Back to: Kerala Board Class 9th English Guide and Notes
Table of Contents
Character sketch
- Grandmother
- Narayan (School headmaster)
- Ramana (tea-shop owner)
- Shastri, Kannan, rudrappa (village men)
- Sagar (building contractor)
- Dixit (millionaire industrialist)
Introduction
The play is set in a village covered with mountains,trees and a river depicting a natural, countryside scenario.Written in a conversational style, the story consists of five important scenes and the above mentioned characters. The grandmother begins by describing her lifestyle that she was born at the turn of the century when there were no motorcars, no aeroplanes, no television, no movies, and much less noise. She has lived there all her life on the slopes of Dharmagiri. The river, trees, flowers, birds and animals were all her friends.
Scene 1
School Headmaster, Narayn used to love the village and the villagers, and was dedicated to protect the nature and was determined to find a solution when he came to know that some businessmen were willing to make a five star hotel on the hill. Rammana who was a tea-shop owner felt that they should ask about the views of the villagers regarding the hotel going to build on the hills of Dharmagiri but the building contractor of Mr Dixit, Sagar, was extremely egoistic and always looked down upon the village and villagers.
He was not at all interested in the nature, and old beliefs of the villagers. Dixit was a millionaire industrialist and a business oriented man. Grandmother was distressed on hearing the news from her grandson about the construction of a hotel as it could lead to the death of many creatures existing over that area.
Scene 2
Scene 2 takes place at Ramanna’s shop where Sagar, the building contractor, informs the villagers of Dixit’s plan to build a five-star hotel, in the village. On hearing this news, the Villagers were furious as the construction of a five-star hotel would destroy the village and it’s beauty.
They felt that there was no need for a multi storey hotel in their village which had a population of only about 500 people. On this Sagar mocks the villagers by calling them ignorant and dumb. On the other hand,Dixit was determined to construct the hotel.
Scene 3
Narayan, Ramanna, Kannan, Shastri and Rudrappa appears in scene 3 and discusses about the hotel to which Ramanna claims it as foolish, Kannan highlighted it’s merit regarding the financial status that a hotel will bring in more tourists and hence more money, Shastri informs the villagers that it was dangerous to construct a hotel on Dharmagiri as it could not support a structure taller than thirty feet.
Scene 4
It shows the conversation between the grandmother and her son Narayan where she expresses her distress regarding the destruction of the animals, birds, trees and the river that would take place after the construction of the hotel.
She advises Narayan to speak to the children as tomorrow’s world is their world. She calls the rich as big people with small hearts. The next day Children lead by Narayan protest and present a petition to Dixit to stop the construction but Dixit was not at all concerned about the village so he refused their petition.
Scene 5
This scene shows the occurrence of landslide in the village when the construction started at the Dharmagiri hill. Finally even the mountain spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. It was a tragedy as ten thousand were buried beneath the landslide, eleven people killed including two children.
