Class 12 English Vistas Chapter 3 — Journey to the End of the Earth | ASSEB
Welcome to HSLC Guru. This page offers complete ASSEB (Assam State Board of Secondary Education) Class 12 / HS 2nd Year English notes, summary, and question answers for Vistas Chapter 3 — “Journey to the End of the Earth” by Tishani Doshi. Doshi, an acclaimed Indian poet, journalist and dancer, narrates her travel essay aboard the Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy on a voyage to Antarctica. She joined the “Students on Ice” expedition led by Canadian environmentalist Geoff Green, which takes high-school students to the ends of the Earth so that they might understand and respect the planet better. The essay weaves geology, climate science, personal reflection and ecological warning into one continuous meditation on how human beings, in the words of the writer, are tinkering “with this complex and largely untouched continent.”
About the Author
Tishani Doshi (born 9 December 1975, Madras / Chennai) is an Indian poet, journalist, novelist and contemporary dancer of mixed Welsh-Gujarati parentage. She studied in India and the United States, took a master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University, and worked in advertising in London before returning to India to write full-time. She is associated with the Chandralekha dance troupe and has won several awards including the Forward Prize for best first collection of poetry (Countries of the Body). “Journey to the End of the Earth” is a travel essay drawn from her real expedition to Antarctica in 2006, when she sailed aboard the Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy with the “Students on Ice” programme. The essay was first published in The Hindu Sunday magazine and later included in NCERT’s Class 12 supplementary reader Vistas.
Summary (English)
Tishani Doshi opens her travel essay by describing the strange feeling of stepping on board a Russian research vessel and travelling for over a hundred hours across nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water and at least three ecospheres before finally setting foot on Antarctica. From her starting point in the southern Indian city of Madras, where the temperature touches forty degrees Celsius, the journey involves a car, an aeroplane and a ship; the destination is the coldest, driest, windiest continent on Earth. The first sight of icebergs and a horizon broken only by white silence makes her feel, in her own words, “relief, awe, wonder.”
Doshi explains that her overwhelming first response is a question — what is a sun-worshipping South Indian doing in this freezing wilderness? The answer is not personal but planetary. She is travelling in order to understand the past, present and future of Earth, because Antarctica holds in its ice the secret history of our planet. Six hundred and fifty million years ago, the southern continents — including India, South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica — were welded together in one giant landmass called Gondwana. Gondwana flourished when the dinosaurs were yet to evolve and mammals were unknown. Around 500 million years later it began to break apart, and the pieces drifted across the planet to become the continents we know today. Antarctica, isolated at the bottom of the world, preserves a record of those distant origins.
The author argues that to study Earth’s geological past one must visit Antarctica. The ice contains cordilleras (long chains of mountains), folded layers of rock, half-million-year-old carbon records, and clues about the ozone, the climate and the long careers of life and extinction. Antarctica is uniquely valuable because it has no human history. There are no skyscrapers, no vegetation visible to the eye, no countries, no corporations — only ice, rock, glacier-blue sea and a 24-hour summer sun that turns the polar landscape into a place of unending light. With no markers of human time the visitor loses all sense of perspective. Doshi confesses that within the first few hours she had lost all earthly bearings and had to remind herself that her body was still a small warm thing inside a vast cold continent.
This isolation, however, is not absolute. Antarctica is also where the modern climate crisis is becoming most visible. Human civilisation, which is barely 12,000 years old, has multiplied beyond every other species. Cities have been built, forests cleared, the atmosphere loaded with carbon dioxide; the average temperature of the planet has risen and the polar ice has begun to retreat. Doshi describes how scientists on board the Akademik Shokalskiy point out the proof: ice cores drilled out of the glaciers contain bubbles of trapped air half a million years old, and the chemistry of those bubbles shows the steady increase of greenhouse gases. The retreating glaciers and the breaking ice shelves are visible signs of warming. Even the smallest organisms are affected: phytoplankton — microscopic plant-like creatures that drift in the cold Southern Ocean — sit at the base of the entire marine food chain, and any further damage to the ozone layer, which protects them from ultraviolet radiation, will ripple upward through krill, whales, fish and seabirds, until the ocean’s life is at risk.
Doshi then describes “Students on Ice”, the programme run by Canadian environmentalist Geoff Green, that brought her to Antarctica. Green chose to take high-school students rather than retired scientists or wealthy tourists. He felt that young people are at the right age to absorb new ideas, to be moved by what they see and to act on it; they are tomorrow’s policy-makers. The programme has succeeded, says Doshi, because no student returns from the polar regions unchanged. To stand on a glacier and watch a chunk fall into the sea, to look at scientists pulling ice cores from holes drilled hundreds of metres deep, to feel the wind on the deck of a Russian ship — these are experiences a textbook cannot provide.
The essay closes with the section called Walking on the Ocean. On the final day the captain decides that the sea-ice is thick enough to allow the passengers to step out and walk on what is, in fact, the frozen surface of the ocean. Doshi finds the experience humbling. The ice cracks softly under her feet, seals lie nearby sunbathing, and around her stretches a perfect circle of midnight sun. She suddenly understands the lesson of Antarctica: that “small things matter, in the grand scheme of things and in the not-so-grand scheme of things.” A tiny rise of two degrees in air temperature can melt a glacier; the loss of phytoplankton can starve a whale; a single careless act can change a planet. Doshi ends with the question that Geoff Green and the entire continent seem to be asking: will young people listen in time? Will they save the place that has shaped, and that still shapes, all life on Earth?
