Class 12 NCERT Chapters

Adrienne Rich (1929) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is widely known for her involvement in contemporary women’s movement as a poet and theorist. She has published nineteen volumes of poetry, three collections of essays and other writings.

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a highly acclaimed American poet of the twentieth century. Robert Frost wrote about characters, people and landscapes. His poems are concerned with human tragedies and fears, his reaction to the complexities of life and his ultimate acceptance of his burdens.

John Keats (1795-1821) was a British Romantic poet. Although trained to be a surgeon, Keats decided to devote himself wholly to poetry. Keats’ secret, his power to sway and delight the readers, lies primarily in his gift for perceiving the world and living his moods and aspirations in terms of language.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) is the pen name of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto who was born in the town of Parral in Chile. Neruda’s poems are full of easily understood images which make them no less beautiful. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1971.

Kamala Das (1934-2009) was born in Malabar, Kerala. She is recognised as one of India’s foremost poets. Her works are known for their originality, versatility and the indigenous flavour of the soil. Kamala Das has published many novels and short stories in English and Malayalam under the name ‘Madhavikutty’.

A. R. Barton is a modern writer, who lives in Zurich and writes in English. In the story Going Places, Barton explores the theme of adolescent fantasising and hero worship.

Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.

Asokamitran (1931), a Tamil writer, recounts his years at Gemini Studios in his book My Years with Boss which talks of the influence of movies on every aspect of life in India. The Gemini Studios, located in Chennai, was set up in 1940.

Louis Fischer (1896-1970) was born in Philadelphia. He served as a volunteer in the British Army between 1918 and 1920. Fischer made a career as a journalist and wrote for The New York Times, The Saturday Review and for European and Asian publications.

William Douglas (1898-1980) was born in Maine, Minnesota. After graduating with a Bachelors of Arts in English and Economics, he spent two years teaching high school in Yakima. However, he got tired of this and decided to pursue a legal career.

Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) was a Swedish writer whose stories have been translated into many languages. A universal theme runs through all of them - a belief that the essential goodness in a human being can be awakened through understanding and love.

Anees Jung (1964) was born in Rourkela and spent her childhood and adolescence in Hyderabad. She received her education in Hyderabad and in the United States of America. Her parents were both writers. Anees Jung began her career as a writer in India.

Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897) was a French novelist and short-story writer. The Last Lesson is set in the days of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) in which France was defeated by Prussia led by Bismarck. Prussia then consisted of what now are the nations of Germany, Poland and parts of Austria.

One of the greatest literary figures in Malayalam, Kamala Das was born in the year 1934 in Punnayurkulum, in South Malabar, Kerala. Her work, in poetry and in prose, has given her a permanent place in modern Malayalam literature as well as in Indian writing in English. She is best known for her feminist writings and focus on womanhood.

A.K. Ramanujan is one of India’s finest English-language poets. He is best known for his pioneering translations of ancient Tamil poetry into modern English. At the time of his death he was professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago and was recognised as the world’s most profound scholar of South Indian languages and culture.

W.B. Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist and mystic. He was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival, and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. He was  awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Emily Dickinson is regarded as one of America’s quintessential poets of the nineteenth century. She lived an introverted and hermetic life, and published very few of her poems in her lifetime. Her output, 1789 poems in all, were published posthumously.

S.T. Coleridge was imaginative even as a child. He studied at Cambridge. In 1797, he met Wordsworth; the two belonged to the first generation of Romantic poets. Coleridge was responsible for presenting the supernatural as real and Wordsworth would try to render ordinary reality as remarkable and strange. Byron, Shelley and Keats belonged to the next generation of Romantic Poets.

William Blake was a poet, painter and engraver. He abhorred the rationalism and materialism of his times. What he saw and painted were human beings beset with evil, yet striving for the divine within them.

John Milton began writing poetry at the age often. After finishing his formal education at Cambridge, he read almost everything available in Latin, Greek, Italian and English. He was appointed Latin Secretary where he worked so hard that eyestrain, from years of late night reading, caused him to become totally blind at the age of forty-five.

John Donne was representative of the metaphysical poets of his time. He set the metaphysical mode by vibrancy of language and startling imagery, and a preference for a diction modelled on direct utterances. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic (later he converted to Anglicanism), and was Dean of St. Paul’s Church till his death.

I have often made the point that true science fiction is a creature of the last two centuries. Science fiction cannot exist as a picture of the future unless, and until, people get the idea that it is science and technology that produce the future; that it is advances in science and technology (or, at the very least, changes in them) that are bound to make the future different from the present and the past, and that thereby hangs a tale.

Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length. Krishna Menon’s record of the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop), established half a century ago (when Menon was leading  the Indian delegation), has not been equalled by anyone from anywhere.

We have curious ideas of ourselves. We think of ourselves as a body with a spirit in it, or a body with a soul in it, or a body with a mind in it. Mens sana in corpore sano. The years drink up the wine, and at last throw the bottle away, the body, of course, being the bottle.

During the shooting of The Virgin Spring, we were up in the northern province of Dalarna in May and it was early in the morning, about half past seven. The landscape there is rugged, and our company was working by a little lake in the forest.

Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the fire; the steady film of yellow light upon the page of my book; the three chrysanthemums in the round glass bowl on the mantelpiece.

