Poem - On the Railway Bridge

The signal is up, so a train is due;
I run to the bridge for a better view.
As the train draws in and slows to a stop,
I get excited and jump and hop.
People are hurrying
with luggage and bags,
And the guard steps down with
his red and green flags.
He looks at his watch; it is
time to dapart;
He waves "green" to the driver'
Who knows he must start.
So off they go, and I wave them away 
Oh! I'll be a driver - or guard - one day.

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Poem - The Wonder Words

How you express your thoughts is even important than the thoughts themselves.

Never let a thought shrivel and die
For want of a way to say it,
For English is a wonderful game
And all of you can play it.
All that you do is match the words
To the brightest thoughts in your head
So that they come out clear and true
And handsomely groom and fed-

For many of the loveliest things
Have never yet been said.
Word are the food and dress of thought,
They give it its body and swing,
And everyone's longing today to hear
Some fresh and beautiful thing 
But only words can free a thought 
From its prison behind your eyes
May be your mind is holding now 
A marvelous new surprise.

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Poem - The World

Great, wide beautiful, wonderful world
With the wonderful waters round you curled
And the wonderful grass upon your breast-
World, you are beautifully dressed.

The wonderful air is over me,
And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree;
it walks on the water and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself, on the top of the hills,

You friendly earth how far do you go,
With the wheat - fields that nod and the rivers that flow;
With cities and gardens, and cliffs, and isles
And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah! you are so great and I am so small,
I tremble to think of you, World, at all
And yet when I said my prayers today,
A whisper inside me seemed to say,

"You are more than Earth,
Though you are such a dot;

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Peom - The wires are so still and high

The wires are so still and high 
We never hear the words go by
Yet messages fly far and near 
I wonder if the birds can hear

And when they perch on wires sip 
I wonder if they're listening
And telling out to earth and sky
A lovely word is going by !

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Satellite Communication

Have you looked up at the sky on a cloudless clear night? What do you see there high up in the sky? There are millions of stars hiding the secrets of the universe. Among them, If you look at the sky very carefully for sometime, you can see blinking stars moving from north to south or south to north and you will understand that their movement is very fast. What are they? Why are they moving so fast? They are man made stars; they are called artificial satellites.

An artificial satellite is a space craft. It orbits the Earth at a fixed distance. Artificial satellites are sent to space on various purposes such as communication, remote sending, military purposes, space astronomy. However, the main purpose of satellites is communication. They bring the world together. It is with the help of communication satellites we enjoy the thrill of Olympic Games, World Cup Football, Asian Games or the World Cup Cricket Final being played anywhere in the world. How does CNN or BBC new come to us? How does the weather forecast come to us? They all are communicated with the help of satellite orbiting the Earth.

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 was launched by Soviet Russian (USSR) on 4th October 1957. It was a competition between the USSR and the United States of America (USA) at the beginning. Later, other countries like French, China, India and Japan too started launching their own satellite for various purposes, mainly for communication. In 1945 the honoured Sri Lankan citizen Arthur C. Clarke made a very famous statement about making communication possible with countries all over the world with the help of a space craft orbiting the Earth. The world become a single village as a result of satellite communication. There are commercial communication satellites like TELSTAR, INTELSAT etc. providing communication facilities for the world.

Geostationary satellites orbit the Earth at a distance of 35900 Km and take 24 hours to orbit. That's why they appear almost at the same time of the day in the sky. If you observe the sky for a few days you will be able to see these artificial stars orbiting the Earth everyday at the same time. At the moment there are more than 3000 satellites orbiting the Earth.

All these satellites communicated with communication station built at various places on the Earth. Dish antennas are used to communicate between a satellite and a communication center T.V programmes telecast by hundreds of T.V station services the world with help of a dish antenna. In Sri Lanka the main satellite communication center is stationed at Padukka, a few kilometers away from Colombo.

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Viridu

In the Variety Entertainment there was an item: a 'Viridu'

Viridu, like our folk tales, has come down from generation to generation. A Viridu singer is a talented person who makes up his verse with the beat of his little circular drum, "rabana" as he sings. It is part of our culture. Even today we see the Viridu singer in public places like the bus stand, railway station or market where people for entertainment.

The 'Viridu singer' entertains the public in a simple way. The verse he composes is in simple and colloquial language. He selects current incidents and events with universal interest such as love, sorrow, happiness, jealousy, bravery, treachery, betrayal, heroism. Often the narration includes dialogues. The repetition and regular rhyming patterns along with the rhythm make it interesting. When it is accompanied by music and dance, it attracts the listener. The singer uses a small 'rabana' (tambourine) to produce the rhythm. A highly talented Viridu singer is capable of entertaining the public with impromptu 'Viridu' irrespective of time, place or person.

The English 'ballad' is similar to our 'viridu'. There are traditional ballads as well as literary ballads. However, in the modern society, the ballad singer or the Viridu singer is fading from his original place, and becoming limited to the stage.

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Egyptian Civilization

"I'm going to present a slide show on grate civilizations. Civilization means man's social, spiritual, philosophical and technological development. Look at the first slide. This is one fine example of a grate civilization, the Egyptian civilization which existed in the valley of the river Nile. These huge pyramids of Egypt are the highest man - made creations of the world. The ancient Egyptians were religious people. They believed their king, Pharaoh was a god living on earth. They believed in the immortality of the soul. Hence, the Pyramids, the tombs were built to house the souls of the dead.

These granite pyramids amaze the world not only by their enormous size, but also by the beauty of geometrical construction. One granite block is about 30 feet in length. Some granite had been brought from quarries in the Arabian hills to the Nile, ferried across and hauled to the construction sites. For the construction of tiers, blocks were lifted by a king of crane. Today the highest pyramid is 137 meters high.

The underground burial chambers are beautifully decorated with paintings. The dead bodies, the mummies preserved inside them which have not decayed to this day, because of the science and technology that been used astonish the whole world.

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