সাৰাংশ (Assamese Summary)
“Journey to the End of the Earth” হৈছে ভাৰতীয় কবি, সাংবাদিক আৰু নৃত্যশিল্পী তিশানি দোশীৰ এটি ভ্ৰমণ-ৰচনা। তেওঁ দক্ষিণ ভাৰতৰ মাদ্ৰাজ চহৰৰ পৰা যাত্ৰা আৰম্ভ কৰি ৰাছিয়ান গৱেষণা জাহাজ একাডেমিক চোকালস্কীত উঠি ১০০ ঘণ্টাৰো অধিক সময়ত ৯টা টাইম জ’ন, ৬টা চেকপইণ্ট, ৩টা সাগৰ আৰু কমেও ৩টা পৰিৱেশীয় অঞ্চল পাৰ হৈ পৃথিৱীৰ আটাইতকৈ চেঁচা, শুকান আৰু বতাহৰ মহাদেশ এণ্টাৰ্কটিকাত উপস্থিত হয়।
লেখিকাই কয় যে ৬৫০ নিযুত বছৰ আগেয়ে ভাৰত আৰু এণ্টাৰ্কটিকা একেলগে এটাই বিশাল মহাদেশ গণ্ডোৱানাৰ অংশ আছিল। গণ্ডোৱানা ভাঙি যোৱাৰ ফলত মহাদেশসমূহ বেলেগে গৈ আজিৰ ৰূপ ল’লে। সেইবাবে এণ্টাৰ্কটিকাত পৃথিৱীৰ ৬,৫০,০০০ বছৰৰ পুৰণা বায়ুমণ্ডলৰ ইতিহাস বৰফৰ ভিতৰত আবদ্ধ হৈ আছে। এণ্টাৰ্কটিকা পৰীক্ষা কৰিলে ভূতত্ত্ব, জলবায়ুৰ ইতিহাস আৰু মানৱ-পৃথিৱীৰ ভৱিষ্যত বুজিব পাৰি।
এণ্টাৰ্কটিকাত মানুহৰ স্থায়ী বসতি নাই, গছ নাই, স্কাইস্ক্ৰেপাৰ নাই — কেৱল অখণ্ড বৰফৰ মেৰিয়নি, ২৪ ঘণ্টাৰ মাজনিশাৰ সূৰ্য আৰু গভীৰ নিৰৱতা। এনে স্থানত মানুহৰ সময় আৰু আকাৰৰ ধাৰণা হেৰাই যায়। কিন্তু সেই নিৰৱতাৰ মাজত বিজ্ঞানীসকলে পৃথিৱীৰ উষ্ণতা বঢ়াৰ স্পষ্ট প্ৰমাণ পাইছে — গলি যোৱা হিমবাহ, ভাঙি যোৱা বৰফ-শিল্ফ, আৰু আইচ-ক’ৰৰ ভিতৰত বন্দী হৈ থকা পুৰণা বায়ুৰ বুটলিত গ্ৰীণহাউছ গেছৰ পৰিমাণ বঢ়াৰ ৰেকৰ্ড।
লেখিকাই বিশেষভাৱে ফাইটোপ্লেংকটনৰ গুৰুত্ব বুজাইছে। ফাইটোপ্লেংকটন হ’ল সাগৰৰ আতিশয় সৰু উদ্ভিদ-জীৱ, যি দক্ষিণ মহাসাগৰৰ গোটেই খাদ্য-শৃংখলৰ ভেটি। ওজন স্তৰৰ ক্ষতিৰ ফলত যদি ইহঁতৰ ক্ষতি হয়, তেন্তে তিমি, মাছ, পেংগুইন আদি সকলোৰে অস্তিত্ব বিপন্ন হ’ব।
কানাডিয়ান পৰিৱেশবিদ জেফ্ গ্ৰীণৰ “Students on Ice” কাৰ্যসূচীয়ে হাইস্কুলৰ ছাত্ৰ-ছাত্ৰীক এণ্টাৰ্কটিকালৈ লৈ গৈ পৰিৱেশৰ গুৰুত্ব শিকাইছে। এই ছাত্ৰ-ছাত্ৰীসকলেই ভৱিষ্যতৰ নীতি-নিৰ্ধাৰক হ’ব, আৰু চকুৰে দেখা পৃথিৱীৰ পৰিৱৰ্তন তেওঁলোকক জীৱনজোৰা পৰিৱেশ-প্ৰেমী কৰি তোলে।
ৰচনাৰ অন্তিম অংশ Walking on the Oceanত লেখিকাই সাগৰৰ জমা যোৱা পৃষ্ঠত খোজ কাঢ়ি অনুভৱ কৰে যে সকলোবোৰ সংযুক্ত — সৰু কথাও গুৰুত্বপূৰ্ণ। মাত্ৰ দুই ডিগ্ৰী উষ্ণতা বৃদ্ধিয়ে এটা হিমবাহ গলাব পাৰে আৰু এজোপা ফাইটোপ্লেংকটনৰ মৃত্যুৱে এটা তিমিৰ আহাৰ কাটিব পাৰে। সেয়ে তেওঁ আশা কৰে যে নতুন প্ৰজন্মই সময় থাকোঁতেই পৃথিৱীক ৰক্ষা কৰিব।
Plot Summary (At a Glance)
- Tishani Doshi sets out from Madras, travels by car, aeroplane and finally a Russian research ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, to reach Antarctica.
- The journey covers nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water, and at least three ecospheres in over 100 hours.
- She reaches Antarctica as part of the “Students on Ice” expedition founded by Geoff Green of Canada.
- The first sight of vast white silence and floating icebergs leaves her with a feeling of “relief, awe, wonder.”
- Doshi reflects on Earth’s deep past — Antarctica was once part of the supercontinent Gondwana, 650 million years ago.
- She explains how the breakup of Gondwana shaped today’s continents and how Antarctica preserves the geological record.
- The visit reveals striking evidence of climate change: retreating glaciers, breaking ice shelves, and ice cores showing rising greenhouse gases.
- The author describes the ecological role of phytoplankton and the dangers posed by ozone depletion.
- She praises Geoff Green’s vision in choosing high-school students rather than tourists or scientists for the programme.
- In the closing section “Walking on the Ocean,” she walks on the frozen sea and realises that small changes have huge consequences.
- The essay ends with hope tempered by warning: only urgent collective action can save Antarctica and, with it, the planet.
