EIA Review for ExamDecember 24, 2013

Morning in the Desert

Cholistan Desert

Shabanu and her sister carrying earthen pots with padded rings on their heads.

The toba

Monsoon

Children playing with water

Bangladesh

The River Gypsies

A crowd watching river gypsies with their snakes.

Snakes winding themselves round wrists like bright green bangles.

A hooded cobra rising up from a box.

Husband and wife !

Bedeh This is the name of my clan.I am a water-gypsyOn the turbulent rivers of Bangladesh.

My boat is hometo me, my wife and our children.

I have some knowledge of wordsand wild herbs

My needs are small and simpleThey are easily metFrom day to day, from hand to mouth,from one river settlement to the next.

Sometimes in fine weatherI row out to the river’s end.

I meet many ships at the anchorage.

Exchange

Once I had a chance to board an English ship. I marvelled at the ocean-going craft.

But, the captain, he marvelled: at me,At the size of my boat,At how we had survived, At how we live!He wrote down our names, and other things in his notebook.

Can You?

Can you sell me the air that slips through your fingers,strokes your face and tangles your hair?

1

Perhaps you could sell me five dollars’ worth of wind,or more, perhaps sell me a storm?

2

Perhaps you could sell me the delicate air(not all of it) that dancesin your garden, from flower to flower,dances in your garden among the birds,ten dollars’ worth of pure air?

3

The air spins and flits awayLike a butterfly.No one owns it, no one.

4 The air spins and flits awayLike a butterflyNo one owns it, no one.

Can you sell me some sky,the sky that’s sometimes blue and sometimes grey,a small strip of your sky,the piece you think you bought with all the treesin your orchard, as one buys the roof along with the house?

5

Can you sell me a dollar’s worth of sky, two milesof sky, a slice of your sky,whatever piece you can?

6

7

The sky is high in the clouds.The clouds float by.No one owns them, no one.

Coal and soot

Taj Mahal

Inlaid marble with precious stones

The tombs of the Shah and Mumtaz Mahal

Multani mitti or Fuller’s earth is a kind of clay that is used in face masks. It

was also used to restore the walls of Taj Mahal from yellow to white.