeth attached to a long handle
20.  Dead beat - extremely exhausted
21.  Wretched - miserable
22.  Corn - a small, painful area of hard skin that forms on the foot, especially on the toes
 

I. Answer the following questions in brief

1.      1, What confusion did Uncle Podger create at the beginning? 
2.      What happened when Uncle Podger slid on the piano?
3.      What was Uncle Podger's reaction when the picture was finally hung?

II. Answer the following questions in detail

1.     1.  How did Uncle Podger get all the family members involved?
2.      How did Uncle Podger's family members feel about the experience of helping him hang the picture? 
3.      Narrate the events that happened when Uncle Podger tried to hang the picture.

 

3. US AND THEM
                                                                                                                          - DAVID SEDARIS

WHEN MY FAMILY FIRST MOVED to North Carolina, we lived in a rented house three blocks from the school where I would begin the third grade. My mother made friends with one of the neighbors, but one seemed enough for her. Within a year we would move again and, as she explained, there wasn't much point in getting too close to people we would have to say good-bye to. Our next house was less than a mile away, and the short journey would hardly merit tears or even good-byes, for that matter. It was more of a "see you later" situation, but still I adopted my mother's attitude, as it allowed me to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice. I could if I wanted to. It just wasn't the right time.

Back in New York State, we had lived in the country, with no sidewalks or streetlights; you could leave the house and still be alone. But here, when you looked out the window, you saw other houses, and people inside those houses. I hoped that in walking around after dark I might witness a murder, but for the most part our neighbors just sat in their living rooms, watching TV. The only place that seemed truly different was owned by a man named Mr. Tomkey, who did not believe in television. This was told to us by our mother's friend, who dropped by one afternoon with a basketful of okra. The woman did not editorialize—rather, she just presented her information, leaving her listener to make of it what she might. Had my mother said, "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life," I assume that the friend would have agreed, and had she said, "Three cheers for Mr. Tomkey," the friend likely would have agreed as well. It was a kind of test, as was the okra.

To say that you did not believe in television was different from saying that you did not care for it. Belief implied that television had a master plan and that you were against it. It also suggested that you thought too much. When my mother reported that Mr. Tomkey did not believe in television, my father said, "Well, good for him. I don't know that I believe in it, either."

"That's exactly how I feel," my mother said, and then my parents watched the news, and whatever came on after the news.

Word spread that Mr. Tomkey did not own a television, and you began hearing that while this was all very well and good, it was unfair of him to inflict his beliefs upon others, specifically his innocent wife and children. It was speculated that just as the blind man develops a keener sense of hearing, the family must somehow compensate for their loss. "Maybe they read," my mother's friend said. "Maybe they listen to the radio, but you can bet your boots they're doing something."

I wanted to know what this something was, and so I began peering through the Tomkeys' windows. During the day I'd stand across the street from their house, acting as though I were waiting for someone, and at night, when the view was better and I had less chance of being discovered, I would creep into their yard and hide in the bushes beside their fence.

Because they had no TV, the Tomkeys were forced to talk during dinner. They had no idea how puny their lives were, and so they were not ashamed that a camera would have found them uninteresting. They did not know what attractive was or what dinner was supposed to look like or even what time people were supposed to eat. Sometimes they wouldn't sit down until eight o'clock, long after everyone else had finished doing the dishes. During the meal, Mr. Tomkey would occasionally pound the table and point at his children with a fork, but the moment he finished, everyone would start laughing. I got the idea that he was imitating someone else, and wondered if he spied on us while we were eating.

When fall arrived and school began, I saw the Tomkey children marching up the hill with paper sacks in their hands. The son was one grade lower than me, and the daughter was one grade higher. We never spoke, but I'd pass them in the halls from time to time and attempt to view the world through their eyes. What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone? Could a normal person even imagine it? Staring at an Elmer Fudd lunch box, I tried to divorce myself from everything I already knew: Elmer's inability to pronounce the letter r, his constant pursuit of an intelligent and considerably more famous rabbit. I tried to think of him as just a drawing, but it was impossible to separate him from his celebrity.

