Question

Skills (1x5=5 Marks)

The other day I received an unusual and very gratifying gift: I was given a tree. Or rather, I was given half-a-dozen trees which would be planted on my behalf. I had been invited to give a talk at an organisation. After such events, the speaker is usually given a token gift. Sometimes the gift is that of a pen, or something useful. However well-meant, such gifts are destined to gather dust in forgotten corners. Which is why I was agreeably surprised to be given a scroll which attested that on a designated plantation established for the purpose, six trees would be added in my name as a part of the ‘green’ movement being sponsored by the organisation.In an increasingly environmentally-conscious world, the gift of a living tree or plant makes for a perfect present. The tradition of giving and receiving gifts has increasingly become a highly-evolved marketing exercise. Apart from festivals like Diwali, Holt, Christmas, Eid and others, a whole new calendar of celebratory events has been created to promote the giving of gifts: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Teacher’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and so on and on.What do you give to people — friends, relatives, spouses, children, parents, employees, clients, well-wishers — who more or less have everything, or at least everything that you could afford to give them as a gift?Another shirt or kurta? Another bottle of scent or after-shave? Another box of chocolates? Another other?Thinking up unusual and pleasing presents which are also affordable is a full-time job. Like wedding-planners and planners of theme parties, present-planners – professionals who select and make up gift packages for you to give on occasions like marriages and corporate events – are doing increasingly good business.
However, the best-planned gifts of mine and thine go oft awry. How often – particularly during so-called ‘festive seasons’ when gift-giving and gift-receiving reach epidemic proportions – have you had the embarrassing experience of getting back as a present a gift you yourself had given to someone who, having no use for it and not realising that it was you who had gifted it, to begin with, had unwittingly returned your own gift to you ? Like musical chairs, musical gifts only too often go round and round.If the giving of tree saplings were to be institutionalised, it could lead to another ‘green revolution’ in the lucrative and growing field of gift-giving, with a new, eco-friendly industry taking root in plantations and nurseries specially created for the purpose.




(i) The other day I received an unusual and very gratifying gift… What was it and why was it unusual and gratifying? (ii) Why is selecting a gift described as a `full-time job’? (iii) “However, the best-planned gifts of mine and thine go oft awry.” What does the writer mean by this? (iv) How can we cause another green revolution? (v) The word ‘gratifying’ in Para 1 means(a) humiliating (b) satisfying (c) chastening (d) fastening
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Answer 1

Answer:

it's too big question, I think, answer is the 1 st one