Match up Exercise Aug 14

Read the following passage and tally the meaning of the numbered words with the meanings given in the table below.

Our inglorious meltdown at Olympics is another pointer telling us in (1)unadorned language that it's high time we disabused ourselves of the notion that we are going great guns, and if we keep firing ferociously, glory - by 2020 or whatever - is ours for the taking. The (2)abysmal lack of medals in London punctures the (3)grandiloquent narrative that seems to have completely overtaken us in our drive to project to the world that ours is an engine that is about to reach the station of superpowerdom.

We have been preparing the (4)scaffolding of this magically real narrative, of which even Marquez would be proud, for some time now. The new season of Anna Tamasha, which devolved into demagoguery and finally bowed out, was a product of the new (5)fin-de-siècle generation in India. Chabbi Biswas, brilliantly portraying the decadent landlord in Ray's Jalsaghar, captured the first; Anna, a noble-intentioned man talking high principles in these (6)venal and (7)unscrupulous times, represents the new generation. A man completely out of depth with the horrifying reality revolving around him in the form of his ambitious (8)minions and a media feasting on the immoral (9)detritus of a wicked class intent on gathering all the goodies for itself.

So much (10)tosh has been fed into his inexperienced ears by his (11)sycophants that he perhaps started fancying himself a Gandhi: do a quick fast and get that Lokpal or whatever. What else is this (12)befuddled behaviour symptomatic of but a stupid belief in an (13)asinine narrative that compels you to assume a superpower-like status. Well, someone tell Anna and his (14)cohorts that they - and the nation - have to put their nose to the grindstone, and not brownnose each other, to reach their cherished destination.

Another example of this power-puffed story plays out in what are called the corridors of power. In bewildering times such as these, when politicos get promotions for goofing up, these walkways should be called (15)labyrinths of power. Sushilkumar Shinde, who didn't become President because Pranab babu suddenly developed a great love for the gardens in Rashtrapati Bhavan, tom-tomed that the country's power grid was better because the blackout didn't last as long as it did when US went powerless a few years ago. The grandness of this tall claim shamelessly (16)deep-sixed the fact that the country suffered two blackouts on consecutive days. The sweeping superpower-type statement that Shinde made, (17)hilariously, was perhaps evidenced only by the increased number of Indians submerged in darkness on the second day of grid failure!

The Cabinet, led by a well-meaning but ineffectual Prime Minister, behaves in a la-di-da fashion the vestiges of which were seen by the world when Yuri Andropov was lording over the Soviet Union. A Russia that was fed (18)balderdash to believe it was a superpower and its (19) hapless, never-far-from-the-(20)gulag citizenry fed on grand gestures and visions of grandeur. Lack of transparency and an (21)addled attitude dealing only in (22)highfalutin (23)rant is what binds our and the now-dead Soviet (24)nomenklatura.

A) a company of companions or supporters	B) A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.	C) Turn of the century	D) a temporary arrangement erected around a building for convenience of workers
E) Resembling an abyss in depth; unfathomable.	F) Foolish nonsense	G) Pompous or bombastic speech or expression.	H) Immoral; dishonest
I) Confused; perplexed	J) not decorated with something to increase its beauty or distinction	K) easily bribed or corrupted	L) Pompous or pretentious
M) a person who uses flattery to win favour from individuals wielding influence; An obsequious follower	N) Violent or extravagant speech or writing.	O) The system of patronage to senior positions in the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union and some other Communist states, controlled by committees at various levels of the Communist Party.	P) Unfortunate, miserable
Q) Loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock	R) complex system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost; Maze	S) Rejected	T) In a funny manner