hello namaskar vanakam I hope all of you are doing absolutely great what I bring to you today is an extremely inspiring story from the icsc class 10 Treasure Chest textbook for English literature it's an extremely inspiring story as I said because one can relate to it and the fact that despite all the surround sound and that's one of my favorite phrases despite all the surround sound if you focus on what you want to do and what you need to do you can achieve wonders that's really the moral of this particular story it's set in Africa but the kind of lessons that it has makes it a very Universal kind of a story so I'm sure each one of you can also relate to this particular story about this young girl okay so let's get started before but before we get into the text of the story I want to give you a basic context so that it becomes easy for you to understand the cultural context in which the story is placed that's very important in literature if you able to understand that that makes it much more easier for you to understand the nuances in this particular story okay one of the things and let me just point this out one of the things that a couple of students wrote To Me is that when we do uh you know when we have the lessons or if we asked to do public speaking in school what are the things that we need to keep in mind I would say at your level you're all 15-year-old students at your level you need to take care of a couple of things in fact I've done a series of videos on public speaking the kind of things you need to bear in mind when you are speaking on stage or talking to a group of people please do have a look at those videos you will find them very useful more importantly I will just point out two things one is the body language your body language should con should convey confidence not arrogance confidence that you are very comfortable with the way you are number two to be able to make eye contact with the people and speak with modulation in your voice in the sense how you throw your words becomes extremely important like the way I speak and this is not something which I had when I was a Youngster mind you this is something which you develop over a period of time and since my profession involved speaking to camera it is something which has evolved over a period of time so you need to modulate your voice your diction the way you throw your voice the way you emphasize on certain words now now look at the way I said it the way you emphasize on certain words so that you draw these person's the audience's attention to what you want to convey to tell them that this is the word this is the phrase I want you to focus on and remember right so those are a couple of things that you need to bear in mind this is for those students who are interested in interested in public speaking it's a great soft skill to have it's a great soft skill to have and I don't necessarily mean that you should have only in English you could be an excellent public speaker in Hindi in Tamil in Telugu in Bengal in bojpuri in Kashmir any language but in whatever language you try to do it try to be excellent at it there I always believe there is really no fun in being mediocre there's no fun in being ordinary if you are doing something even if you are making samosas ensure that you make the best samosas in the world that should be the skill set that you need to prioritize getting very good at okay so let's get started okay so uh this is about the author of the girl who can amama ATA IDU is a writer and academician from Gana in Africa and she also served as the country's Minister for education so in that sense pretty relevant to what we are doing her stories highlight women's issues and focus on issues of choice and conflict now these are important words which I would strongly recommend you should use in your answers that issues of choice and conflict the two C's that are an integral part of anyone's life you know what are the choices we have and whether we are conflicted while making those choices now where is Ghana for those of you who may not be very familiar with the African map in Africa it is surrounded it's actually if you see the map now my drawing is not very good so pardon me for that like Africa is something like this right so Ghana comes somewhere here okay so it's surrounded so one side is the sea but it is surrounded by three different countries on the three sides it's surrounded by iory Coast Burkina Faso and too on the three side and the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth so that's how the geography of GH is now um I just got this Photograph uh uh just to give you an idea now this is the kind of girl that we are talking about of this age and what she ends up doing despite the kind of family background that she grows up in family circumstances now what's the story about it's about AA a young African girl who is able to rise above social criticism the criticism about how her legs are okay especially from her grandmother and the pressure it mounts on her her on her psyche she lives in a village in Ghana with her mother and grandmother she has thin legs now this is at the heart of the story and she's constantly told that they are not good for supporting hips meant for childbearing so even as she's a young girl I mean the pressure on her to get married bear children and whether her legs are good enough to have the kind of physique which can facilitate childbearing is something which is considered very important so you understand the social context that's what I said at the beginning the social and cultural context of a place is very important to understand the different intricacies of the story which you are reading she emerges Victorious at the end of the story and it proves that women have a greater role in society than merely giving birth to Children I'm sure all of you boys and girls would agree with that uh now the themes of the story now before I get into the things so that you have an idea what we are going to talk about because more than just this the story is pretty simple but what are the themes the author is trying to convey is