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प्रश्न
Who do you think or understand what the talking fan wished to convey?
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उत्तर
The talking fan seemed to be very noisily and continuously chattering. Perhaps, besides the poet the others could hear it too. Though the poet was curious, she never made an attempt to understand what the talking fan said.
Or perhaps before she could, the message was decoded by the person who attended to the needs of the fan by oiling its motor.
APPEARS IN
संबंधित प्रश्न
Discuss with your partner the similarities and differences between your dream
houses.
Dr. Wood, the capable general practitioner, has been requested to solve this case. He gathers information about the murder from the inmates or the house. The information is presented in two parts.
Parts A: Background story by Arthur Conan Doyle
Parts B: Conversation between Dr. Wood and Cecil Barker
Part A
Background Story
The village of Birlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of Sussex. For centuries it had remained unchanged but its picturesque appearance has attracted well-to-do residents. A number of small shops have come into being to meet the wants of the increased population.
About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for its huge beech trees, was the ancient Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond paned windows. The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had been rusted and broken. The family consisted of only two individuals - John Douglas and his wife. Douglas was cheery and genial to all and had acquired great popularity among the villagers. He appeared to have plenty of money. Thus, it came about that John Douglas had, within five years, won himself quite a reputation in Birlstone. His wife was a beautiful woman, tall, dark and slender, younger than her husband; a disparity which seemed in no way to mar the contentment of their family life. It was remarked sometimes, that the confidence between the two did not appear to be complete. There were signs sometimes of some nerve strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas.
Cecil Barker, was a frequent and welcome visitor at Manor House, Barker was an easy going, free handed gentleman.
It was on Jan 6th at 11:45 that the alarm reached the small local police station that John Douglas had been murdered. Dr. Wood seemed to be unnerved and troubled.
Part B
Conversation between Dr. Wood and Cecil Barker
Dr. Wood : We will touch nothing until my superiors arrive. {He spoke in a hushed voice, stating at the dreadful head)
C.Barker : Nothing has been touched untilnow.
Dr. Wood : When did this happen?
C.Barker : It was just half-past eleven. I was sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the gun shot. In thirty seconds I was in the room.
Dr. Wood : Wasthedooropen?
C.Barker : Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him.
Dr. Wood : Did you see anyone?
C. Barker : No, I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stains behind me, and I rushed out 1 to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight.
Dr. Wood : But I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.
C. Barker : Yee,it was up until l lowered it.
Dr. Wood : Then how could any murderer have got away? It ls out of question! Mr Douglas must have shot himself.
C. Barker : That was our first idea. But see! The diamond paned window is open to its full extent.
Dr. Wood : I think someone stood there while trying to get out.
C. Barker : You mean that someone waded across the moat?
Dr. Wood : Exactly!
C. Barker : I agree with you.
Dr. Wood : But what I ask you ls, how did he even get into the house at all if the bridge was up?
C. Barker : Ah, that's the question.
Dr. Wood : At what time was the bridge raised?
C. Barker : It was nearly 6 O'clock.
Dr. Wood : Then it comes to this, if anyone came from outside -if they did-they must have got in across the bridge before six and had been in hiding ever since. The man was waiting. He shot him, when he got the chance.
Avik, a correspondent for his school magazine, interviews Grandmaster Koneru Bumpy. Let us read :
INTERVIEW WITH KONERU BUMPY
Avik : Good morning, Ma'am! Congratulations on your achievements in the World Grand Prix Women's Chess Championship in Istanbul recently!
Koneru Humpy : Thank you! This is my biggest win in the women's circuit. This is very significant, considering that it has come in an event which had three former world champions.
Avik : Indeed! Please tell us something about yourself, Ma' am!
Koneru Humpy : I was born in Gudivada, near Vijaywada, in Andhra Pradesh on March 31, 1987. I was originally named 'Humpi' {which means champion) by my father Mr Koneru Ashok, who later changed the spelling to Humpy, to give the nrune a Russian flavour. I write my family name , Koneru, before my given name, as is the convention with the Telugu speaking people. I started playing chess when I was 5 years old.
Avik : Who introduced you to the game?
Koneru Humpy : My father acquainted me with the game. He is also my first coach. I first showed interest at the age of 6 years, when I watched him play a game and suggested a move. Indeed it was the move that actually got me into the game.
Avik : Your father left his teaching profession to make you a champion !