Themes
1. Climate Change and Global Warming
The most urgent theme of the essay is climate change. Doshi reports that the global average temperature has been rising, glaciers are retreating, ice shelves are collapsing and the chemical composition of the air trapped in ancient ice tells the story of more than half a million years of carbon. Antarctica is presented as a vast natural archive in which the consequences of human industrial activity are being slowly but unmistakably written.
2. Earth’s Geological Past — Gondwana
The essay tells us that 650 million years ago all the southern continents — including India and Antarctica — formed the single supercontinent Gondwana. Its breakup created today’s geography. Visiting Antarctica, therefore, is like visiting Earth’s distant childhood and understanding the slow drift of continents across the face of the planet.
3. The Importance of Antarctica
Antarctica is unique because it has no permanent human population, no countries, no industry. It is therefore the cleanest natural laboratory on the planet for studying climate, geology and the ozone. The continent holds 90 per cent of the world’s freshwater ice; if a significant part of it melts, low-lying coastal regions will sink.
4. Education for the Young
Geoff Green’s “Students on Ice” programme rests on the conviction that adolescents are at the right developmental moment to absorb the lessons of climate science and to act on them. By taking high-schoolers — not tourists, not retired millionaires — to the polar ice, the programme creates a new generation of policy-makers who care.
5. Planetary Fragility — Small Things Matter
Standing on the frozen ocean, Doshi understands that “small things matter.” Two degrees of warming can melt a glacier; the death of phytoplankton can starve a whale. The ecosystem of the planet is so finely connected that a small disturbance produces large consequences. The essay invites readers to translate that recognition into responsibility.
6. Wilderness, Silence and Self
Antarctica’s empty white horizons remove every familiar marker of scale and time. In that silence the visitor is forced to confront her own smallness and the enormity of the planet. Doshi’s narrative is not only ecological but also spiritual — a journey toward self-knowledge through the experience of pristine wilderness.
Understanding the Text (NCERT Textual Questions)
Q1. “The world’s geological history is trapped in Antarctica.” How is the study of this region useful to us?
Answer: Antarctica is the only continent that has remained almost untouched by human activity, which makes it the cleanest possible record of the planet’s geological history. Six hundred and fifty million years ago Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, along with India, Africa, South America and Australia. As Gondwana broke up, the pieces drifted across the globe to form today’s continents. The cordilleras (mountain ranges), folded layers of rock, fossil remains and ice deposits of Antarctica preserve evidence of those distant events. Even more importantly, the ice contains air bubbles that are over half a million years old; by analysing them, scientists can read the chemistry of past atmospheres, the rise and fall of carbon dioxide, the history of the ozone layer and the swings of climate. Studying Antarctica therefore tells us where the Earth has come from, where it stands now, and where it may be heading. It is a key both to understanding evolution and extinction, and to predicting the consequences of present-day global warming.
Q2. What are Geoff Green’s reasons for including high school students in the Students on Ice expedition?
Answer: Geoff Green, a Canadian environmentalist, founded the “Students on Ice” programme with a clear philosophy: he had already taken many retired scientists, celebrities and well-off tourists on Antarctic expeditions, and he felt that those groups had reached a stage of life where they could appreciate the beauty of the continent but were unlikely to change the world because of it. High-school students, on the other hand, are at an impressionable age — old enough to grasp what they see and learn, yet young enough to spend the next several decades acting on it. They are the future policy-makers, scientists, journalists, business leaders and voters of tomorrow. Green believed that giving such young minds a direct, life-altering experience of glaciers, icebergs, scientists drilling ice cores and seals lying on the frozen ocean was the most reliable way to produce adults who would defend the planet. The programme, Doshi reports, has succeeded — students return changed, with a new respect for the Earth.
Q3. “Take care of the small things and the big things will take care of themselves.” What is the relevance of this statement in the context of climate change?
Answer: The statement captures the central message of Doshi’s essay. In an interconnected ecosystem, what looks small can have enormous consequences. Phytoplankton, for example, are microscopic plant-like organisms that can be seen only under a microscope, yet they are the foundation of the entire marine food chain in the Southern Ocean and are responsible for absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen. If the ozone layer is damaged and ultraviolet radiation increases, phytoplankton will be harmed, and the loss will move up the chain to krill, fish, penguins and whales. In the same way a rise of just two degrees in average global temperature is enough to melt glaciers, raise sea levels and submerge low-lying countries. Therefore, small actions — controlling emissions, protecting the ozone, reducing waste, conserving energy — protect the small things, and protecting the small things in turn protects the entire planet. Climate change, Doshi reminds us, is not solved by one big heroic gesture; it is solved by a billion small choices.
Q4. Why is Antarctica the place to go to, to understand the earth’s present, past and future?
Answer: Antarctica is uniquely useful as a window onto the past, the present and the future of the Earth. The past is preserved in its rocks and fossils, which date back to Gondwana 650 million years ago, before mammals existed and before the dinosaurs evolved. The present is visible in the ozone layer above it, in the slowly retreating glaciers, in the breaking ice shelves and in the data being collected by international research stations. The future can be predicted from the air bubbles trapped in ice cores, which carry information about half a million years of atmospheric chemistry — and from the obvious fact that the continent’s massive freshwater reserves will, if they melt, redraw the map of every coastal city on Earth. Because Antarctica has no human population and no industry, the data it provides is uncontaminated. As a living museum, weather station and laboratory rolled into one, Antarctica is the place to go to in order to understand where we have been, where we are, and where we will be.
Talking about the Text
Q1. Discuss the following with your partner: “Human civilisation has progressed at the expense of the environment, and natural resources have been over-exploited.”