much more important one of course is about the empowerment of the girl child empowerment of women so it's about the Journey of a girl who discovers her own strengths and abilities so the theme of empowerment of individuals particularly of that young girl child to overcome challenges and to achieve their goals is one of the major themes of this particular story now eda's desire to run and comp compete with others it represents a push what she's doing is that this is my way to send a lesson to kind of this is going to be my answer against all the people who criticize me for my physical frailties physical possible inabilities Etc okay uh so that's what she's doing her victory in the race shows that her talents and abilities should not be restricted by Tradition at any cost the second one is extremely important that of identity the theme of identity because it also involves a search because she realizes that she can carve and find her identity as a runner as an athlete so the legs that she's criticized for actually become the vehicle for her to carve out her own identity how fascinating isn't it so she discovers her abilities and the impact it has on herself so this helps her get her sense of understanding of our own place in the world the other thing while doing public speaking a very good strategy always is if you're going to do it as part of your uh you know uh Wawa or you know General competitions at school is to indulge in rhetoric you know when you are speaking to draw the audience into what you are speaking and make them engrossed even more make them more interested in what you are speaking you should add this thing you know I really think that this is the way it should be don't you think so so the moment you ask a question it kind of even if someone is dozing away you'll say he asked me a question she asked me a question so I am expected to be part of the answering process so it keeps them more engaged so that's another strategy which you could employ while you are doing public speaking okay I will not tell you only the meaning I'll tell you lots of other things because as I always say I am not taking Pride I have been teaching for 20 years I've been teaching for 25 years I have been teaching for 30 years I have been experienced I don't believe in all that life should be that of a student I believe in being a student all my life which is why I keep moving on in the sense that unless you have different experience es in life and this story is a great example of that unless you have different kinds of experiences in life you will get stagnated you will be in that comfort zone oh I know how to teach World War II so I can teach it at any time to how boring it would be to keep teaching World War II for 30 years to teach trigonometry for 30 years no unless you yourself evolve and learn new things you will just be a frog in the well you will just get stagnated so in life never get stagnated Rolling Stones gather no Moss I hope you have heard that ediom it means that if you are a stone which is always at one place over a period of time M but if you keep on rolling you will ensure that you will never gather Moss you should all be Rolling Stones that's what I try to be I try to be a sponge at my age to keep learning new things and in fact I'm very excited that once I finish recording all these videos I'm going to work on doing something new I don't want to get stagnated with just I don't look at myself as a tution teacher I'm not even a teacher in that sense but I believe in doing different things I'm a writer I do different kinds of writing I do a lot of TV stuff I do I'm a documentary filmmaker I write satire I I do motivation lectures so you do different kinds of things so that you keep learning new things always be a sponge and at least at your age you always need to be a sponge because what you learn now is what will really help you later in life okay I'm digressing because I just feel excited because what I know I need to pass it on to others that something which I strongly believe in and it goes beyond the textbook I am not too much caught into this textbook May syllabus May marks marks are just Milestones they don't really matter Beyond a point gender roles and expectations the story challenges traditional views of feminity how a woman is expected to be be particularly in African cultures because that's the context in which this particular story is placed aa's grandmother Nana uh believes A Woman's Worth is tight to her ability to Bear children healthy children and aa's love for running and her thin legs become symbols of defying those expectations that I will use my legs in a way I think they should be used which is to be a formidable athlete right not just forbearing children so that's a Defiance of s she's defying societal Norms which are represented by her grandmother and of course there is a generational Gap her grandmother comes from a different generation a different way of thinking that's why she talks like that the power of self-belief this is another theme that despite Nana's negativity adeda holds on to her passion for running winning the race which she does in the second half of the story it reinforces her self-belief and demonstrates that if you set your heart on something you can achieve your goals then of course this the generational conflict that I just mentioned the story portrays a very subtle tension it's not very loud because she doesn't answer back in fact she's very amused at the manner in which the grandmother is always criticizing or laughing at her mocking her between Nana's traditional views and Mommy who is at jaa's mother very beautiful character of the mother more Progressive Outlook I really love the mother's character the most you know it's like kalaj or C so the one who is in the center this generational difference reflects a broader societal shift the story also explos the complex Dynamics within a three generational household while Nana criticizes at joa mama mommy supports her daughter's dreams she wants her to pursue her dreams in the end Nana even shows a grudging acceptance of aa's abilities