In Celebration Of Being Alive (Prose)

Unit 3 – Prose

In Celebration of Being Alive

Dr. Christiaan Barnard

Warm Up

There are several physically-challenged people who have lived successful and meaningful lives.
Here are a few personalities who have fought great odds and lived a life of blazing achievements.
Let’s share what we know about each of them and complete the table below.

Name of the personality	Nature of challenge	Field of achievement
e.g. Beethoven	Hearing impairment	Music
Demosthenes
Helen Keller
Mariyappan Thangavelu
Mozart
John Milton
Sudha Chandran

We all know that Dr. Christiaan Barnard was the first doctor to perform a heart-transplant surgery.
Here we have an extract of his speech, wherein he narrates an experience which has changed his perspective of life altogether.
Let’s find out what led to such a dramatic transformation.

Text

1. More and more, as I near the end of my career as a heart surgeon, my thoughts have turned to the consideration of why people should suffer. Suffering seems so cruelly prevalent in the world today.
   Do you know that of the 125 million children born this year, 12 million are unlikely to reach the age of one and another six million will die before the age of five? And, of the rest, many will end up as mental or physical cripples.

2. My gloomy thoughts probably stem from an accident I had a few years ago. One minute I was crossing the street with my wife after a lovely meal together, and the next minute a car had hit me and knocked me into my wife. She was thrown into the other lane and struck by a car coming from the opposite direction.

3. During the next few days in the hospital, I experienced not only agony and fear but also anger. I could not understand why my wife and I had to suffer. I had eleven broken ribs and a perforated lung. My wife had a badly fractured shoulder. Over and over, I asked myself, why should this happen to us? I had work to do, after all; there were patients waiting for me to operate on them. My wife had a young baby who needed her care.

4. My father, had he still been alive, would have said:
   “My son, it’s God’s will. That’s the way God tests you. Suffering ennobles you – makes you a better person.”

5. But, as a doctor, I see nothing noble in a patient’s thrashing around in a sweat-soaked bed, mind clouded in agony. Nor can I see any nobility in the crying of a lonely child in a ward at night.

6. In those days, they didn’t have sophisticated heart surgery. I have always found the suffering of children particularly heartbreaking – especially because of their total trust in doctors and nurses. They believe you are going to help them. If you can’t, they accept their fate. They go through mutilating surgery, and afterwards they don’t complain.

7. One morning, several years ago, I witnessed what I call the Grand Prix of Cape Town’s Red Cross Children’s Hospital. It opened my eyes to the fact that I was missing something in all my thinking about suffering – something basic that was full of solace for me.

8. What happened there that morning was that a nurse had left a breakfast trolley unattended. And very soon this trolley was commandeered by an intrepid crew of two – a driver and a mechanic. The mechanic provided motor power by galloping along behind the trolley with his head down, while the driver, seated on the mower deck, held on with one hand and steered by scraping his foot on the floor. The choice of roles was easy because the mechanic was totally blind and the driver had only one arm.

9. They put on quite a show that day. Judging by the laughter and shouts of encouragement from the rest of the patients, it was a much better entertainment than anything anyone puts on at the Indianapolis 500 car race. There was a grand finale of scattered plates and silverware before the nurse and ward sister caught up with them, scolded them and put them back to bed.

10. Let me tell you about these two.
    The mechanic was all of seven years old. One night, when his mother and father were drunk, his mother threw a lantern at his father, missed and the lantern broke over the child’s head and shoulders. He suffered severe third-degree burns on the upper part of his body, and lost both his eyes. At the time of the Grand Prix, he was a walking horror, with a disfigured face and long flap of skin hanging from the side of his neck to his body.

11. The trolley’s driver I knew better. A few years earlier, I had successfully closed a hole in his heart. He had returned to the hospital because he had a malignant tumour of the bone. A few days before the race, his shoulder and arm were amputated. There was little hope of his recovery. After the Grand Prix, he proudly informed me that the trolley’s wheels were not properly oiled, but he was a good driver, and he had full confidence in the mechanic.

12. Suddenly, I realized that these two children had given me a profound lesson in getting on with the business of living. Because the business of living is joy in the real sense of the word, not just something for pleasure, amusement, recreation. The business of living is the celebration of being alive.

13. I had been looking at suffering from the wrong end. You don’t become a better person because you are suffering; but you become a better person because you have experienced suffering. We can’t appreciate light if we haven’t known darkness. Nor can we appreciate warmth if we have never suffered cold. These children showed me that it’s not what you’ve lost that’s important. What is important is what you have left.