Answer: The statement is largely true. The march of human civilisation has been measured in the felling of forests, the damming of rivers, the burning of coal and oil, the over-fishing of oceans and the steady rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Tishani Doshi’s essay supports this view directly. She points out that human beings, who have been on the planet for barely 12,000 years, have multiplied so quickly that no other species in Earth’s long evolutionary history has produced such large changes in such a short time. Cities have been carved out of forests, the ozone layer has been thinned by industrial chemicals, glaciers have begun to retreat, and species are vanishing at rates not seen since the great extinction events of geological time. Antarctica is the one place left where the damage has not been written across the landscape — yet even there the indirect effects of warming have started to show. The lesson is not that civilisation must stop, but that it must learn to grow within the limits of nature: to use renewable energy, to reduce consumption, to recycle, to protect ecosystems and to make sure that the next stage of human progress is paid for not by the planet but by intelligence and self-restraint.
Q2. Should we be allowed to visit such pristine places as Antarctica? Discuss the pros and cons.
Answer: The question divides environmentalists. Pros: Visiting Antarctica creates first-hand understanding of climate change and converts ordinary citizens into informed advocates. The “Students on Ice” programme depends on this principle — no documentary film can deliver the moral force of standing on a melting glacier. Tourism also provides funding for research stations and for international monitoring agreements. Cons: Even careful travellers leave a footprint. Diesel ships pollute the air, sewage and rubbish are difficult to dispose of, and unintended introductions of micro-organisms can damage local species. Large numbers of tourists may also disturb seals, penguins and seabirds during the breeding season. The reasonable answer is therefore regulated access. Visits should be limited in number, organised through approved educational programmes, supervised by trained guides, and run on the strictest “leave no trace” principles. Antarctica must remain a continent for science, for education, and for the future, not for unrestricted commercial tourism.
Working with Words — Vocabulary
| Word / Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Akademik Shokalskiy | The Russian research vessel on which Tishani Doshi sailed to Antarctica. |
| Cordilleras | Long parallel chains of mountains, especially in South America and Antarctica. |
| Gondwana | The ancient southern supercontinent that included India, Antarctica, Africa, South America and Australia. |
| Pristine | Original, unspoiled, untouched by human activity. |
| Ecosphere | A region of the Earth in which living organisms exist. |
| Ice cores | Cylinders of ice drilled out of glaciers, containing trapped bubbles of ancient air. |
| Phytoplankton | Microscopic plant-like organisms in the ocean, base of the marine food chain. |
| Prognosis | A forecast, especially of how a situation is likely to develop. |
| Ice shelf | A thick floating platform of ice formed where a glacier flows down to a coastline. |
| Glacier | A large slow-moving mass of ice formed from compacted snow. |
| Midnight sun | The phenomenon of the sun remaining visible at midnight in polar summers. |
| Walk softly | To behave with humility and care; to leave a small footprint on the planet. |
| Sun-worshipping | Loving warm sunny weather; here used playfully by Doshi about herself as a south Indian. |
| Time zones | Regions of the Earth that share the same standard time. |
| Repercussions | Far-reaching consequences of an event or action. |
Additional Short Question Answers
Q1. How long did Tishani Doshi’s journey to Antarctica take, and through how many time zones did she travel?
Answer: Doshi’s journey took more than a hundred hours. It began with a car ride from her home in Madras, continued by aeroplane and ended on the Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy. In all she crossed nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water and at least three ecospheres before stepping on Antarctic soil.
Q2. What was Tishani Doshi’s first emotional response on seeing Antarctica?
Answer: Her first response was a mixture of relief, awe and wonder. The white silence, the floating icebergs and the vast emptiness made her realise how small the human being is compared to the planet, and how much she still had to learn about the Earth.
Q3. What was Gondwana?
Answer: Gondwana was a giant supercontinent that existed in the southern hemisphere about 650 million years ago. India, Antarctica, Africa, South America and Australia were all welded together as parts of Gondwana. The continent flourished long before the dinosaurs and the rise of mammals, and broke apart slowly over hundreds of millions of years to give the world its present-day geography.
Q4. Why does Doshi say that her body was a “warm, breathing thing”?
Answer: In Antarctica everything around her was vast, white and frozen — a landscape on the scale of millions of years and thousands of kilometres. Compared to that immensity her body felt very small, and yet, because it was alive and warm, it stood out. The phrase emphasises both her vulnerability and the small wonder of life against the cold.
Q5. What is the significance of phytoplankton in the Antarctic ecosystem?
Answer: Phytoplankton are microscopic plant-like organisms that drift in the cold Southern Ocean. They use the sun’s energy and absorb carbon dioxide to release oxygen, helping to balance the global carbon cycle. They also form the base of the entire marine food chain — krill, fish, whales, seals and seabirds all depend on them. If the ozone layer is damaged, the increased ultraviolet radiation would harm phytoplankton and the entire chain would collapse.
Q6. Why does Tishani Doshi call Antarctica “a pristine continent”?
Answer: Antarctica is called pristine because it has no permanent human settlement, no industries, no agriculture, no pollution-producing cities and no destruction of forests. The continent is dominated by ice, rock and a few research stations, which makes it the cleanest natural environment on the planet.
Q7. What did Doshi learn from “Walking on the Ocean”?
Answer: The captain decided that the sea-ice was thick enough to walk on. As Doshi stepped out, she saw seals sunning themselves and felt the ice crack beneath her feet under a circle of midnight sun. She realised that everything in nature is connected and that small things — small organisms, small choices, small temperature changes — produce huge consequences. The walk became a lesson in humility.
Q8. What evidence does the chapter give of climate change?
Answer: The essay points to retreating glaciers, breaking ice shelves, and ice cores that record half a million years of atmospheric carbon. Modern ice cores show a steady rise in greenhouse gases that matches the industrial age. Higher ultraviolet radiation through the thinned ozone layer is also threatening the phytoplankton population.
Q9. Why does the author call human civilisation “a relatively short period of time”?
Answer: Modern human civilisation is approximately 12,000 years old, while the planet itself is about 4.5 billion years old and Gondwana broke up 650 million years ago. Compared to the deep time of the Earth, human history is a tiny fraction. The remark stresses how astonishing it is that such a short-lived species has produced such large environmental changes.