right so it ends in a very beautiful way so that's as far as uh this particular story is concerned and then finally there's also the importance of Education the importance of Education uh this is another photograph which I of course I also used in the uh thumbnail of the story so now let's get to the text of this particular story okay this is taken from the textbook itself which is why it is looking like this but I in any case you would have your textbook with you I couldn't find a pedf of this particular story anywhere they say that I was born in Hazard Z it is a very big Village in the central region of our country Ghana now hodi is interesting because it is a land known for its good soil a very fertile land known for its quality of soil soil this particular place so please remember the spelling and the name of this particular place they also say that when all of Africa is not choking under a drot haard seed lies in a very fertile lowland in a district known for its good soil maybe that's why anytime I don't finish eating my food Nana says you a you don't know what life is about you don't know what problems there are in this life so um what it shows is that nanan her grandmother is a very practical minded woman uh she teaches her the value of food so that's again something very important so she tells her that you don't know the kind of problems there are you know there are people who go without food so you should consider yourself lucky and under no circumstances you should waste food so this is an important aspect of Nana so please make a note of it the fact that she values food she has she's practical minded and she kind of invibes good values she's not a negative character but she invibes a right values she kind of cultivates the encourages the good values in her granddaughter as far as I could see there was only one problem you know when she says problems she says I think there was only one problem you know this is from her perspective of being only seven years old and it had nothing to do with what I knew Nana considered as problems or what Mommy that's a mother think of as the problem mommy is my mother Nana is my mother's mother so three generations and they say I'm seven years old I mean obviously she wouldn't know she has been told she's seven years old and my problem is that at this seven years of age there are things I can think in my head but which maybe I do not have the proper language to speak them out with that is I able to think but I don't have the communication ability to art articulate what I am thinking in my head so she doesn't have the language skills to articulate her problems and and that I think is a very serious problem so she thinks at the age of seven that's the very serious problem that I'm not able to articulate Express what are the problems that I am thinking about because it is always difficult to decide whether to keep quiet and not say any of the things that come into my head or say them and get laughed at so her dilemma is that whether I should say any of the things that come into my head because if you say it you might get laughed at mocked not that it is easy to get any grown-up to listen to you even when you decide to take the risk and say something serious to them because they may not care for your opinion they may not really care for what you think for your views so they will end up mocking her by laughing at her take Nana for example first I have to struggle to catch her attention so she's not someone who will give her much attention because after all she's only seven years old why should I take a seven-year old seriously then I tell her something taken a long time to figure out so you realize that a joy is someone who you know thinks a lot you know she kind of uh puts her heart and mind into something thinks it through and then she wonders whether she should Express her opinion and then you know what always happens she would once stop whatever she's doing whatever work Nana is doing and mouth open stare at me for a very long time as though with a sense of bewilderment with a sense of astonishment then bending and turning her head slightly so that one year comes down towards me she will say in that voice AA you see what after I have repeated and then if AA repeats whatever she said she would make it seem as though she did not understand what was conveyed to her by her granddaughter she would either still in that Voice Ask never never but never to repeat that that is you will never say this particular thing any any time again or she would immediately burst out laughing okay she would laugh and laugh and laugh so I mean she's I mean the the word has been repeated in order to emphasize that until tears ran down run down her cheeks and she would stop whatever she's doing and wipe away the tears with the hanging edges of her cloth that she would be so amused at what her granddaughter would have to say and she would continue laughing until she is completely tired and then but then as soon as another person comes by another passer by just to make sure she doesn't forget what it was whatever it was I had said she would repeat it to her that is you know she would tell it to a third person so that she doesn't forget what she had heard from AA and then of course there would be two old people laughing and screaming with tears running down their faces they would both be extremely amused sometimes this show continues until there are three four or even more of such laughing and screaming [Music] had to see and all the performance on whatever I had said I find something quite confusing in all this now that would confuse at Jo why on Earth are they laughing at me like this that is no one ever explains to me they don't tell me why they are laughing what is it that I have said that they find so very amusing that is no one ever explains to me why sometimes I shouldn't repeat that is sometimes she would say never ever say it again why while other times some other things I would say would not only be all right but also be considered very funny they would be repeated so many times to so many people for their