Question

African Noel - Mark Patinkin

sketch the character of the nomad leader.​

Answer 1

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African Noel - Mark Patinkin

sketch the character of the nomad leader

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These days we are doing a narrative essay by the American author, Mark Patinkin, in standard XI. A cricketer gets into his peak form, so I have been told, during his mid thirties. I am not sure of the peak time frame for a teacher, but I believe that as a teacher gets older, she gets better at her job. And am i not enjoying myself with all these gems and priceless pieces of Literature?

We have reached that part of the essay, where the narrator, prepared to get to bed without dinner, smells cooking. The Tuareg Chief informs him that he is their honoured guest, come all the way from America, to find out more about their pathetic plight and make people all over the world aware of it. Finding the Chief having trouble cutting the meat with his blunt sword, the narrator offers his Swiss Knife to him. Soon they are ready for the grand feast (for people who go dinnerless almost every day of their lives in the Sahara, having meat on a particular evening is like having a feast!). As the people inside the tent start eating, there is a seriousness and respect for the food on their saucer.

Now here I think of straying for the purpose of inculcating some values. “How do you eat with seriousness and respect?” Not the way most of our students do it. As rations are supplied free by the Government, they take it for granted and do not bother much about their meals ( 3 meals per day!) and even throw it away at times. But do they know that people in many African and Asian countries are starving, starving due to famine, drought and a lot of other natural disasters? I share with them, in this connection, the story of a photograph that our former Principal, Mr. Tashi Chonjur,was wise and  considerate enough to share with us during one of the Council Meetings. The photograph actually went on to bag The Photograph of the Year Award. It is a grim picture of a skeletal boy, not more than 4/5, scavenging through a pile of wastes. His bare bones underneath the fleshless skin make a horrifying sight and glare at the injustice of it all!

But the most abysmal sight is not the child but the presence of the vulture waiting patiently not very far away, waiting to make a meal of this hapless, helpless Child of God! I came to know from some of our students that the photographer who took the photograph was shamed into committing hara kiri,  for not doing enough to save the kid from the vulture. Whatever it may be, the fact of the matter is there are people who lead a hand to mouth existence in many parts of the world. Naturally, when they get something to eat, anything to eat at all, they do so with a kind of seriousness hard to believe for most of us.