One day in class a boy named William began to write the wrong answer on the blackboard, and our teacher flailed her arms, saying, "Warning, Will. Danger, danger." Her voice was synthetic and void of emotion, and we laughed, knowing that she was imitating the robot in a weekly show about a family who lived in outer space. The Tomkeys, though, would have thought she was having a heart attack. It occurred to me that they needed a guide, someone who could accompany them through the course of an average day and point out all the things they were unable to understand. I could have done it on weekends, but friendship would have taken away their mystery and interfered with the good feeling I got from pitying them. So I kept my distance.

In early October the Tomkeys bought a boat, and everyone seemed greatly relieved, especially my mother's friend, who noted that the motor was definitely secondhand. It was reported that Mr. Tomkey's father-in-law owned a house on the lake and had invited the family to use it whenever they liked. This explained why they were gone all weekend, but it did not make their absences any easier to bear. I felt as if my favorite show had been canceled.

Halloween fell on a Saturday that year, and by the time my mother took us to the store, all the good costumes were gone. My sisters dressed as witches and I went as a hobo. I'd looked forward to going in disguise to the Tomkeys' door, but they were off at the lake, and their house was dark. Before leaving, they had left a coffee can full of gumdrops on the front porch, alongside a sign reading DON'T BE GREEDY. In terms of Halloween candy, individual gumdrops were just about as low as you could get. This was evidenced by the large number of them floating in an adjacent dog bowl. It was disgusting to think that this was what a gumdrop might look like in your stomach, and it was insulting to be told not to take too much of something you didn't really want in the first place. "Who do these Tomkeys think they are?" my sister Lisa said.

The night after Halloween, we were sitting around watching TV when the doorbell rang. Visitors were infrequent at our house, so while my father stayed behind, my mother, sisters, and I ran downstairs in a group, opening the door to discover the entire Tomkey family on our front stoop. The parents looked as they always had, but the son and daughter were dressed in costumes—she as a ballerina and he as some kind of a rodent with terry-cloth ears and a tail made from what looked to be an extension cord. It seemed they had spent the previous evening isolated at the lake and had missed the opportunity to observe Halloween. "So, well, I guess we're trick-or-treating now, if that's okay," Mr. Tomkey said.

I attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it.

"Why of course it's not too late," my mother said. "Kids, why don't you . . . run and get . . . the candy."

"But the candy is gone," my sister Gretchen said. "You gave it away last night."

"Not that candy," my mother said. "The other candy. Why don't you run and go get it?"

"You mean our candy?" Lisa said. "The candy that we earned?"

This was exactly what our mother was talking about, but she didn't want to say this in front of the Tomkeys. In order to spare their feelings, she wanted them to believe that we always kept a bucket of candy lying around the house, just waiting for someone to knock on the door and ask for it. "Go on, now," she said. "Hurry up."

My room was situated right off the foyer, and if the Tomkeys had looked in that direction, they could have seen my bed and the brown paper bag marked MY CANDY. KEEP OUT. I didn't want them to know how much I had, and so I went into my room and shut the door behind me. Then I closed the curtains and emptied my bag onto the bed, searching for whatever was the crummiest. All my life chocolate has made me ill. I don't know if I'm allergic or what, but even the smallest amount leaves me with a blinding headache. Eventually, I learned to stay away from it, but as a child I refused to be left out. The brownies were eaten, and when the pounding began I would blame the grape juice or my mother's cigarette smoke or the tightness of my glasses—anything but the chocolate. My candy bars were poison but they were brand-name, and so I put them in pile no. 1, which definitely would not go to the Tomkeys.

Out in the hallway I could hear my mother straining for something to talk about. "A boat!" she said. "That sounds marvelous. Can you just drive it right into the water?"

"Actually, we have a trailer," Mr. Tomkey said. "So what we do is back it into the lake."

"Oh, a trailer. What kind is it?"

"Well, it's a boat trailer," Mr. Tomkey said.