enjoyment you see how neither way of hearing me out can encourage me to express my thoughts too often so she says that both reactions either to tell me that never ever repeat that okay or to laugh at me so much either of the two reactions are not going to encourage me to speak to express myself to articulate what's there on my mind right so in that sense he finds both reactions to be extremely negative in terms of encouraging her to speak whatever she wants to say to express her thoughts freely I hope it's clear till here like all this business to do with my LS I've always wanted to tell them not to worry I mean Nana and my one of the things let me I'm I'm sorry I'm going on and again about public speaking but this not really about public speaking one of the problems that I find uh among many students is that they don't roll their tongue you know it's very important to roll your tongue while you're speaking especially when it comes to speaking English not so much when it comes to Indian languages except Malayalam and Tamil for to an extent because in Malayalam you have words like the r okay is gory code it's not cozy code okay so there is the thing of the R so that is something which you need to be uh particular about aware of so it's very important to roll the tongue and to speak with Clarity I found some students you know they almost Mumble the words they don't kind of throw their voice you need to have the confidence to be able to like hearing the sound of your own voice and that's something which comes with practice okay so that's something which you do so even if you speak slow and I always advise people to speak slow but speak with a lot of clarity that is something very important and let me tell you one more thing speaking English is not just a virtue it's a skill set that in today's day and age you ought to have because the world is a global village if you are able to communicate in a language which most people in the world speak it just puts you at an advantage okay right I'll come back to the thing I'll keep giving this Gap please don't mind I've always wanted to tell them not to worry I mean Nana and my mother that it did not have to be an issue for my two favorite people now this is important said despite the way Nana reacts both of them her mother and her grandmother are her two favorite people to fight over but I did not want it either to be told not to repeat that or it to be considered so funny that anyone would laugh at me until they cried she did not approve of that kind of reaction after all they were my legs so there is a sense of possessiveness mar Tang my legs why should they make fun of that when I think back on it now those two Nana and my mother must have been discussing my legs from the day I was born that's what she thinks what I'm sure of is that when I came out of the land of sweet soft silence into the world of noise and comprehension the first topic I met was my legs now look at how she's describing what is this land of sweet soft silence her mother's womb where she was for the past nine months so that's how the womb is described as the land of sweet soft silence there was no noise that she heard but the moment she was born it was the into the world of noise and comprehension means she could start understanding and she thought that the first STP they must have discussed would have been my legs because they seem to be obsessed with my legs that discussion was repeated very regularly n ahh you know Kaya that is the mother's name I thank my God that your first child is female but Kaya I'm not sure about her legs so you know she's not regretting the fact that it's a female child so a female child in Ghana is celebrated it's not someone who is looked down upon we needed a male child no she's celebrated and she's happy about the fact that it was she was a female child but she's worried about her thin legs and Nana would shake her head in disapproval the shaking of the head would convey unhappiness or disapproval of her legs Mommy Mother why are you always complaining about aa's legs if you ask me okay if you ask me but but she's not allowed to complete the sentence Nana they're too thin so she's more emphatic so you see in terms of the personality the grandmother seems to be much more of an assertive kind of person than the mother and I'm not asking you no I'm not asking you for your opinion I'm telling you what it is Nana has many voices there's a special one she uses to shut everyone up so this is the tone she uses to say shut up I'm not asking you did I ask you for your opinion no so just shut up some people have no legs at all my mother would try again with her small courage so you realize what I told you that in terms of personality the grandmother is the more assertive kind of a woman so the mother's courage is described as small courage so this all from the perspective of the seven-year-old mind you this all her observation she thinks her mother has small courage she thinks her grandmother uses this to shut up people so it's all her perception please keep keep that in mind please make a note of it put an asterisk marks in your notes but AA has legs Nana would insist except that they are too thin and also too long for a woman so thin and long K listen once in a while but only once in a very long while somebody decides that is nature a child's spirit mother and Accident Happens and somebody gets born without arms or legs or both sets of lib so she says what she said you know some people get born without legs so she says that is a very rare occurrence that it happens once in a blue moon that you know it may be an accident uh and you know somebody may get born without arms or legs or both sets of Limbs and then let me touch wood it's a sad business it's very sad for a child to be like that and you know such things are not for talking about every day but if any female child decides to come into this world with legs then they might might as well be legs they should be strong legs right not thin legs like this what kind of legs and always at that point I knew from her voice that my mother was weeping inside no