Q10. Why does Tishani Doshi describe herself as “a sun-worshipping South Indian”?
Answer: The phrase is humorous self-description. Doshi is from Madras, where the temperature can climb to forty degrees Celsius, and the South Indian climate is sun-soaked all year round. To find herself voluntarily travelling to the freezing emptiness of Antarctica was, for someone of that background, almost paradoxical — and the contrast underlines how powerful the planet’s pull on the writer had become.
Q11. What kind of vessel is the Akademik Shokalskiy?
Answer: The Akademik Shokalskiy is a Russian-built research vessel reinforced for travel through pack ice. It has been used for many polar expeditions, both scientific and educational. Its rugged hull and ability to handle Antarctic seas made it a natural choice for the “Students on Ice” programme.
Q12. What does Doshi mean by “earthly sense of perspective and time”?
Answer: In ordinary life we measure time and distance against familiar markers — buildings, roads, hours of daylight, faces we know. Antarctica has none of these. The horizon is unbroken, the sun does not set, the ice has no scale. Doshi found herself unable to estimate how big or how far anything was, or how long anything had taken — that is the loss of “earthly sense of perspective and time.”
Q13. Who is Geoff Green and why is he important to the essay?
Answer: Geoff Green is a Canadian environmentalist who founded the “Students on Ice” expedition. By taking high-school students to the polar regions instead of the usual scientists or wealthy tourists, he hopes to mould the next generation of policy-makers. Tishani Doshi was on his programme when she made her own journey, which is why his vision shapes the entire essay.
Q14. What are ice cores and what do they tell us?
Answer: Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled out of glaciers and ice sheets. The trapped air bubbles are samples of ancient atmospheres. By analysing the chemistry of these bubbles scientists can read the temperature, the carbon dioxide content and the ozone history of the planet for over 500,000 years.
Q15. What is the significance of the title “Journey to the End of the Earth”?
Answer: The title works on two levels. Literally, Antarctica is the southernmost — the geographic “end” — of the Earth, far from human civilisation. Symbolically, it is also a journey to the end of the Earth as we know it: if humanity does not act on climate change, this pristine continent will be among the first casualties, and we may indeed be living through the planet’s “end” in a moral and ecological sense. Doshi’s title therefore carries both physical and spiritual urgency.
Long Question Answers
Q1. Describe Tishani Doshi’s journey to Antarctica. What does her account tell us about the difficulty and the wonder of reaching the southernmost continent?
Answer: Tishani Doshi’s account of her journey is a study in scale. She begins in the southern Indian city of Madras, where the air is hot and humid and the temperature touches forty degrees Celsius. The first step is a car ride to the airport. From there she takes a long flight, then a series of connecting aeroplanes, and finally boards the Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy, a tough ice-strengthened ship designed for polar work. Over more than a hundred hours of travel she crosses nine time zones, six checkpoints, three bodies of water and at least three ecospheres. Each transition shifts not only the climate but the very feel of the planet — from tropical south to temperate cities to the cold ports of departure to the icy waters of the Southern Ocean.
The wonder is in the contrasts. Doshi watches the world fall away in stages: the colours of vegetation give place to a horizon of grey waves, and grey waves to a wall of icebergs. When she finally sees Antarctica she feels what she calls “relief, awe, wonder.” The relief is the relief of any traveller after a hundred-hour journey. The awe is the awe of meeting the continent that holds 90 per cent of the world’s freshwater ice. The wonder is the wonder of the deep silence and the white horizon. Her account shows that reaching Antarctica is hard physically — the cold, the seasickness, the long crossings — but the harder journey is mental: leaving behind the comfortable scale of human civilisation and learning to think on a planetary timescale.
Q2. How does Tishani Doshi link Antarctica’s geological past to its present and to humanity’s future?
Answer: Doshi’s narrative deliberately weaves three timeframes together. The past is represented by Gondwana, the supercontinent that existed 650 million years ago and once joined India to Antarctica. The breakup of Gondwana shaped today’s continents and is recorded in the rocks and fossils of Antarctica. The present is represented by the visible signs of climate change — the retreating glaciers, the breaking ice shelves, the thinning ozone layer overhead. The future is forecast by the ice cores: long cylinders of ice drilled out of the glaciers contain trapped bubbles of air over half a million years old, and the chemistry of those bubbles allows scientists to model the temperature, atmosphere and climate of the next century.
By holding all three timeframes together Doshi makes a powerful point. Climate change is not an isolated modern accident — it is the latest event in a long planetary history that includes the formation and breakup of supercontinents, the rise and fall of dinosaurs and the birth of mammals. But it is also unique, because for the first time the agents of change are not tectonic plates or asteroids but ourselves. Antarctica, by holding the deep record of every previous transition, allows us to recognise the extraordinary speed of the present one and to imagine the consequences. The continent thus serves as Earth’s memory and as Earth’s warning.
Q3. What is the “Students on Ice” programme and how does Tishani Doshi present its purpose?
Answer: “Students on Ice” is an educational expedition programme founded by Canadian environmentalist Geoff Green. It takes high-school students to the polar regions — Antarctica or the Arctic — on board real research vessels, accompanied by scientists and educators. The aim is to give the students direct contact with the realities of climate change and the wonders of polar wildlife so that they grow up into adults who care for the Earth.
Doshi presents the programme with admiration. She points out that Green had previously taken many distinguished older travellers — celebrities, retired millionaires, journalists — to Antarctica. He noticed, however, that those people, while moved by the experience, were already too set in their lives to make large changes. High-school students were different. At their age the experience of standing on a glacier or watching scientists drill ice cores would imprint itself for life and would shape the choices they made in their careers and as voters. Green saw such students as the future generation of policy-makers. Doshi confirms the programme’s success: she observes that no student returns from the polar regions unchanged. The programme thus combines tourism, education, science and citizenship into one transformative voyage.
Q4. What evidence does the essay provide of climate change in Antarctica, and how does it deepen the reader’s awareness?