"Right, but is it wooden or, you know . . . I guess what I'm asking is what style trailer do you have?"
Behind my mother's words were two messages. The first and most obvious was "Yes, I am talking about boat trailers, but also I am dying." The second, meant only for my sisters and me, was "If you do not immediately step forward with that candy, you will never again experience freedom, happiness, or the possibility of my warm embrace."

I knew that it was just a matter of time before she came into my room and started collecting the candy herself, grabbing indiscriminately, with no regard to my rating system. Had I been thinking straight, I would have hidden the most valuable items in my dresser drawer, but instead, panicked by the thought of her hand on my doorknob, I tore off the wrappers and began cramming the candy bars into my mouth, desperately, like someone in a contest. Most were miniature, which made them easier to accommodate, but still there was only so much room, and it was hard to chew and fit more in at the same time. The headache began immediately, and I chalked it up to tension.

My mother told the Tomkeys she needed to check on something, and then she opened the door and stuck her head inside my room. "What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, but my mouth was too full to answer. "I'll just be a moment," she called, and as she closed the door behind her and moved toward my bed, I began breaking the wax lips and candy necklaces pulled from pile no. 2. These were the second-best things I had received, and while it hurt to destroy them, it would have hurt even more to give them away. I had just started to mutilate a miniature box of Red Hots when my mother pried them from my hands, accidentally finishing the job for me. BB-size pellets clattered onto the floor, and as I followed them with my eyes, she snatched up a roll of Necco wafers.

"Not those," I pleaded, but rather than words, my mouth expelled chocolate, chewed chocolate, which fell onto the sleeve of her sweater. "Not those. Not those."

She shook her arm, and the mound of chocolate dropped like a horrible turd upon my bedspread. "You should look at yourself," she said. "I mean, really look at yourself."

Along with the Necco wafers she took several Tootsie Pops and half a dozen caramels wrapped in cellophane. I heard her apologize to the Tomkeys for her absence, and then I heard my candy hitting the bottom of their bags.

"What do you say?" Mrs. Tomkey asked.

And the children answered, "Thank you."

While I was in trouble for not bringing my candy sooner, my sisters were in more trouble for not bringing theirs at all. We spent the early part of the evening in our rooms, then one by one we eased our way back upstairs, and joined our parents in front of the TV. I was the last to arrive, and took a seat on the floor beside the sofa. The show was a Western, and even if my head had not been throbbing, I doubt I would have had the wherewithal to follow it. A posse of outlaws crested a rocky hilltop, squinting at a flurry of dust advancing from the horizon, and I thought again of the Tomkeys and of how alone and out of place they had looked in their dopey costumes. "What was up with that kid's tail?" I asked.

"Shhhh," my family said.

For months I had protected and watched over these people, but now, with one stupid act, they had turned my pity into something hard and ugly. The shift wasn't gradual, but immediate, and it provoked an uncomfortable feeling of loss. We hadn't been friends, the Tomkeys and I, but still I had given them the gift of my curiosity. Wondering about the Tomkey family had made me feel generous, but now I would have to shift gears and find pleasure in hating them. The only alternative was to do as my mother had instructed and take a good look at myself. This was an old trick, designed to turn one's hatred inward, and while I was determined not to fall for it, it was hard to shake the mental picture snapped by her suggestion: here is a boy sitting on a bed, his mouth smeared with chocolate. He's a human being, but also he's a pig, surrounded by trash and gorging himself so that others may be denied. Were this the only image in the world, you'd be forced to give it your full attention, but fortunately there were others. This stagecoach, for instance, coming round the bend with a cargo of gold. This shiny new Mustang convertible. This teenage girl, her hair a beautiful mane, sipping Pepsi through a straw, one picture after another, on and on until the news, and whatever came on after the news.

From Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim 

About the Author

David Raymond Sedaris was born in 1956 in Johnson City, New York. He is a playwright, novelist, essayist and regular commentator for National Public Radio. In 1994, he published his first book, Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays. His inspiration comes from the diaries he has kept for over 30 years, in which he records his intelligent, funny, and emotional observations on everyday life. Many of Sedaris’s essays are about the people in his life. His book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, from which this essay was taken, contains thoughts on his family and childhood.

