Speaking - Re-Tell Lecture

Majority of the general populace today knows about the routine life of the ancient Greece from the anecdotes available in the form of literature, arts, painting and other stuff. Most of the information at our disposal includes facts and lifestyle about the emperors and elites; however, what about the routine life, challenges and preferences of the ordinary people? What kind of life they led? What was their major source of income? How did they entertain themselves? If the very little information can be trusted then it leads us to believe that most of the general populace led a very very difficult life. They had to work real hard to make two ends meet as the emperors were power-eccentric and the elite clans were only focused on their luxurious and leisurely life. Farmers suffering due to drought barely have any other sources of income which pushed them into serious debt eventually leading to slavery. The elite royal clan favored the rich which made rich richer and poor even poorer. Rickety justice system added to an unsound constitution leading to more despair. Poets, painters and writers attempted to draw the royal family's attention towards their duty which was efficacious to some extent as Prince Claucitus tried to shake up the status quo through his noble deeds and effective public speeches. His altruistic deeds earned him the support of the despondent. The general poor public wanted him to be crowned as the next emperor.

We have discussed about Modernism in past and it's just next to impossible to not discuss architecture, especially the work of Philip Johnson. We obviously do not want to delve into his career, but it will be unfair to not discuss the master-pieces he created and how the journey started. Like other newbie modernists in various eras, Philip's architecture initially was also confined to rectangles, squares and straight-lines. Shapes of the buildings designed by him couldn't go beyond this with just all sorts of embellishment which would be inclusive of color splashes and balconies that wouldn't belong in there. A major transformation was caused when he joined Mies van der Rohe as the New York associate for the 39 storey building in 1956 named as Seagram Building. The interiors of the Four Seasons and Brasserie restaurants were designed by Philip Johnson. Following the Seagram Building he played an instrumental part in designing many other projects which demonstrated his unique expressive style devoid of the stereotypes of the typical modernism which included the Art Gallery of the University of Nebraska, the Synagogue of Port Chester New York and the Roofless Church in New Harmony. Major feat of his career came when he won his first foreign commission, which was the modernist art museum in Bielefield, Germany.

Today's lecture will shed light on the changes in air pollution since year 1950 and what are the main reasons behind these changes. Air pollution was quite noticeable in the middle of the last century. Recurrent thick black fogs which is known as 'smogs' would become a commonplace in many cities across the globe. One of the main sources of pollution were factories across the cities. Air pollution led to chronic health problems and numerous deaths in that duration.

Major steps were required to be taken for the prevention of air-pollution. The first step towards the same was the introduction of Clean Air Act in 1956. This fixed the air-pollution issue to a big extent as the smog started to disappear gradually. This, however, did not fix the issue altogether. As we know air-pollution is still a big concern we are battling with. Nowadays, the major source of air-pollution is rapidly increasing traffic. In-spite of the absence of visible signs the air-pollution is causing major health problems. And one of the key elements contributing to the increase of air-pollution is our ever increasing dependence of cars and other vehicles. There are more number of cars, planes, trains, trucks and bikes nowadays as compared to the middle of the last century and that's the reason behind air-pollution increasing day by day.

Today, I would like to express my thoughts on communication. Communication plays an important role in our lives on a daily basis. We all need to communicate to express our thoughts. But how do we do it? Now your answer will be- words? That's partly right! Because we communicate not just through words, but language. In the language which is well comprehended by others. In a country, which is as diverse as India is, there are people from other states and countries who study and work with us, people who live in the same building we do. So, we need a common language to communicate our thoughts.

Apart from Hindi, English is another most spoken language in our country. Apparently, it is considered the business language of the world. More than 50 percent of the content available on the internet is in English. Whether it's movies, songs or the best-selling books, English is everywhere. People watch English films, listen to their favorite singers who sing English songs and also read books of their favorite authors who write English books. Due to English's world-wide popularity, literature, books and knowledge based stuff in other languages are translated into English as well. The same goes for movies as well. We see Chinese, Korean and German films dubbed into English and if not dubbed, subtitles in English are made available for better comprehension. That's one of the reasons why people who do not understand or speak English join English learning classes and courses.