Answer: The essay’s environmental message is built on concrete, observable evidence. First, the glaciers are visibly retreating; the front edge of the ice has moved back over decades, leaving exposed rock where ice used to lie. Second, ice shelves — the floating extensions of land-based glaciers — have been breaking off and collapsing into the sea. Third, the air bubbles trapped in ice cores show a clear increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that matches the timeline of industrialisation. Fourth, the ozone layer over Antarctica has thinned, allowing more ultraviolet radiation to reach the ocean and threatening the phytoplankton at the base of the marine food web. Fifth, the temperature record gathered by research stations confirms the slow but steady rise of average global temperature.
This evidence deepens the reader’s awareness because Doshi presents it not as a list of statistics but as something one can see, walk on and feel. To watch a piece of glacier crack and fall, to look at the ice cores being pulled from a hole, to be told by scientists that the bubbles in this very piece of ice were sealed in the air during the time of the Pyramids — these images turn the abstract idea of climate change into a vivid personal experience. The essay therefore succeeds where statistics alone might not.
Q5. Discuss the significance of phytoplankton in the essay and the broader ecological message that Tishani Doshi draws from them.
Answer: Phytoplankton occupy a small but essential paragraph in Doshi’s essay because they embody her central message: small things matter. They are microscopic, single-celled organisms that drift in the cold Southern Ocean and use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Despite their tiny size, they are responsible for a large share of the planet’s photosynthesis and oxygen production. They are also the foundation of the entire marine food chain in the Southern Ocean — krill feed on phytoplankton, fish feed on krill, and seals, penguins, seabirds and whales feed in their turn.
The threat to phytoplankton comes from ozone depletion. As ultraviolet radiation increases through the thinned ozone layer, the function of phytoplankton is impaired. If their numbers decline, every species that depends on them will suffer, and the carbon balance of the planet will be disturbed. Doshi uses the phytoplankton example to make a larger ecological point: the planet’s ecosystems are linked together by a chain so fine that the loss of a single microscopic organism can starve a whale or change a climate. In her words, “small things matter, in the grand scheme of things and in the not-so-grand scheme of things.” This is the moral conclusion of the essay — humility in the face of nature, and care in the small choices of daily life.
Q6. “Antarctica is the perfect place to understand climate change.” Justify this statement with reference to Tishani Doshi’s essay.
Answer: Antarctica is the perfect classroom for climate science for four interlocking reasons. First, it has no permanent human population — no cities, no industries, no agricultural runoff, no air pollution sources of its own. This means that whatever pollution is detected on the continent has been produced elsewhere and transported to it; Antarctica is a global mirror that shows what humanity has done to its atmosphere. Second, Antarctica contains about 90 per cent of the world’s freshwater ice; even small temperature changes affect a huge mass of ice, and any melt directly raises sea levels, threatening to drown low-lying coastal regions worldwide. Third, the ice itself is a natural archive; ice cores preserve over half a million years of trapped atmospheres, allowing scientists to compare past climates with the present. Fourth, the simple ecosystem — limited species, short food chains, basic geology — makes the cause and effect of any disturbance unusually easy to study. Doshi’s essay illustrates all four advantages: she sees the retreating glaciers with her own eyes, she meets the scientists studying the ice cores, she learns about the phytoplankton at the base of the food chain, and she walks on a continent where no human history has been written. For these reasons Antarctica is the perfect place to understand climate change.
Q7. How does Tishani Doshi use her personal experience to communicate a global message? Comment on the style of the essay.
Answer: Doshi is a poet first, and her travel essay shows it. She communicates a global message — climate change, planetary fragility, the responsibilities of the young — by anchoring it in the small, intimate details of her own experience. She tells us that she is a “sun-worshipping South Indian,” she records the exact length of her journey in hours and time zones, she describes the relief of the first sight of icebergs, the cold against her body, the seals lying nearby on the ice. By making herself the lens through which the reader sees Antarctica she invites identification: any reader can imagine themselves making the same journey.
The style is conversational but also lyrical. Sentences move easily between fact and metaphor — Antarctica is at once a continent and “a giant ping-pong ball without dimension,” a research site and a meditation. Doshi uses short, vivid images: the white horizon, the circle of midnight sun, the cracking ice, the warm body in the cold. She quotes Geoff Green, refers to “Students on Ice,” names the Akademik Shokalskiy, and lists the time zones, but she always returns to her own felt response. The result is a piece of writing that is informative without being a lecture, urgent without being shrill, and personal without being merely private. It is how an essay turns information into experience and experience into responsibility.
Q8. What lessons does the chapter “Journey to the End of the Earth” offer to the youth of today?
Answer: The essay is, in effect, a letter to the young. The first lesson is that knowledge is not enough — direct experience changes lives. Geoff Green’s “Students on Ice” programme exists precisely because reading about climate change in a textbook is not the same as standing on a glacier as it cracks. The second lesson is that small actions matter. The phytoplankton, the two-degree temperature rise and the cracking ice all show that nothing in nature is unimportant; everyday choices about energy, food, transport and waste add up to the climate. The third lesson is that the young are the future policy-makers; the decisions they take in the coming decades will determine whether Antarctica survives or vanishes, and with it the climate of the entire planet. The fourth lesson is one of humility: civilisations that imagine themselves as the centre of the Earth are corrected, sooner or later, by the planet itself. Standing on the ocean’s frozen surface Doshi understands that humanity is one species among many, dependent on a finely balanced system that does not need us to exist. The fifth lesson is one of hope: it is still possible to act, and the very young people who read the essay are the ones in whose hands the future lies.
Q9. Compare Antarctica’s lack of human history with humanity’s recent dominance of Earth. What contrast does Tishani Doshi draw, and what conclusion does she reach?