Glossary

1.      1. Block - an informal unit of length equal to the distance between two streets
2.      Merit - to deserve
3.      Conscious - deliberate
4.      Okra - lady's fingers (a vegetable)
5.      Editorialize - to give one’s own opinions on a topic
6.      Implied - expressed indirectly
7.      Inflict - to deal out something unpleasant or burdensome; to impose
8.      Speculated - to form opinions about something without having the necessary information 
9.      You can bet your boots - You can be absolutely certain that something will happen
10.  Peering - looking carefully at something difficult to see
11.  Yard - an outdoor area that is next to a house and is usually covered by grass
12.  Puny - insignificant
13.  Pound - hit something hard several times
14.  Spied - observed secretively
15.  Elmer Fudd - a cartoon character who is always chasing after Bugs Bunny; Fudd mispronounces the r sound as w, as in “wascally wabbit.”
16.  Divorce - separate
17.  Flailed - waved wildly
18.  Synthetic - not genuine; insincere
19.  Void - lack; absence 
20.  Interfered - created an obstacle
21.  Kept my distance - kept myself emotionally distant
22.  Hobo - · A wandering homeless person
23.  Gumdrop - a firm, translucent sweet made with gelatin 
24.  Porch - a covered structure in front of the entrance to a building
25.  Adjacent - next to
26.  Ballerina - a female ballet dancer
27.  Rodent - a type of small mammal with sharp front teeth
28.  Observe - celebrate
29.  Trick-or-treating – Trick-or-treat is an activity in which children knock on the doors of houses at Halloween and shout 'trick or treat'. If the person who answers the door does not give the children a treat, such as sweets or candy, they play a trick on him or her
30.  Attributed - related to a certain cause
31.  Foyer  - the space you step into as you enter your home through the front door
32.  Crummiest - of very poor quality
33.  Boat trailer - a wheeled frame designed to transport a boat across the land by towing it behind a vehicle
34.  Indiscriminately - without making careful distinctions or choices
35.  Panicked - suddenly felt so worried or frightened
36.  Doorknob - a handle on a door that is turned to release the latch
37.  Accommodate - make room for
38.  Chalked it up to - identified its cause or source as
39.  Mutilate - damage something severely
40.  Red Hots- a small red candy strongly flavoured with cinnamon
41.  Pried - got something with much effort
42.  BB-size - a size of shot, 0.18 inch (0.46 centimetre) in diameter, fired from an air rifle
43.  Pellets - a small, rounded, compressed mass of a substance
44.  Necco wafers - sugar-based candy, sold in rolls of variously-flavoured thin disks
45.  Turd - a lump of excrement
46.  Throbbing - feeling a series of regular painful movements.
47.  Wherewithal – ability
48.  Posse - a large group often with a common interest
49.  Outlaws - outcasts
50.  Crested -  reached the highest level
51.  Squinting - partly closing your eyes to see more clearly
52.  Dopey - silly or stupid
53.  Provoked - caused
54.  The mental picture snapped - an imagined picture brought quickly to mind, like a snapshot, a quickly taken photograph
55.  Smeared- coated with a sticky substance
56.  Gorging - eat a large amount greedily
57.  Stagecoach - large carriages pulled by horses which carried passengers and mail
58.  Mustang convertible - a thoroughly capable machine (car), able to deliver high levels of performance and comfort in equal measure

I. Answer the following questions in brief

1.      1. Why did the young Sedaris begin spying on the Tomkeys?
2.      Why did Mrs. Sedaris want to give her children’s candy to the Tomkey children?
3.      Why were the Tomkeys unable to trick-or-treat on Halloween?
4.      Why hadn’t David tried to talk to the Tomkey children before?
5.      What did David decide at the end of the text?

III. Answer the following questions in detail

1.      1. How do the neighbours react to the fact that the Tomkeys have no television?
2.      What did David think about the Tomkeys’ life?
3.      Explain how has technology impacted the American family.