Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings 2

I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding.

Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, called him Deus Absconditus.

I had the privilege of a close conversation with some Poona professors.

The charge against us is that we have no initiative.

How can we have any if we are to devote the precious years of our life to the mastery of a foreign tongue?

But suppose that we had been receiving during the past fifty years education through our vernaculars, what should we have today?

We should have today a free India, we should have our educated men, not as if they were foreigners in their own land but speaking to the heart of the nation; they would be working amongst the poorest of the poor, and whatever they would have gained during the past fifty years would be a heritage for the nation.

I felt my playmates’ envious eyes on the pretty red-beaded moccasins that would soon decorate my feet.

At first I spent many a sunny hour working a long design. Soon I learned not to draw complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I began.

My original designs were not always symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother had little patience.

I felt terribly humiliated when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her!

We chewed and chewed it. Soon, sated with its woody flavor, we tossed away our gum and returned to find more sweet roots.

When one of us told of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the rest of us listened attentively and exclaimed, “Han! han!” (Yes! yes!) whenever the speaker paused for breath or sympathy. As our discourse became more thrilling, our Han! han!s were louder and louder.

Alone with my mother, I yielded to my tears, shaking my head so as not to hear what she said to me.