Page 36 - SREENARAYANAGURU OPEN UNIVERSITY

while to die. Perhaps it stumbled miserably minister of the army.
around the kitchen for a month before it saw
my salade niçoise and chose this lettuce leaf as The general arrived and, like the maître d’,
its shroud. Believe me, I will spread the word. asked:
What kind of establishment is this?!” “Is there a problem, Sir?”

The manager called the owner of the restau- The man pointed at his salad. The general
rant, who soon appeared at the door. The fumi- looked and said, “An olive. Great!” He took
gation of the kitchen had been mandated by the the cockroach and swallowed it. Later, the man
Ministry of Health. To confirm this, the owner was arrested and sued for falsely accusing the
had brought along the municipal health secre- restaurant. It was a democracy, up to a point.
tary, who said he had been following ministry
protocol. The head of the ministry was called; (Translation from the Portuguese)
when he arrived at the restaurant, he accepted Some questions to ponder over the above
full responsibility for everything. Except the short fiction are:
cockroach. The cockroach on the salad could
not be, chronologically speaking, a result of • Why didn’t the customer accept that the
the fumigation. Unless someone in the kitchen cockroach in the salad was an accident?
had kept it, preserved it in ice, and waited for
the perfect occasion to . . . • Who were the people called in to pro-
vide an explanation to the customer?
The patron interrupted the minister’s specu-
lation with a slap on the table and asked to see • Why did the customer not accept an
his superior. The minister sighed and took his apology?
cell phone from his pocket to call the president • How was ‘the problem’ resolved?
of the republic, who arrived, sharply dressed,
in under half an hour. He had just left a recep- 1�3�3�2 Method of reading
tion at the presidential palace.
Reading is considered an important skill in
“What is it?” said the president. language learning. A person should be capa-
ble of reading in order to decode and interpret
“Look.” the data of the reading material. Reading is a

The president looked and saw the cock- source of self-education and an important lan-
roach. guage skill. It will help to acquire the other
skills of communication including listening,
“And?” he said. speaking and writing.
“This is your responsibility.” Reading seems as a simple process but it is
an important skill of communication. Reading
The president nodded. He asked what it was
he wanted. is an activity using symbols, letters, words,
meaningful ideas and thoughts. The reader
“An explanation.” needs a certain level of background knowledge
for his/her understanding of any the content
The president apologized. The man did not of any type.
accept his apology. The president offered com-
pensation. The man refused. They called the When you read the poem and the short fiction

30 SGOU - FYUGP - SLM - English for Communication