Answer: Doshi draws a striking contrast between two scales of time. Antarctica was already part of the Earth 650 million years ago, when it was joined to India in the supercontinent of Gondwana. Modern human civilisation is barely 12,000 years old. Yet in those 12,000 years — and most of all in the last two centuries — humans have multiplied to seven billion, built cities, cleared forests, opened mines, dammed rivers and changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Antarctica, in contrast, has remained free of any of these markers. There are no skyscrapers, no monuments, no fields, no roads — only ice, rock and a few small research stations.
The contrast is not simply geographical. It is a moral contrast between what humanity has been doing in its small slice of time and what the Earth is capable of when left alone. Doshi’s conclusion is double-edged. On the one hand, our power has grown so great that the next two degrees of warming may produce changes the planet has not seen in millions of years — a humbling and frightening thought. On the other hand, the very same intelligence that built the cities can choose to slow down, to listen, to walk softly on the planet. The contrast between Antarctica’s deep silence and our short, noisy occupation is therefore both a warning and an invitation.
Q10. “Visiting Antarctica is now necessary to address questions of survival in our times.” Discuss this statement on the basis of the essay.
Answer: The essay turns Antarctica from a frozen curiosity at the bottom of the world into a centre of the survival debate. The continent is the planet’s largest body of fresh water, locked into ice. If even a fraction of that ice melts because of warming, sea levels will rise and coastal cities — Mumbai, Calcutta, Dhaka, Bangkok, New York, Shanghai — will be under direct threat. The fate of millions of human beings is therefore tied physically to the fate of this one continent. Antarctica is also the single best place to study the past, present and future of the climate, because of the ice cores and the absence of local human pollution. Without Antarctica, our understanding of the planet would be incomplete and our forecasts unreliable.
Doshi’s essay therefore argues, indirectly, that visiting Antarctica — through programmes like “Students on Ice,” through scientific research and through documented travel writing — is now necessary, not optional. We need to know first-hand what is happening at the end of the Earth in order to make policy at home. The visits must be controlled and respectful; mass tourism would defeat the purpose. But complete absence of human contact would be worse, because it would leave the continent without witnesses and without advocates. To save Antarctica we must understand it, and to understand it we must, at least sometimes, go there. Survival, Doshi suggests, depends on that mixture of distance and care.
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
Q1. Who is the author of “Journey to the End of the Earth”?
(a) Anees Jung
(b) Tishani Doshi
(c) Robin Klein
(d) Kalki
Answer: (b) Tishani Doshi
Q2. The Russian research vessel on which the author sails is named:
(a) Akademik Shokalskiy
(b) Endurance
(c) Resolute
(d) Lomonosov
Answer: (a) Akademik Shokalskiy
Q3. The author begins her journey from which Indian city?
(a) Delhi
(b) Mumbai
(c) Madras (Chennai)
(d) Kolkata
Answer: (c) Madras (Chennai)
Q4. How many time zones did Tishani Doshi cross to reach Antarctica?
(a) Five
(b) Seven
(c) Nine
(d) Twelve
Answer: (c) Nine
Q5. The total travel time of the author was approximately:
(a) Fifty hours
(b) Seventy-five hours
(c) Over a hundred hours
(d) Two hundred hours
Answer: (c) Over a hundred hours
Q6. Approximately how many years ago did Gondwana exist?
(a) 65 million
(b) 100 million
(c) 650 million
(d) One billion
Answer: (c) 650 million years
Q7. Which of these continents was NOT part of Gondwana?
(a) India
(b) South America
(c) Antarctica
(d) North America
Answer: (d) North America
Q8. What is the duration of modern human civilisation according to the essay?
(a) About 1,200 years
(b) About 12,000 years
(c) About 1,20,000 years
(d) About 12 lakh years
Answer: (b) About 12,000 years
Q9. Who founded the “Students on Ice” programme?
(a) Tishani Doshi
(b) Geoff Green
(c) Roald Amundsen
(d) Robert Scott
Answer: (b) Geoff Green
Q10. The “Students on Ice” programme primarily targets:
(a) Retired scientists
(b) Wealthy tourists
(c) High-school students
(d) Government officials
Answer: (c) High-school students
Q11. Phytoplankton are:
(a) Tiny marine animals
(b) Microscopic plant-like organisms in the sea
(c) Antarctic flowers
(d) Ice-dwelling bacteria only
Answer: (b) Microscopic plant-like organisms in the sea
Q12. Phytoplankton are important because they:
(a) Provide oxygen and form the base of the marine food chain
(b) Reflect sunlight off the ice
(c) Make the ocean blue
(d) Cause global warming
Answer: (a) Provide oxygen and form the base of the marine food chain
Q13. Antarctica is described as:
(a) The hottest continent
(b) The wettest continent
(c) The coldest, driest, windiest continent
(d) The most populated continent
Answer: (c) The coldest, driest, windiest continent
Q14. The “midnight sun” refers to:
(a) The setting of the sun at midnight
(b) The continued visibility of the sun even at midnight in polar summer
(c) A scientific instrument
(d) A type of constellation
Answer: (b) The continued visibility of the sun even at midnight in polar summer
Q15. The author calls herself a:
(a) Snow-loving Tibetan
(b) Sun-worshipping South Indian
(c) Globe-trotting Punjabi
(d) Sea-loving Bengali
Answer: (b) Sun-worshipping South Indian
Q16. Ice cores are useful because they:
(a) Provide cooling for cities
(b) Carry ancient air bubbles that record half a million years of climate
(c) Help build igloos
(d) Create cordilleras
Answer: (b) Carry ancient air bubbles that record half a million years of climate
Q17. Cordilleras are:
(a) Long parallel mountain ranges
(b) Polar birds
(c) Russian icebreaker ships
(d) Ice shelves
Answer: (a) Long parallel mountain ranges
Q18. The first emotional response of the author on seeing Antarctica was:
(a) Fear and panic
(b) Boredom
(c) Relief, awe, wonder
(d) Disappointment
Answer: (c) Relief, awe, wonder
Q19. Antarctica’s lack of permanent human population makes it ideal for:
(a) Tourism
(b) Mining
(c) Studying the climate without contamination
(d) Setting up cities
Answer: (c) Studying the climate without contamination
Q20. The breakup of Gondwana led to:
(a) The formation of the present continents
(b) The cooling of the sun
(c) The Big Bang
(d) The creation of dinosaurs
Answer: (a) The formation of the present continents
Q21. “Walking on the Ocean” refers to walking on:
(a) A glass-bottomed boat
(b) The frozen surface of the sea
(c) Wooden planks
(d) An iceberg only
Answer: (b) The frozen surface of the sea
Q22. The author saw which animals lying on the ice during her walk?