About The Author

Christiaan Neethling Barnard was born in rural South Africa in 1922 to poor parents as their fourth child. He evinced great interest in his academics and was determined to pursue medicine, after the loss of his brother to a cardiac ailment. He won many scholarships and pursued his higher studies specializing in cardiac surgery. As a cardiac surgeon, Barnard focussed on congenital and complicated cardiac conditions for which there was no cure at that time. After experimenting with heart transplantation on animals, he performed the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant in the year 1967. He gained worldwide recognition and went on to develop many surgery techniques, which are being adopted till date. Barnard has penned fourteen books and 235 scientific articles that have been published in reputed journals. Some of his books are, ‘One Life’, ‘50 Ways to a Healthy Heart’, ‘The Best Medicine’ and ‘The Faith’. A pioneer in cardiac surgery, he obtained a Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Cape Town. This was followed by 11 honorary doctorates, bestowed upon him by universities all over the world. He has also received 36 International Awards. In his late years, he established the Christiaan Barnard Foundation to serve and promote the cause of underprivileged children throughout the world and died at the age of 78 in the year 2001.

Glossary

• consideration – careful thought
• prevalent – common
• cripples – people with some disability preventing them from performing certain normal functions
• agony – extreme physical and mental suffering
• perforated – torn and damaged with holes
• ennobles – (figurative use) makes dignified, morally noble
• thrash around – to move about restlessly
• sophisticated – (here) well-advanced
• mutilating surgery – surgery involving removal of tissue even at the risk of worsening of the patient’s condition
• Grand Prix – (here) one of several international motor-racing events
• solace – comfort or consolation in times of grief or pain
• intrepid – bold and daring
• finale – climax or an exciting end
• disfigured – spoiled or marred in appearance
• malignant – (here, of diseases) very harmful to life
• tumour – diseased growth in some part of the body
• amputated – cut off by surgical operation
• profound – very great

Comprehension

1. Answer the following questions in one or two sentences.

a. What thoughts troubled Dr. Christiaan Barnard as he neared the end of his career as a heart surgeon?
b. What were Dr. Barnard’s feelings when he was hospitalized after an accident?
c. When and where did the accident occur?
d. How did the hospitalization of Dr. Barnard and his wife affect their routine?
e. How was Dr. Barnard’s attitude to suffering different from that of his father’s?
f. How was the unattended trolley put to use?
g. What roles did the duo take up?
h. Why did the choice of roles prove to be easy for them?
i. Who encouraged them and how?
j. What does Dr. Barnard compare this entertainment to?
k. What happened in the grand finale?
l. How does Dr. Barnard know the boy who played the trolley’s driver?
m. What was the profound lesson that Dr. Barnard learnt from the boys?

2. Answer the following questions in three or four sentences.

a. Detail the statistics Dr. Barnard has provided in his speech.
b. What happened when the doctor couple were crossing the street?
c. What injuries did they sustain in the accident?
d. Dr. Barnard couldn’t find any nobility in suffering. Why?
e. Why does Dr. Barnard find suffering of children heartbreaking?
f. How did the boy who played the mechanic lose his eyesight?
g. Why does Dr. Barnard describe the blind boy as a ‘walking horror’?
h. What were the problems the trolley driver suffered from?

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

a. Give an account of the medical problems for which the two boys were hospitalized.
b. “These two children had given me a profound lesson …” Elucidate.
c. Describe the ‘Grand Prix’ at Cape Town’s Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
d. How did a casual incident in a hospital help Dr. Barnard perceive a new dimension of life?
e. Life is unjust and cruel to certain people. Do they all resign themselves to their fate? Can you think of some who have fought their disabilities heroically and remained a stellar example for others? (for e.g. the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, a paraplegic). Give an account of one such person and his/her struggle to live a fruitful life.

Vocabulary

a) Go through the lesson and spot the words which mean the same as the following.

1. profession (para 1)
2. sorrowful (para 2)
3. decency (para 5)
4. destiny (para 6)
5. hijacked (para 8)
6. motivation (para 9)
7. serious (para 10)
8. significant (para 13)

b) Go through the lesson and spot the words opposite to the meaning of the following.

1. rare (para 1)
2. primitive (para 6)
3. fiction (para 7)
4. fearful (para 8)
5. benign (para 11)
6. diffidence (para 11)
7. boredom (para 12)
8. criticize (para 13)

c) Frame illustrative sentences to distinguish the meaning of the words in the following clusters.

1. career – carrier – courier
2. patients – patience – patents
3. accident – incident – incidence
4. scraping – scrapping – scrubbing
5. accept – except – expect
6. lesson – lessen – lesion
7. severe – sever – sewer
8. raise – rise – rice
9. quiet – quite – quit
10. final – finale – feline

d) Fill in the blanks with the words given in brackets.