mother likes her child to be criticized right and that also about a physical aspect any aspect for that matter but no mother likes it no parent likes it Nana would never heard such inside weeping so you realize the grandmother was not very sensitive and considerate about her own daughter's emotions and feelings and persisted with her criticism of her granddaughter's thin and Long Legs understood so this is another aspect that you need to bear in mind that she was not very sensitive and considerate about her daughter's feelings that is um uh mommy's feelings Kaya's feelings not that it would have stopped Nana even if she had heard it which always surprised me because about almost everything else apart from my legs Nana is such a good grownup but when it comes to my legs what happens to her that's what AA wonders in any case what do I know about good grown-ups and bad grown-ups I mean after all I'm only seven years old what would I really know about how could nana be a good grown-up when she carried on so much about M so she's thinking you know is she a good grown-up or a bad grown-up how can she be a good grownup if she continues to criticize my legs in the Tamil movie nayakan released in the year 1987 or 88 Kamal Hassan he got a national award for that he plays uh a dawn I mean students from Tamil Nadu will be familiar with it it was remade in Hindi as thean uh in nagan there is a uh dialogue of a child of his grandson asking him are you a good man or a bad man and he's a Dawn and he says I don't know it's one of Kamal hass's famous talers it reminded me of that so she say but despite this I really like Nana except for that one except for the fact that she continues to harp on my thin legs I really like her as I keep saying if any woman decides to come into this world with all of her two legs then she should select legs that have meat on them with good carves because you are sure such legs would support solid hips and a woman must have solid hips to be able to have children so that's the reason why she thinks at joah ought to have so even while she's only seven years old she's more obsessed about her ability and the physique to be able to Bear children so that's a rather distorted view of looking at your own granddaughter who is a small child just seven years old so but ad's maturity is that despite that she's fond of her grandmother and this is the only aspect that she did not like about Nana Oh mother that's how my mother would answer very very quietly and the discussion would end or they would move on to something else so that's how it would get over sometimes Nana would pull in something about my father who she did not obviously approve of how looking at such a man we have to be humble and admit that after all God's children are many now she was disapproved proving about Kaya's husband how after once only daughter had insisted on marrying a man like that you still have to think your God that the biggest problem you got later was having a daughter with spindly legs that are too long for a woman and too thin to be of any use so she thinks that you know this after having a married a man like that a man like that after that the only negative you got was to have a granddaughter with the legs like that uh spindly means weak and frail okay that's what spindly means um so she thinks that you know worse things could have happened but let's be glad that that's the only negative thing that really happened the way she always added that bit about my father under her breath as though she was muttering in disapproval uh she probably thought I didn't hear it but I always heard it plus that's what always shut my mother up for good so if you brought up the father's uh Topic in conversation the mother would shut up she would not kind of continue with the conversation so that even if I had not actually heard the words once my mother looked like even her little courage was finished I could always guess what Nana had added to the argument so that was like a brahmastra keep father comment husband comment she would shut up okay because obviously she did not approve of her daughter's Choice legs that have meat on them with good CVS to support solid hips to be able to have children so I wish that one day I would see for myself the legs of any woman who had children so now she's getting curious let me look at the legs of wom who have children how are they different from mine obviously it's no comparison because a seven-year-old will obviously not have um welldeveloped legs include I mean any part of the body for that matter but in our village that's not easy the older women wear long wraparounds all the time um perhaps if they let me go bathe in the river in the evening I could have checked so look at the child's curiosity it's almost a little amusing and funny but I never had the chance it took a lot of begging just to let my mother and Nana to let me go splash around in the shallow end of the river with my friend so that she could have a look at the women uh who were little girls like me for proper baths we used a small bath house behind our heart therefore the only naked female legs I have ever really seen are those of other little girls like me or older girls in the school and those of my mother and Nana two pairs of legs which must surely belong to the approved kind that is legs which could have solid hips which could bear children uh because Nana gave birth to my mother and my mother gave birth to me in my eyes all my friends have got legs that look like legs but whether the legs have got meat on them to support the kind of hips that I don't know so she's not very sure about it so you know it kind of reflects the Curiosity the Curiosity of U AA okay she's kind of wondering because she's not able to get the answers to the kind of questions that she has in her mind according to the older boys and girls the distance between our little village and the small turn is about 5 kilometers I don't know what 5 kilometers means so a seven-year-old is not able to comprehend that they always complain about how long it is to walk to school and back but to me we