Read the following passage carefully :
Within six months of becoming a graduate, Chandran began to receive suggestions from relatives and elderly friends of the family as to what he should do with himself. Till this time it had never occurred to him that he ought to be doing anything at all. But now, wherever he went, he was pestered with the question”, Now what do you propose to do ?”
“I have not thought of anything yet.”
“Why don’t you go to Madras and study law ?”
There was his uncle in Nellore who wrote to him that he ought to do something and try to settle in life. There was his mother’ cousin who advised him to study law. There was his Madras uncle who said that staying in Malgudi would not lead him anywhere, but that he ought to go to a big city and see people. He had immense in seeing people. He himself volunteered to give a letter of introduction to some big man, an auditor in the railways, who in his turn gave a further introduction to someone else, and finally fix up Chandran in the railways. This uncle seemed to live in an endless dream of introductory letters. Several relatives, chiefly *, asked him why he did not sit for the Indian Civil Service or the Indian Audit Service examination.
Chandran felt flattered by their **** in him. There were others who said that there was nothing like a business occupation; start on a small capital and open a shop; independence and profit. All sorts of persons advised him to apply for a clerk’ post in some government office. Nothing like Government service, they said; on the first of the month you were sure of your money; security. Chandran had a feeling of persecution. He opened his heart to his father when the latter was trimming the roses early one morning.
“I am sorry, Father, that I ever passed the B. A.”
“Why ?”
“Why should everybody talk about my career? Why can’t they mind their own business ?” “It is the way of the world. You must not let that upset you. It is just a form of courtesy, you see.” Then they began to talk of Chandran’ future. His father gathered that Chandran had a vague ***** to go to England and do something there. He did not consider the plan absurd himself. “What do you propose to do in England ?”
“I want to get a doctorate or something and come back, and then some quiet lectureship in some college will suit me wonderfully. Plenty of independence and leisure.” After that Chandran went about with a freer mind. To his persecutors he would say : “I am going to England next year.” Some demanded why he was not starting immediately. Chandran told them : “We can’t go to England on an impulse, can we ?”
Give words from the passage which mean the same as the following :
(a) harassed
(b) ill-treatment
