English (Compulsory) For Class IX - Unit 8 - Life Skills - Lesson with Urdu translation

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Gazi's Diary

Lesson with Urdu translation

غازی کا روزنامچہ

Ghazi loved writing about his feelings and experiences. He often wrote things in his diary whenever he got into the writing mood. The following are two pages from his diary.

(1)

Wednesday, 10^th February, 2015
10:30 pm

Village life

Today, I am once again reminded of my simple village and its loving and caring people. I am living in Karachi now, in a beautiful house that has many modern facilities. It is located in a locality that has clean streets and big houses that have beautiful gardens, with a variety of plants and trees. But I am desperately missing my village; the simple, mud house that we lived in, the simple toys that gave us so much pleasure, and the simple, carefree people amongst whom we lived. I wish I could get into a time machine and go back sixty years, back to my life in the village.

The house that we lived in, had three rooms and a kitchen, all spread out in a yard that had no boundary wall, just some bushes separating our property from that of our neighbours. My grandparents and two of my unmarried aunts lived in one room, we, my parents and siblings, lived in another room, while my uncle and his family lived in the third room. We had a common kitchen, where the women of the family cooked for all of us.

The house in which I now live is made of cement and painted in beautiful colours, with tiled floors; however, the houses in our village were all made of wood, straw and mud. We had no furniture, as such; we sat on the floor and slept on the floor by spreading some quilts that were kept on a wooden stand during the day. This was probably why very few people had knee problems; people of all ages comfortably sat on the floor, which exercised their knees.

Our village did not have roads or streets; there were just narrow mud lanes, which became very slippery during the rainy season. Commuting from one place to another was not an issue; people did not need cars, buses or even motorbikes to go from one place to another in the village, they just walked. All this exercise kept them healthy and the absence of motor vehicles kept the environment pollution free.

Unlike the city, the village did not have big shops and supermarkets. There were just a few small shops selling goods that people needed for everyday living. One did not always need money or credit cards to buy things from these shops; one could buy things from these shops even if one did not have any money because the village shopkeepers knew everyone by name and were usually willing to give goods on credit.

The village Otaq, the place where men met in the evening, was where men spent their free time, shared news and gossips, laughed at shared jokes, talked about the weather, their crops and village issues, and enjoyed folk songs sung to the tune of the ghaghar and tamboora. The women had the village well which was the centre of all their activities. The village men and women shared their news and issues with people and enjoyed each other's company. They did not get their news from the television, learn about what was happening with people from the face book, get their entertainment from the You tube, and talk to people sitting at the next table through sms or email. All their activities centred on people in the flesh and blood, not people via devices.

Alas! Our luxurious life style has compromised our health. The availability of devices has distanced us from people. The access to technology has replaced the human touch. I wish for a time machine to take me back to my simple life, simple people, simple interests, and simple wants and needs.

(2)

Friday, 4^th August, 2017
11:45 am

We Need to Store Rain Water

Monsoons once again! Floods everywhere! The much needed rain is here. While water in an important need of life, too much of it can cause flooding and devastation. In Pakistan, floods create havoc when rivers over flow their banks during the monsoon season.
Rivers have always played a very important role in the life of human beings. They have served as trade routes from the earliest of times. Before the building of roads and railways, most trade was carried on by boats and ships along rivers. In addition to this, rivers have been important for growing food. This was the reason that most towns in ancient times were built near rivers.

However, rivers flood during the rainy season and run dry or have very little water sometime after the rains. One way that people have found to capture and retain the rain water for later use is by building structures to hold the water and prevent it from flooding. This way, the retained water can be used throughout the year for growing food. One way in which water is stored is through barrages built on rivers.

A barrage is a kind of wall, which blocks the flow of water. It has gates, through which the water is allowed to pass in a limited quantity. Its aim is to control the flow of water in the flood season, store it, and release it for irrigation, through the canals, throughout the year.
The Guddu barrage, built on the river Indus, is one of the many barrages built in Pakistan. It is built at a place where the river is fourteen kilometres in width. It is designed to force the water, spread over fourteen kilometres, to pass through a narrow barrage, about one kilometre wide. The barrage is 1355 kilometres in length. It is made in such a way that a flood of about 1.2 million cusecs can pass through it.

The Guddu barrage has a system of three main canals. Two of these are on the right bank and one on the left. The Begari Sindh Feeder and the Desert Pat Feeder, are on the right bank. The third canal, the Ghotki Feeder is on the left bank. The three canals are amongst the largest feeder canals in the world. The barrage is meant to irrigate an area of 2.7 million acres. Most of this area lies in the Sukkur and Jacobabad districts of Sindh, and the rest in the Kalat division of the Baluchistan province.
The Guddu barrage is one of the biggest barrages of Pakistan. It has also been the most difficult to complete. More than 5000 engineers, technicians, and labourers worked day and night to complete it. It was put into operation on 4th February, 1962.

The barrage has tamed the river and put an end to the damage caused by floods in this area. It is about time that the government started constructing more barrages to control flooding during the rainy season and to supply water throughout the year for irrigating more land so that Pakistan becomes self-sufficient in meeting its demands for grains, fruits and vegetables. In fact, proper water management can allow us to grow surplus food items, which we can then export and earn foreign exchange.