live in our village and walking those kilometers did not matter school is nice so she kind of liked the fact that she could go to school now this is an important little detail the writer has put that she had no problems her legs did not get tired so which means that despite the thin nature of those legs they were actually quite sturdy in their own way sturdy means to strong s r s d y school is another thing Nana and my mother discussed often and appeared to have different ideas about Nana thought it would be a waste of time I never understood what she meant why would she call it a waste of time my mother seemed to know and disagreed so the mother was insistent that AA had to go to school she kept telling Nana that she that is my mother felt that she was locked in into some kind of Darkness because she did not go to school so Kaya had not gone to school okay and she felt that she was logged into some kind of Darkness that she did not get enlightened because she was never sent to school so that if I her daughter could learn to write and read my own name and a little besides perhaps be able to calculate some things on paper that would be good I could always marry later and maybe Nana would just laugh ah maybe with things legs like her she might as well go to school that you know if she has as though you know legs you know that's the kind of attitude that Nana had Visa her thin legs thin and long legs so she said that she might as well go to school okay I mean know there's nothing that we can do about her so she might as well go to school okay basically dismissing her as a hopeless kind of a person running with our classmates on a small spot Sports field and winning first place each time never seemed to me to be anything about which to tell anyone at home so this was something which is normal that is she used to run and always come first in the race okay at joah but she never disclosed that to anyone at home because she did not think it was so important this time it was different I don't know how the teachers decided to let me run for the junior section of our school in the district games but they did so the teachers spotted the talent of of joa and decided that she would run in the junior section of the district games when I went home to tell my mother and Nana they had not believed it at first they did not believe that legs like this and she would run so Nana had taken it upon herself to go and ask into it properly inquire you know at the school she came home to tell my mother that it was really true who was one of my school's Runners is that so exclaimed my mother look at the joy exclaim word you know she would be feeling so happy always remember that the only people in the world who would always feel very happy with your success would be your parents uh in some circumstances the person who has taught you otherwise no one else really sometimes there's even sibling rivalry but parents will always feel extremely delighted in the success and revel in the success of the child and that's what Kaaya feels here is that so I know her her mouth moved as though she was going to tell Nana that after all there was a secret about me she could not be expected to share with anyone okay so uh how did she uh no uh okay sorry but then Nana herself looked so pleased out of surprise my mother shut her mouth up in any case since the first time they heard the news I have often called Nana staring at my legs with a strange look on her face so Kaa feels that you know she has some talent and this whole obsession with her thin legs is kind of misplaced but she decides I'm not going to tell anything to Nana because again it will Kickstart the same kind of discussion unpleasant discussion I've often caught Nana staring at my legs with a strange look on her face ever she she ever since she has heard the news but still pretending like she was not looking all this week she has been washing my school uniform herself that's a big surprise and she did not stop at that she even went to Mr Mena's house and borrowed his charcoal pressing iron each time came back with it and ironed and ironed and ironed the uniform until I had if I had in the uniform I would have said aloud that I had had enough so it's almost like a bit of childish humor that is being indulged in so her grandmother is kind of feeling happy she's a little surprised also but she's also feeling proud but she does not express it her way of expressing it through these kind of Acts of uh washing the school uniform and also taking the effort of borrowing the iron box and uh U ironing it so it shows that she was proud of her granddaughter's achievement and this is how she showed it this can be a potential question so please use the keywords from the thing which is basically to washing ironing right and uh the fact that she describes it as a big surprise okay wearing my school uniform this week has been very nice at the first at the parade the first afternoon it caught the raise of the Sun and shown brighter than everybody else's uniform so Nana had washed and ironed it well I'm sure Nana saw that too and must have liked it yes she has been coming into town with us every afternoon of this District Sports week each afternoon she has pulled one set of fresh old clothes from the big brass Bowl to wear and those old clothes are always so stiffly stared you can hear the cloth cloth Creek when she passes by so this this is all very subtle kind of humor that her clothes have so much of stars so it's almost like Creeks sound when she walks by but she walks way behind a school children as though she was on her own way to someplace else so she wants to see with her own eyes she wants to be a witness to what her granddaughter is up to so there's a sense of Pride there's a sense of curiosity please mark these two words pride and curiosity in Nana Vis her daughter's her granddaughter's running athletic skills yes I have one every race I ran in for my school and I have won the cup for the best allround Junior athlete so this is important okay please note this down yes Nana said she didn't care if such things are not done she