Where is the story set? (You can get clues from the names of the persons and places mentioned in it.) Which language or languages are spoken in these places? Do you think the characters in the story spoke to each other in English?

Have you met anyone like Hari Singh? Can you think and imagine the circumstances that can turn a fifteen-year-old boy into a thief ?

Do you think it a significant detail in the story that Anil is a struggling writer?

Do you think people like Anil and Hari Singh are found only in fiction, or are there such people in real life?

Why does Anil not hand the thief over to the police? Do you think most people would have done so?

What are Hari Singh’s reactions to the prospects of receiving an education? Do they change over time? (Hint: Compare, for example, the thought: “I knew that once I could write like an educated man there would be no limit to what I could achieve” with these later thoughts: “Whole sentences, I knew, could one day bring me more than a few hundred rupees. It was a simple matter to steal — and sometimes just as simple to be caught. But to be a really big man, a clever and respected man, was something else.”) What makes him return to Anil?

Read and Find Out. Does Anil realise that he has been robbed?

What does he say about different reactions of people when they are robbed?

How does the thief think Anil will react to the theft?

What does he get from Anil in return for his work?

What is he ‘a fairly successful hand’ at?

Who is ‘I’ in this story?

What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? How does it help in bringing out the contrasting ideas in the poem?

There are many ideas about how the world will ‘end’. Do you think the world will end some day? Have you ever thought what would happen if the sun got so hot that it ‘burst’, or grew colder and colder?

It was this desire for the freedom of my people that transformed ................. into a bold one, that drove ................. to become a criminal, that turned ................. into a man without a home.

The Air Show was not only a display of pinpoint precision and military force, but .................

My country is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath its soil, .................

Although that day neither group knew the lyrics of the anthem …, they would soon .................

Only moments before, the highest generals of the South African defense force and police saluted me and pledged their loyalty not so many years before they would not have saluted .................

For decades the Union Buildings had been the seat of white supremacy, and now .................

I was not born with a hunger to be free .................

If people can learn to hate .................

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid .................

Courage was not the absence of fear .................

It requires such depths of oppression .................

Match, the italicised phrases in Column A with the phrase nearest meaning in Column B.

Read the paragraph below. Fill in the blanks with the noun forms of the verbs in brackets.

Make a list of such pairs of nouns and verbs in the text:

How did Mandela’s ‘hunger for freedom’ change his life?

How did Mandela’s understanding of freedom change with age and experience?

Would you agree that the “depths of oppression” create “heights of character”? How does Mandela illustrate this? Can you add your own examples to this argument?

What does Mandela mean when he says he is “simply the sum of all those African patriots”, who had gone before him?

Why did such a large number of international leaders attend the inauguration? What did it signify the triumph of?

Does Mandela think the oppressor is free? Why/Why not?

What did being free mean to Mandela as a boy, and as a student? How does he contrast these “transitory freedoms” with “the basic and honorable freedoms”?

What “twin obligations” does Mandela mention?

Which does he think is natural, to love or to hate?

What does courage mean to Mandela?

How does Mandela describe the systems of government in his country (i) in the first decade, and (ii) in the final decade, of the twentieth century?

Why were two national anthems sung?

What do the military generals do? How has their attitude changed, and why?

What ideals does he set out for the future of South Africa?

What does Mandela thank the international leaders for

At the beginning of his speech, Mandela mentions “an extraordinary human disaster.” What does he mean by this? What is the “glorious … human achievement” he speaks of at the end?

Can you say how 10 May is an ‘autumn day’ in South Africa?

Where did the ceremonies take place? Can you name any public buildings in India that are made of sandstone?