What is a perfectly free person? Evidently a person who can do what he likes, when he likes, and where he likes, or do nothing at all if he prefers it. Well, there is no such person, and there never can be any such person. Whether we like it or not, we must all sleep for one third of our lifetime - wash and dress and undress - we must spend a couple of hours eating and drinking - we must spend nearly as much in getting about from place to place.

The interior of a television studio. A big plasma screen hangs on one side, big enough for a close-up on it to be seen clearly by the audience. On the other side of the stage, a chair and a typically ‘telly’ table - strong, wide, semi-circular. At the back of the stage are several television sets, with screens of varying sizes.

This short drama is based on the following Buddhist legend. Ananda, the famous disciple of the Buddha, was one day returning from a visit when he felt thirsty and, approaching a well on the way, asked for water from a chandalika, a girl belonging to the lowest untouchable caste.

The first day in the land of apples was a bitter-cold one; for the snow still covered the ground, and the trees were bare. A large bell rang for breakfast, its loud metallic voice crashing through the belfry overhead and into our sensitive ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave us no peace.

Mr Lamb’s garden - There is the occasional sound of birdsong and of tree leaves rustling. Derry’s footsteps are heard as he walks slowly and tentatively through the long grass. He pauses, then walks on again.

Dr Sadao Hoki’s house was built on a spot of the Japanese coast where as a little boy he had often played. The low, square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines.

EARLY this year, I found myself aboard a Russian research vessel - the Akademik Shokalskiy - heading towards the coldest, driest, windiest continent in the world: Antarctica.

The Maharaja of Pratibandapuram is the hero of this story. He may be identified as His Highness Jamedar-General, Khiledar-Major, Sata Vyaghra Samhari, Maharajadhiraja Visva Bhuvana Samrat, Sir Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur, M.A.D., A.C.T.C., or C.R.C.K. But this name is often shortened to the Tiger King.

THE presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central Station.

Every idea, fact or opinion is static until communicated and understood. In today’s information driven society it has been acknowledged time and again that communication is as important as food, clothing and shelter. In this chapter we are looking at communication as it is related to organisations and business establishments.

Communication is an integral part of our social and professional life. On television, radio and newspapers, you must have heard, seen or read about the issues related to health, environment, consumption, poverty and other topics, besides news.

Look around and you will find that the number of products being manufactured and sold is steadily increasing in both urban and rural markets. We are all aware that manufacturers are responsible for supplying good quality products and if there is a problem, consumers have the right to redressal. Manufacturers can no longer take consumers/customers for granted.

With globalisation, the world has become a small place, where people travel from one place to another, within the country, and internationally for many reasons. It may be for business purposes, marketing products, for official purposes, study, pilgrimages, seeking health care (medical tourism), enjoying leisure time/vacation, visiting relatives or for shopping.

The use of fabrics in a family setup for apparel and household is well known. You may also be aware that some special fabrics are used for industrial purposes, for interiors in institutions for heat and sound insulation and for bandages, masks etc. in hospitals.

Fashion design and merchandising are among the most exciting career options in today’s world. In a country like India, where textile industries have been thriving for ages, the recent boom in fashion designing has led to new prospects in the existing domain of garment and accessory design.

The word ‘design’ is a popular contemporary term which has different connotations and meanings assigned to it. Very often it is used for high fashion dress and its accessories. In fabrics it is associated with the colour scheme, or more specifically, the print on it. However, it does not give the complete picture. Design is not mere decoration.

Family is the basic unit of the society and one of its chief functions is to look after the needs of its members. The members in a family could include parents, their children of various ages and the grandparents. The composition of the family will vary from one household to another but at different stages in its life cycle, the family has different composition and the members together try to meet each others’ needs.

Early childhood care and education is a very important area of study in Human Development. We have learnt in the last class, how the infant begins to learn from a very early age. In addition to learning new things about the world around him or her, the infant is developing an attachment with family members, particularly with the mother and father, as well as with siblings, and grandparents.

Food is a major determinant of health, nutritional status and productivity of the population. It is, therefore, essential that the food we consume is wholesome and safe. Unsafe food can lead to a large number of food-borne diseases.

Food items are being processed for various reasons. Since times immemorial, grains have been dried after harvest to increase their shelf life. Initially, foods were processed primarily to improve digestibility, palatability and to ensure a continuous supply. In India pickles, murabbas and papads are examples of preserved products made from certain vegetables/ fruits/ grains.

Why do we need to focus on this specific aspect in the field of nutrition? Malnutrition is the underlying cause of at least 50 per cent of deaths of children under five years of age. The statistics for nutrition-related problems in our country reveal an alarming situation.

Our life is centred around food. Food is more than a biological necessity.It contributes to our cultural identity, is a part of social and religious practices. Food also enables us to realise our creativity, is a symbol of hospitality, status and power, among many other things. Our food choices have far reaching effects. Food nourishes the body, enables it to function and builds resistance to infection. If we eat nutritious and wholesome food, our bodies can function optimally. Thus knowledge about food and nutrition is essential.

Deciding a career for oneself is not an easy task. On one hand, there are several career avenues to choose from, and on the other, for a young person, aptitude and talent are yet to be identified and recognised. Also in some cases, interests are very diverse.

International Trade is mutually beneficial as no country is self-sufficient. India’s international trade has undergone a sea change in recent years in terms of volume, composition as well as direction. Although India’s contribution in the world trade is as low as one per cent of the total volume, yet it plays a significant role in the world economy.