(a) Polar bears
(b) Seals
(c) Yaks
(d) Reindeer
Answer: (b) Seals
Q23. Which is the central environmental message of the essay?
(a) Antarctica is too far to matter
(b) Small things have big consequences
(c) Tourism is the answer
(d) Mining can solve global warming
Answer: (b) Small things have big consequences
Q24. Antarctica holds approximately what percentage of the world’s freshwater ice?
(a) 10 per cent
(b) 30 per cent
(c) 60 per cent
(d) 90 per cent
Answer: (d) 90 per cent
Q25. The genre of “Journey to the End of the Earth” is best described as:
(a) A short story
(b) A travel essay / personal narrative
(c) A scientific research paper
(d) A drama
Answer: (b) A travel essay / personal narrative
Extract-Based Questions
Extract 1: “It’s been called the most pristine place on the planet, and yet, the only signs of human civilization here come from the small but steady stream of scientists and visitors who travel to Antarctica every year.”
Q1. Why is Antarctica called the most pristine place on the planet?
Answer: Because it has no permanent human settlement, no industries, no agriculture and no native pollution. It remains in nearly the same condition as it has been for millions of years.
Q2. Who comes to Antarctica according to the extract?
Answer: A small but steady stream of scientists and visitors — mostly researchers, support staff and educational expedition members.
Q3. What is the literary effect of the phrase “small but steady stream”?
Answer: The phrase suggests that human contact with Antarctica is limited but continuous, like a thin trickle that does not yet damage the continent but should not be allowed to grow.
Q4. What word in the extract means “untouched / original”?
Answer: “Pristine.”
Extract 2: “To visit Antarctica now is to be a part of that history; to get a grasp of where we’ve come from and where we could possibly be heading.”
Q1. What “history” is the author referring to?
Answer: The deep geological and climatic history of the Earth, dating back over 650 million years to Gondwana, recorded in Antarctica’s rocks and ice.
Q2. How does visiting Antarctica help us “grasp where we’ve come from”?
Answer: Because the continent’s geology preserves the breakup of Gondwana and the long history of life and extinction; standing on its rocks is like standing on the planet’s memory.
Q3. How does it help us understand “where we could possibly be heading”?
Answer: Through ice cores that record half a million years of atmospheric chemistry, scientists can model the consequences of present-day warming and predict future climate.
Q4. What kind of warning does this sentence carry?
Answer: It carries the warning that the future of the planet depends on what humanity does today, and that ignoring the lessons of Antarctica may lead to catastrophic consequences.
Extract 3: “Take care of the small things and the big things will take care of themselves.”
Q1. Who told this to the author and where?
Answer: She heard the saying as part of her ecological learning during the “Students on Ice” expedition; it forms her takeaway from the visit.
Q2. Give one example from the essay that proves this saying.
Answer: The microscopic phytoplankton — small organisms whose loss would destroy the entire marine food chain and disturb the carbon balance of the planet.
Q3. How does this saying connect to climate change?
Answer: Climate change is not solved by one big action but by countless small choices: reducing energy use, recycling, walking instead of driving, planting trees. Together these “small things” produce the big result.
Q4. What lesson does the author draw from this for the youth?
Answer: That every individual choice and every small action of the young — saving water, conserving energy, raising voices — contributes to the survival of the planet.
Extract 4: “Antarctica, because of her simple ecosystem and lack of biodiversity, is the perfect place to study how little changes in the environment can have big repercussions.”
Q1. Why is Antarctica’s ecosystem called “simple”?
Answer: Because it has only a small number of species — phytoplankton, krill, seals, penguins, whales — connected by short, easily traceable food chains.
Q2. What advantage does this simplicity give to scientists?
Answer: It allows them to see clearly how a small disturbance — for example a rise in ultraviolet radiation — produces large effects throughout the system; the cause and effect are easier to track than in a complex ecosystem.
Q3. What word in the extract means “consequences”?
Answer: “Repercussions.”
Q4. What does the extract suggest about the rest of the planet?
Answer: By analogy, even small environmental changes elsewhere on Earth — whose ecosystems are far more complex — will produce large but harder-to-detect consequences. Antarctica is the early warning bell for the entire planet.
Extract 5: “The Antarctic’s vastness has a way of making one feel humble, of realising how indistinct one’s place is in the universe.”
Q1. Why does the Antarctic landscape produce a feeling of humility?
Answer: Because of its vast scale, unbroken horizons, deep silence and absence of human markers; in such a setting one’s own size and importance are reduced.
Q2. What does “indistinct one’s place” mean?
Answer: That a single human being is small and almost invisible compared to the immensity of the planet and the universe.
Q3. How is this realisation valuable?
Answer: It cures arrogance and reminds us that the Earth does not depend on our presence; we depend on its balance. Such humility is the starting point of environmental responsibility.
Q4. Which literary technique is being used by the author here?
Answer: Reflection — a personal, contemplative observation that turns a physical scene into a moral insight.
This complete ASSEB Class 12 / HS 2nd Year English notes for Vistas Chapter 3 — “Journey to the End of the Earth” by Tishani Doshi — covers about-the-author, full English summary, Assamese সাৰাংশ, plot summary, themes, NCERT textual question answers, additional short and long question answers, MCQs and extract-based questions to help students of Assam State Board prepare thoroughly for HS 2nd Year board examinations on hslcguru.com.