would do it you know what she did she carried the gleaming Cup on her back okay uh this is like you know to be there for her and she carried the gleaming Cup on her back like they do with babies and other very precious things and this time not taking the trouble to walk by herself so she walked along with her granddaughter to show that here my granddaughter and she has won this so there's a sense of great pride when we arrived in our village she entered her compound to show the cup to my mother before going to give it back to the Headmaster oh grown-ups are so strange Nana is right now carrying me on her knee and crying softly muttering muttering muttering that s thin legs legs can also be useful I mean this must be the Ghana word for thin legs the legs uh thin legs can also be useful that even though some legs do not have much meat on them to carry hips they can run thin legs can run then who knows so they can there is there can be other uses of those thin legs I don't know much I don't know too much about such things but that's how I was feeling and thinking all along that show one should be able to do other things with legs as well as have them because they can support hips that can make BB so it can be of different uses that's not the sole purpose of the legs except that I was afraid of saying that sort of thing aloud but she's a little timid about saying it loud because she could be asked to never say it again or she could be laughed at because someone would have told me never never but never to repeat such words or else they would have laughed so much at what I said they they would have cried it's much better this way to have acted it out to show them this is a very important line and this can come in the examination as a reference to context question to have acted it out so she by running and winning the gleaming trophy she proved that these thin and long legs can be put to other uses so she has shown it's that they say know Sachin Tendulkar does not react to criticism he lets his back do the talking they say right so it's similar so she did she made her legs show it to the grandmother that there can be other uses as for my grandmother as for my mother she has been speechless as usual that is she's Overjoyed but she decides to keep quiet so this one this particular story highlights the cultural and societal values in Ghana uh the conversations put the spotlight on relationships uh the value of food uh the cultural ethos so all those points um you need to uh bear in mind uh then Ado success in the district games shows that women can excel in areas which are otherwise dominated by women and she can defy societal Norms the legs are an important metaphor Okay one minute H let me just one minute okay so the legs are an important metaphor in this particular story uh because they're always put down as inferior in the case of AA but when they are given a chance they can prove that they can Excel and be the best in that particular Arena um the story also highlights what the Keen observation skills of ATA you know she's you know as I said the whole stor is told from her persp so little little things she's able to observe so that's another important Point uh the value of Education the views on education that's another uh important point I will come to the title after this uh she mommy never attended school so she values education and she wants her daughter to go to school uh Nana thinks school is a waste of time but since she has thin legs which would be prove to be a detriment she thinks that okay School Jano kind of a thing so adj's Triumph is a lesson to her grandmother that thinklets can also be useful and bearing children is not the only role that women have to play in society the significance of the title what do you think of the title now at the very literal level it refers to a jaw's physical ability to run fast isn't that so she's the girl who can outrun all her other competitors who can conveys the Defiance who can you know can you do it yes we can that kind of a thing the Obama slogan it conveys the Defiance of expectations it signifies aa's potential to defy the limitations placed on her by traditional gender roles she can be that so the word can is extremely uh powerful okay she can be much more than just being a wife to someone and eventually a mother to someone um it is about Hope and potential the girl who can okay so the title is very forceful in that way it's very emphatic it carries hope it carries the sense of possibility and it suggests that young girls like AA have the potential to break free from societal constraints and achieve their dreams all these kind of words and phrases you should use in your answers which is why I have written them out here univers universality of the title it's not just it could be as I said the story itself is about a very universal theme we in India can also relate to it it could be about any Village in India isn't that true so um it can represent any girl or any young woman who dares to challenge the status quo you should read the story about paa malav who's a young girl from nisad District of tangana who climbed Mount Everest inspiring girl I've met her several times we have done a documentary on her uh there's a movie called paa which came the movie was not very greatly made by Rahul BOS uh but she's a very inspiring story in fact she has written her book I have got her a book called paa which has been written on her so paa is the person who came to her mind you know uh who climbed Mount Everest coming from a small village in naar District of telengana so the title in that sense has a very Universal appeal that resonates with readers Beyond you know it's not just about Ghana as I said it could be about India it could be about any other Asian or African country so that is what this particular uh story is All About I hope you have understood this entire story are able to relate to it you found it inspiring and inspired enough to be able to do things on your own okay thank you very much for watching God bless you and uh I'll see you with the next explanation video pretty soon T bye-bye