The Tiger King - Part 1

1st May
Day 4

Let us remember all our workers today on this labour's day. They are the strength of any society. Give them respect and some time to relax. 

I hope you all had a relaxing week and not much burdened with a lot of work for past two weeks. Classified ads took days  but definitely not a difficult topic to comprehend. We are going to commence with a new lesson today from supplementary book Vista. 

THE TIGER KING

It is a long chapter divided into five parts. 

Let you all only read the first three parts today and understand it. The next two parts will be taken up in tomorrow's blog.

Before moving ahead, let us see the learning objectives of this chapter. 

Learning Objective:

The students will be able to

·         Familiarise themselves with the sequence of events that led to Tiger King being known by that title. 

·         Uncover and explain motive behind Tiger King's decision to kill a hundred tigers. 

·      Identify instances when the king's decisions seemed irrational and how his attendants acted out our fear.

·        Realise the need to sustain ecological balance instead of exploiting resources for self-preservation

·        Absorb the need to be a tolerant and respectful leader. 

       Raise awareness to conserve wildlife. 

      

       Kindly read the chapter now. 

      

       Let us read an introduction about the chapter and get familiar with the characters of the same. 

  

                                                                   Introduction

Kalki takes his readers to the days of autocratic and eccentric kings. These kings lived under the thumb rule of Britishers, hence they fear them. In order to make the story mysterious Kalki has added supernatural element in the story. The haughty king disapproved the prophecy made by the astrologer about his death, but his death from the wooden tiger(100th tiger) approved it.

The story ‘The Tiger King’ is satire on the conceit of those in power. Most of the time the rulers are not interested in serving the people or work for the welfare of the public; instead they spend their time foolish pursuits. Even the coteries who surround these power centers are interested in taking advantage of the proximity for their own welfare. This is a story about transience-of life, of power and reverberates the maxim: “Too many slips between a cup and a lip.”

                                                       Characters

1. The Tiger King: Hero of the story, the maharaja of Pratibandhapuram, also known as his highness Jamedar, General Khiledar- Major, Sata – Vyagrah      samhari, MaharajadhirajaViswa Bhuvana Samrat, Sir Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur, M.A.D., A.C.T.C., or C.R.C.K.

2. Crown Prince: a ten year old baby who later became the Maharaja of Pratibandhapuram

3. Chief Astrologer: A royal foreteller of the state.

4. Durai: chief leader in Tamil

5. Dewan: a chief administrative officer of the Maharaja

6. Duraisani: wife of a high ranking British officer

                                                               READING TIME

   Now that you have read first three parts, here are the pointers which will help you to retain the story along with their word meanings. 

Part 1:

·         The protagonist – the king of Pratibandapuram, is hero due to his bravery.

·         List of titles given to him to emphasise his greatness.

·         To sum up all the title, the king is called ‘The tiger king’, reason revealed in the story and that     nothing can stop him from narrating this story.

·         confirms the death of the tiger king by the end of the story.

·         Astonishingly, 10 days old Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur uttered a phrase and asked about the cause of   his death.

·         Astrologer predicted that the king would die because of a tiger as he was born in the hour of bull and the bull and the tiger are enemies.

·         Crown prince growled and said, “Let tigers beware!”

Word	Meaning
Pretending	behaving so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not
Strategic	Calculated
Stuka bomber	a German bomber aircraft that was used in the second world war
Indomitable	Undefeatable
Final abode	refers to the final residence of the soul – the heaven.
Demise	Death
Foretold	Predicted
Compelled	Forced
Stupefaction	Shock
Enunciated	say or pronounce clearly.
Incredible	Unbelievable
Rife	widespread, prevalent
Hindsight	to understand an event or situation only after it has happened

Part 2:

·         The prince grew up among the English speakers watching English movies and tutored by an   Englishman.

·         Age of 20, he became the king.

·         He started out in hunting tigers around his kingdom in the forests of Pratibandapuram.

·         He hunted the first tiger and sent for the state astrologer.

·         Astrologer said he should beware of the 100^th tiger.

·         King said that he would kill the 100^th tiger as well and the astrologer said if that happened then he   would cut off his tuft, crop his hair and become an insurance agent.

Word	Meaning
Court of wards	The Court of Wards was a legal body created by the East India Company. Its purpose was to protect heirs and their estates when the heir was deemed to be a minor and therefore incapable of acting independently.
Tuft	a bunch or collection of threads, grass, hair, etc., held or growing together at the base.
Incoherent	unclear, confused

Part 3:

·          State banned all the tiger hunting by anyone except maharaja.

·         The maharaja was determined to kill all the tigers and shifted his entire work post killing.

·         Maharaja emerged victorious in every killing even after facing many difficulties.

·         A high ranking British officer wanted to hunt the tiger in the kingdom and get photographed with it.

·         Maharaja refused the permission and stood on the verge of losing his kingdom.

·         He settled the British officer with gifts worth 3 lakh rupees and saved his kingdom.

Word	Meaning
Proclamation	a public or official announcement
Fling	Throw
Confiscated	taken with authority
Boar	Pig
Durai	Tamil word meaning chief or leader
Relented	relaxed his decision
Carcass	the dead body of an animal.
Deliberations	Discussions

Tomorrow, we will continue with the last two parts of the story. 

Click on the given link to mark yourself present for the day. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOHXMZ51NFEez6UF7hrVrxJDx4FEVbexYGUr2cJeM91e_mfw/viewform

Till then

Take care

Stay safe

God bless you all!r