Everest Is Not The Only Peak (Poem)

Unit 5 – Poem

Everest is not the Only Peak

by Kulothungan

Warm up

Identify the following personalities and their fields of achievement.
Name: ____ Field: ___
Name: ____ Field: ___

Mention a remarkable achievement of any of these personalities.

What quality do you admire the most in each of these achievers?

Name a few more popular personalities who have made our nation proud.
a) ____ b) ___
c) ____ d) ___

Poem – Everest is not the Only Peak

We are proud and feel so tall,
Our virtues though be few and small
Our nature it is that whatever we try
We do with devotion deep and true.
Defeat we repel, courage our fort;
Cringing from others we haven’t done,
To seek a gain we adore none:
We are proud and feel so tall.

We deem it our duty and mission in life,
To bless and praise the deserving ones;
Never shall we fail in what we commit,
Shall nourish the ones that nourish the world.
We are proud of the position we
Hold; humble as we are,
Our pride springs from the way we live.
Ours is a path of dignity and honour,
A life that knows no kneeling and bending.
We are proud and feel so tall.

Everest is not the only peak,
Every hillock has a summit to boast!
The height you reach is not that we care;
He, who does not stoop, is a king we adore.
We bow before competence and merit;
The ones that are true and stand on their own
Are really the ladder for the rise of Man.
Honour is a property, common to all:
In dignity and pride no one need to be poor.
We are proud and feel so tall.

About the Author

Prof. V.C. Kulandaiswamy (1929 – 2016), known as Kulothungan, is an eminent technologist, a man of letters and an educationist known for his pioneering contributions in Hydrology, Literature and Education.
He has authored six volumes of poems and seven of prose essays which earned him the Thiruvalluvar Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu in 1999.
He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1988 for his book Vaazhum Valluvam.
His works deal with themes that reflect the gamut of human progress and the all-pervasive human effort.

Glossary

• virtues – good qualities
• devotion – loyal commitment towards a particular activity
• repel – hate or detest
• cringing – behaving in an excessively humble or servile way
• adore – worship someone
• nourish – to help the growth and development of someone
• summit – the highest point of a hill or a mountain peak
• stoop – yield or submit, to descend from dignity
• competence – the ability to do something efficiently
• merit – the quality of being particularly good or worthy

Comprehension

A. Based on your understanding of the poem, answer the following questions in a sentence or two each.

1. Which line is repeated in the poem? What is the effect created by this repetition?
2. Who are the ‘deserving ones’?
3. Which quality does the speaker wish to nourish? What is his mission?
4. Which path should we follow in life?
5. What does ‘Everest’ in the title stand for?
6. What does ‘hillock’ refer to in the line ‘Every hillock has a summit to boast!’?
7. Why does the speaker say ‘Everest is not the only peak’?
8. What does the ladder symbolize?

B. Read the given lines and answer the questions that follow.

1. Our nature it is that whatever we try
   We do with devotion deep and true.
   a. Who does ‘we’ refer to?
   b. How should we carry out our duties?

2. Defeat we repel, courage our fort;
   a. How do we react to defeat?
   b. Which is considered as our stronghold?

3. We are proud of the position we
   Hold; humble as we are
   a. What is the speaker proud of?
   b. How is the speaker both humble and proud?
   c. Pick out the alliteration in these lines.

4. He, who does not stoop, is a king we adore.
   We bow before competence and merit;
   a. Who is adored as a king?
   b. What is the figure of speech used in the first line?

5. Honour is a property, common to all:
   In dignity and pride no one need to be poor.
   a. Who are considered rich?
   b. What is their asset?

C. Answer the following questions in a paragraph of 100–150 words each.

1. In what way is every hillock similar to Everest?
2. The poem does not focus on the destination but the journey towards it. Discuss.

D. Creative Activity

• Write eight words you associate with success.
• Use the words to write eight lines that mean success to you or how success makes you feel.
• Arrange your lines into a poem.
• Share your poem with the class and post a copy on the notice board.

E. Speaking Activity

Discuss the following topics in groups of five and choose a representative to sum up the views and share them with the class.

a) To succeed in life, one must have a single-minded devotion to duty.
b) ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal.’ It is the courage and perseverance that counts.
c) Successful people neither brood over the past nor worry about the future.

F. Parallel Reading

Be the Best
by Douglas Malloch

If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley – but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush, if you can’t be a tree.

If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass—
But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here.
There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to do
And the task we must do is the near.

If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun, be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail—
Be the best of whatever you are!