[profound, amusement, confidence, agony, solace, intrepid, disfigured, perforated]

1. Theatrical plays were a main source of ____ before the advent of television.
2. The ____ warriors of the Spartan Army marched into battle against a powerful enemy.
3. The ____ of parents finally came to an end when their lost child was found with the help of police.
4. Social media has brought about a ____ impact on the lives of millennials.
5. The tyres of the car got ____ when the vehicle rolled over the rusted nails scattered on the road.
6. Thomas Alva Edison did not lose his ____, even after facing a series of experimental failures in his quest to discover tungsten.
7. Many victims of the pipeline explosion in an oil refinery were left permanently ____.
8. The old lady found ____ in the company of the children in the neighbourhood.

e) Form a phrase with each of the following pairs of nouns given below.

Example: fibre + tissue – fibrous tissue

1. muscle + pain –
2. skeleton + system –
3. nerve + disorder –
4. digestion + enzymes –
5. surgery + instruments –
6. agony + experience –
7. glory + victory –
8. fancy + idea –
9. emotion + song –
10. sense + issue –

f) Fill the empty boxes with suitable words under each word class.

NOUN	VERB	ADJECTIVE	ADVERB
amusement
	appreciate
		successful
			proudly
hope		hopeful

g) Spot the errors in the following sentences and rewrite them correctly.

1. My grandfather is well-known in the village for his nobel deeds.
2. I had my evening meals in a restaurant near my office.
3. The Boss had full confidence on his Manager for successful completion of the project.
4. After the complicated surgery, the patient hoped of complete recovery.
5. The new health care scheme announced by the Government will bring relief to the children suffering with acute tuberculosis.
6. In spite of his poverty and setbacks, he was able to launch his dream carrier.

Listening

Listen to the passage being read out. Based on your understanding, complete the statements given below with appropriate answers.

1. Boredom occurs when a person is unable to _____.
2. __ and ____ are emotional consequences of boredom.
3. Two physical signs of acute boredom are
   a. ____
   b. ____
4. How does boredom affect the quality of work a person does?
5. Mention two ways by which one can overcome boredom.
   a. ____
   b. ____

Speaking

1. You are rushing to attend to an important work and you witness an accident on your way. Will you go to the rescue of the injured person? Share your views with the class.
2. Every person should take up the responsibility to serve the society in his or her own way. Discuss the various ways in which you can serve the society.

Dialogue

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more persons in a narrative style. It is widely used to communicate ideas. Asking a question and offering a reply is common in dialogue. We usually start the dialogue with a greeting, and complete it with a proper ending. A dialogue may be formal or informal.

Sample Formal Dialogue

Student: Good morning, madam.
Bank Clerk: Good morning, what can I do for you?
Student: I would like to open an account in your bank.
... (continue as in original)

a) Pair work: Practise the dialogue with another student. Then write a similar dialogue between a student and the class teacher regarding an educational trip.

b) Build a conversation for the following situations with a minimum of five exchanges.

1. A passenger and a railway staff regarding the cancellation of the reserved tickets.
2. Two friends about the NSS camp which they are going to attend.
3. A salesman and a customer at an electronic shop.
4. A father and his daughter about the advantages of the habit of newspaper-reading.

c) Extend the conversation with two more relevant exchanges.

1. Receptionist and Traveller
2. Student and Teacher

Reading Comprehension

General tips

• Read the text completely to get the global comprehension of the text
• Read the text again for specific information
• Apply the context clue to know the meaning of passive vocabulary
• Attempt answering the direct or easy questions
• For answering the vocabulary–based questions, pay attention to the preceding and the following sentences of the sentence where the word is placed
• After identifying the answers, reproduce or present them in simplified form
• Besides literal understanding of the text, critical understanding of the text has to be applied

Passage: Cyborgs

(Text provided in original; questions a–j follow)

Grammar

Active and Passive Voice

(Rules and tasks exactly as in original)

Task 1

Change the following sentences into Passive Voice.

a–o (sentences listed)

Task 2

Change the following sentences into Active Voice.

a–n (sentences listed)

Interrogations or Questions

Types of Questions

1. Yes/No Questions
2. Wh- Questions
3. Alternative Questions
4. Tag Questions

(Detailed rules and examples as in original)

Task – 1

Add suitable question tags to the following sentences and punctuate properly.

1–15 (sentences listed)

Task – 2

Correct the error found in the question tag in each of the following.

1–12 (sentences listed)

Writing

Story Writing

(Guidelines, hints, and tasks exactly as in original)

Task 1

Expand the following outlines into complete stories and supply a suitable title for each.

1. Big cotton merchant …
2. Mr. X, a rich businessman …

Task 2

Continue and complete the following stories and suggest suitable titles for the same.

1. Tit for Tat
2. Four friends decided to go to a restaurant …

UTHIRA Registration Form

(Form layout exactly as in original)