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Night Mail

This is a simple poem highlighting the various


characteristics of a night mail. It brings various
types of postal material for each kind of people. It
also passes through various fields, meadows, and
ups and downs to reach its destiny. Night mail
actually resembles life that passes through
different courses to reach its destiny. "The Night
Mail" brings different kinds of postal material. It
passes through different ups and downs.
Nobody can alter its course. It reaches its destiny
in time. When it passes, nothing moves but only a
jug lying on a table moves slightly.The Night Mail is
the train that travels at night and carries mail. It is
night.
The Night Mail is running towards its destination. It
is bringing mail containing cheques, postal orders,
ordinary letters, business letters, and love letters
etc. It serves the rich and the poor at the same
time. it helps to promote business and relations. It
establishes communication between people living
in different parts of the country.
Whatever the weather 't is, it does its job. People
are waiting for their mail. The shopkeeper is
anxious about his cheque or Postal order. The next
door girl is waiting for her love letter. It has to
reach its destination on time. Nobody can alter its

course. It reaches its destiny in time. When it


passes, nothing moves but only a jug lying on a
table moves slightly.
The Night Mail stops at certain stations. Then, after
a short while, it moves again and travels on a
steady climb. It travels on upward and downward
slopes, but it does not get late. It reaches its
destinations on time. It passes by grassy fields and
uncultivated treeless stretch of land. It passes by a
large round rock. The poet teaches us that a man,
like a train, sees different periods of life. He has to
face hard days.
He also enjoys pleasures of life. Whatever the
circumstances are, like a train, he should be
regular, punctual and sturdy. He should do his duty
earnestly. It will bring him success arid fame. The
birds look at her plain coaches from the bushes. It
continues its journey. It has to travel on a fixed
path. It has no time to stand and stare. The
sheepdogs Know that they cannot force the train to
change its direction by barking at it or by running
after it. So they sleeping calmly with their paws
crossed.
The Night Mail carries mail for people of different
villages, towns and cities. So it is welcome
everywhere. We can say that it does not create any
problem for the people. Instead of it, it helps the
people.the night mail brings letters also for the

next-door girl who is perhaps, waiting for the


letters of her lover anxiously.
When the birds sitting in the bushes hear the
sound of the train they become attentive. They
move their heads towards it and start looking at its
coaches.
A train is a nonliving thing. The poet regards it as
a living thing. This is called personification and the
nonliving thing described as a living thing is called
personified. In this poem, the Night Mail is
personified by using words like, snorting noisily,
etc. In this way the poet change a lifeless thing into
a living one. The Night Mail passes through many
high and low areas. It passes by moorland boulder
and the fields of cotton.
Lahore Attack
Hello! You asked about Kumar Sangakkara's speech on the 2009 Lahore
attack against the Sri Lankan national cricket team.
Sangakarra starts his speech by telling his audience about the history of Sri
Lanka and her people. He is proud of his country's heritage: close-knit
families, strong communities, and a fiercely hospitable culture. He describes
how the game first provides an opportunity for affluent Sri Lankans of all
races, castes and religious beliefs to come together to indulge a shared
passion. When the game is opened to the masses, it solidifies the place of this
very English game in Sri Lankan hearts. Sangakarra is fiercely protective of
the unifying elements of this game. He admits that Sri Lankan cricket players
first had to overcome a prevalent national sense of ennui and dysfunction

before they could succeed as a national team. However, he draws on the


history of his childhood experience to assure us that the struggle to
incorporate a strong Sri Lankan identity into the sport has been well worth the
effort.
Sangakarra remembers how his brave parents hid Tamil friends in their family
home (during the civil wars) and how as a little boy, he was incredulous with
joy when he found so many friends to play with every day. His speech
highlights this child-like sense of acceptance and camaraderie among
Sangakarra and his playmates. Not one of the children cared whether they
were Tamil or Buddhist or any other religion: they were all playmates. Such is
also the unifying and harmonizing influence of cricket. Sangakarra contends
that it was the 1996 World Cup (Sri Lanka won the final, beating Australia)
which showed the world that Sri Lankans were able to take a wholly English
sport and infuse a strong Sri Lankan identity into its national play.
We were no longer timid, or soft, or minnows. We had played and beaten the
best in the world.We had done that without pretence or shame in a manner
that highlighted and celebrated our national values, our collective cultures and
habits. It was a brand of cricket we were proud to call our own, a style with
local spirit and flair embodying all that was good in our heritage.
Here were 15 individuals from different backgrounds, races, and religions,
each fiercely proud of his own individuality and yet they united not just a team
but a family.
Sangakarra is fiercely unapologetic about his belief that cricket has provided
an avenue for Sri Lankans to transcend the brutality of war, torture and
persecution. He is adamant that his people can become a peaceful and a
proud nation, healing itself from within, and taking its long awaited place on
the world stage with confidence and courage.

The sport overwhelmed terrorism and political strife; it provided something


that everyone held dear to their hearts and helped normal people get through
their lives.
Sangakarra cites the importance of free expression and innovative thinking
when it comes to coaching prospective Sri Lankan players. He proudly
defends this unorthodox approach as the basis for true success in the game.
He is confident that cricket will be even more important to modern day Sri
Lanka and that its unifying factor should mirror a new political reality: the true
spirit of cricket is tolerance and shared values. Qualities of Sangakarra: he is
courageous, forward-thinking, unorthodox and patriotic.

Caged Bird
The quotation above is a significant stanza of the poem, CAGED BIRD.
The stanza explicitly displays the true meaning of the poem and defines
actions of a "caged bird." Blackness of skin acts as a barrier for the
black race; it prevents freedom for a person. The freedom, and feelings of
a white person's existence are unknown to one who is black. Here, Maya's
belief for freedom and equality is beginning to spread among the black
race. She "sings" for freedom.
Throughout history, barriers have been put up between races.
Divisions and inequities between blacks and whites have existed since
ancient times. It's an enigma regarding how heritage has incurred blacks
with slavery, and why discrimination and racism exist. Nevertheless, the
Civil Rights Movement, actions of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and
the trials of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, and Plessy vs.
Ferguson (Separate but Equal, 1896) are examples of how blacks have
slowly "sang" for equality. For more than three hundred years, a wrongful
tradition of slavery and discrimination has existed. This ongoing black
inferiority and white supremacy (ethnocentrism) is bound in tradition and
hard to sever. Blacks are slowly overcoming the dominance of whites to
blacks.
Through tradition and history, whites have been given hopes and
spirit; blacks are servile and bound by tradition. This controversy is
condoned and accepted. Tradition has caused the death of black dreams and
hope. If a black person existed retaining the same amount of knowledge,
skill, and talent of a white person, who would succeed more in life? The
poem infers that the probable answer would be a white person, because
blacks are "caged" by their color. Opportunities infinitely exist for
whites, whereas the same is false for blacks.
In her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and her poem, Caged

Bird, a similar message (blacks are slowly overcoming tradition) is


shared. In Maya's autobiography, she gets a job as a streetcar
conductor. The significance is that Maya disturbed what was customary
(only whites had streetcar jobs). She defied the tradition set from
history, and pervaded pure hopes and dreams for black equality.
The metaphors from Caged Bird are well used and creative. Perhaps
the interpretation of the poem could have been communicated using bees,
flowers, roots, and pollen as metaphors.
bees~
wings for flight~
flowers~
roots~
pollen~

white race
white tradition carried through history,
black race
black tradition of unequal opportunities, permanent
in the ground
opportunities, that can be carried by the bees,
but can remain in the flowers

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