PRE-READING
Homework is to be completed on the side. Friends are calling to play another side. What do you do? Most children love to play at least for sometimes every day. How do parents, brothers, sisters,teachers-react to your playing with parents? What is the view of our education system in this regard? Should it be all study and no play? How do feel when elders go on scolding you asking you to study and not to waste time playing? How do the elders feel as they advise you to study?
ABOUT THE STORY
'My Elder Brother', originally written in Hindi as 'Bade Bhai Saheb', is a light-hearted comic tale. With its gentle humor and subtle irony, the story appeals to every reader at once. It satirizes many issues-elders forcing children to study; many lapses in the education system being the main ones. The younger brother is the narrator. The elder one plays the role of the preacher. The story ends abruptly where the elders reveal his own desire to play. The thus Hindi story was translated into English by Mr. Madan Gopal.The narrator is younger than his elder brother by five years. the narrator fond of playing. He studies only when necessary. Yet, he clears his examination regularly. The elder brother takes his study very seriously. He works late into the night and wakes up early. No play at all. All study. Yet he fails in examinations many times as a result, the elder one in his 9th class, while the younger reaches his 8th class. Whenever the elder brother sees the younger brother play, he goes on giving long lectures on the need to work hard, not to waste fathers hard-earned money, not to grow proud because of fluke successes and so on. But at the end of the story, the elder brother expresses his own strong desire to play. The younger brothers reactions to the elder brothers sermons are at once touching and thought-provoking. Through the elder brother fails in the examination, his sense of responsibility, his persuasive skills, his respect for parents and the wisdom etc. make him a remarkable character thus winning for him the title role
