St. Joseph’s College of Commerce (Autonomous)
End Semester Examination – April 2013
B.Com – II Semester
General English
Time: 3 Hrs Max Marks: 100
SECTION – A
- Answer any six in less than 100 words each. (6 x 6 = 36)
- Comment on the upper middle class lifestyle that V. Gangadhar describes in the essay ‘Money and Changing Lifestyle’.
- What is the nature of the character Pahom in the story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ By Tolstoy?
- What according to you is the poem ‘The Brook’ about?
- What is Chief Seattle’s understanding of nature?
- Describe the nature of the character Wasserkopf in the play ‘Refund’.
- Comment on the importance of imagination for the present world that Friedman talks about in the essay ‘9/11 versus 11/9’.
- Explain any two paradoxes that His Holiness the Dalai Llama writes about in the poem ‘The Paradoxes of Our Times’.
- Describe the term ‘tolerance’ according to E M Forster.
SECTION – B
- Read the following passage and answer all the three questions below in about 200 to 250 words each. (3 x 9 = 27)
Why is there conflict between Tutsis and Hutus?
The bloody history of Hutu and Tutsi conflict stained the 20th century, from the slaughter of 80,000 to 200,000 Hutus by the Tutsi army in Burundi in 1972 to the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which Hutu militias targeted Tutsis, resulting in a 100-day death toll between 800,000 and 1 million.
But many observers would be surprised to learn that the longstanding conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi has nothing to do with language or religion — they speak the same Bantu tongues as well as French, and generally practice Christianity — and many geneticists have been hard-pressed to find marked ethnic differences between the two, though the Tutsi have generally been noted to be taller. Many believe that German and Belgian colonizers tried to find differences between the Hutu and Tutsi in order to better categorize native peoples in their censuses.
Generally, the Hutu-Tutsi strife stems from class warfare, with the Tutsis perceived to have greater wealth and social status (as well as favouring cattle ranching over what is seen as the lower-class farming of the Hutus). The Tutsis are thought to have originally come from Ethiopia, and arrived after the Hutu came from Chad. The Tutsis had a monarchy dating back to the 15th century; this was overthrown at the urging of Belgian colonizers in the early 1960s and the Hutu took power by force in Rwanda. In Burundi, however, a Hutu uprising failed and the Tutsis controlled the country.
On April 6, 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, was assassinated when his plane was shot down near Kigali International Airport. The current Hutu president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was also killed in the attack. This sparked the chillingly well-organized extermination of Tutsis by Hutu militias, even though blame for the plane attack has never been established. Sexual violence against Tutsi women was also widespread, and the United Nations only conceded that “acts of genocide” had likely happened after an estimated half-million Rwandans had already been killed.
After the genocide and the Tutsis regaining control, about two million Hutus fled to Burundi, Tanzania (from where 500,000 were later expelled by the government), Uganda, and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the great focus of Tutsi-Hutu conflict is today. Tutsi rebels in the DRC accuse the government of providing cover for the Hutu militias.
Note: Hutus and Tutsis are two tribes living in Central Africa.
- What is the exact nature of conflict between Hutus and Tutsis? Narrate in your own words.
- How can a tolerant society be built under circumstances described in the above passage? Use the essay Tolerance by E M Forster that you have read in the class to respond to the question.
- Narrate an incident from real life or fiction in which tolerance can be seen in practice.
OR
How did the reading of the essay Tolerance help you in your personal and social life?
SECTION – C
- Read the following excerpt from the play The Boor by Anton Chekov and answer all the questions (3 x 9 = 27)
LUKA: What do you wish?
SMIRNOV: Something to drink! [LUKA goes out. SMIRNOV sits down and looks at his clothes.] Ugh, a fine figure! No use denying that. Dust, dirty boots, unwashed, uncombed, straw on my vest–the lady probably took me for a highwayman. [He yawns.] It was a little impolite to come into a reception-room with such clothes. Oh, well, no harm done. I’m not here as a guest. I’m a creditor. And there is no special costume for creditors.
LUKA: [Entering with glass.] You take great liberty, sir.
SMIRNOV: [Angrily.] What?
LUKA: I…I…I just…
SMIRNOV: Whom are you talking to? Keep quiet.
LUKA: [Angrily.] Nice mess! This fellow won’t leave!
[He goes out.]
SMIRNOV: Lord, how angry I am! Angry enough to throw mud at the whole world! I even feel ill! Servant!
[MRS. POPOV comes in with downcast eyes.]
MRS. POPOV: Sir, in my solitude I have become unaccustomed to the human voice and I cannot stand the sound of loud talking. I beg you, please to cease disturbing my rest.
SMIRNOV: Pay me my money and I’ll leave.
MRS. POPOV: I told you once, plainly, in your native tongue, that I haven’t the money at hand; wait until day after to-morrow.
SMIRNOV: And I also had the honour of informing you in your native tongue that I need the money, not day after tomorrow, but today. If you don’t pay me today I shall have to hang myself tomorrow.
MRS. POPOV: But what can I do if I haven’t the money?
SMIRNOV: So you are not going to pay immediately? You’re not?
MRS. POPOV: I cannot.
SMIRNOV: Then I’ll sit here until I get the money. [He sits down.] You will pay day after tomorrow? Excellent! Here I stay until day after tomorrow. [Jumps up.] I ask you, do I have to pay that interest tomorrow or not? Or do you think I’m joking?
MRS. POPOV: Sir, I beg of you, don’t scream! This is not a stable.
SMIRNOV: I’m not talking about stables; I’m asking you whether I have to pay that interest tomorrow or not?
MRS. POPOV: You have no idea how to treat a lady.
SMIRNOV: Oh, yes, I have.
MRS. POPOV: No, you have not. You are an ill bred, vulgar person! Respectable people don’t speak so to ladies.
SMIRNOV: How remarkable! How do you want one to speak to you? In French, perhaps! Madame, je vous prie! Pardon me for having disturbed you. What beautiful weather we are having today! And how this mourning becomes you!
[He makes a low bow with mock ceremony.]
MRS. POPOV: Not at all funny! I think it is vulgar!
- Briefly summarize the above conversation in your own words in not more than two paragraphs.
- The word boor means “a rude, unpleasant person”. Which character do you think is a boor in the above excerpt and why?
- Imagine a beginning and an end to the above conversation. Write it in about two or three paragraphs.
SECTION – D
IV)Answer any one in less than 250 words. (1 x 10 = 10)
- Write about a book/news item/documentary/movie that you have read/watched recently. Comment on any one interesting aspect of it.
OR
Write about an incident or an experience which has impacted you very much, recently.
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