Koneru Bumpy : Yes, when I took the 4th place in the Indian Under 8 Championship in 1995, he decided to leave his career and dedicate his time to me.
Avik : And you had won four World Championship at a very early stage.
Koneru Bumpy : Yes, the World Girl Under 10, the World Girls Under 12, the World Girls Under 14 and World Girls Junior Chrunpionships. I acquired my IM title in 1999 and in May 2002, I achieved my 3rd GM Norms in Elekes Memorial Grandmaster Tournrunent in Budapest.
Avik : You held the record from 2002 to 2008 for the youngest woman ever to become a grandmaster!
Koneru Bumpy : Yes, I achieved it at the age of 15 years, 1 month, 27 days, beating Judit Polgar's previous record by 3 months; which was later lost in the Women's World Chess Championship in 2008 to Hou Yifan. I won the World Junior Girls Chess Championship in 2001 and won the edition or North Urals Cup, the Women's Super Tournrunent held in Krasnoturinsk. In 2006, I participated in the Women's World Chess Chrunpionship, but my crunpaign had to end early in the second round. I played in the first board of Monte Carlo Chess Club and won the last two editions of the European Club Cup.
Avik : You have got some awards also !
Koneru Humpy : Yes, Arjuna Award in 2003, Padmashri Award in 2007 and Raja-Lakshmi Award in 2008.
Avik : In India, many young chess players are ready to take a break in education and are fully focussed on chess preparations. What are your views?
Koneru Humpy : I don't think that taking up chess as a career and completely neglecting studies will be necessary at an earlier stage. After getting to a certain level in the game, they themselves should decide their preferences i.e. whether to play seriously or not.
Avik : What advice would you offer to parents of enthusiastic and talented chess children?
Koneru Humpy : Parents should not compel children to play chess. If children are genuinely interested in the game, they should encourage them. But they shouldn't hurry to get results.
Avik : How often do you exercise? Do you think daily physical exercise can help a chess player to cope with the pressure and increase the brain's ability to concentrate?
Koneru Humpy : I spend around one hour per day on physical exercise. Exercise is a must for every chess player. As the proverb says, 'a sound mind in a sound body'. Exercise shows a lot of impact on the brain.
Avik : Thank you for talking to me and giving valuable advice.
Koneru Humpy : Thank you.
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What is the religion of the Tribal men? How is it different?
He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, and then said, having to share his worry with someone, “The cat will be all right, I am sure. There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?”
“Why they’ll probably come through it all right.”
“You think so?”
“Why not,” I said, watching the far bank where now there were no carts.
“But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?”
“Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then they’ll fly.”
“Yes, certainly they’ll fly. But the others. It’s better not to think about the others,” he said.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What does the old man worry about? Why?
Unleashing the goats from the drumstick tree, Muni started out, driving them ahead and uttering weird cries from time to time in order to urge them on. Me passed through the village with his head bowed in thought. He did not want to look at anyone or be accosted. A couple of cronies lounging in the temple corridor hailed him, but he ignored their call. They had known him in the days of affluence when he lorded over a flock of fleecy sheep, not the miserable grawky goats that he had today.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Did Muni know his age?
The boy looked up. He took his hands from his face and looked up at his teacher. The light from Mr. Oliver’s torch fell on the boy’s face, if you could call it a face. He had no eyes, ears, nose or mouth. It was just a round smooth head with a school cap on top of it.
And that’s where the story should end, as indeed it has for several people who have had similar experiences and dropped dead of inexplicable heart attacks. But for Mr. Oliver, it did not end there. The torch fell from his trembling hand. He turned and scrambled down the path, running blindly through the trees and calling for help. He was still running towards the school buildings when he saw a lantern swinging in the middle of the path. Mr. Oliver had never before been so pleased to see the night watchman. He stumbled up to the watchman, gasping for breath and speaking incoherently.
What is it, Sahib? Asked the watchman, has there been an accident? Why are you running?
I saw something, something horrible, a boy weeping in the forest and he had no face.
No face, Sahib?
No eyes, no nose, mouth, nothing.
Do you mean it was like this, Sahib? asked the watchman, and raised the lamp to his own face. The watchman had no eyes, no ears, no features at all, not even an eyebrow. The wind blew the lamp out and Mr. Oliver had his heart attack.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why did the torch fall from Mr Oliver’s hand? Why was his hand trembling?
Mr. Oliver, an Anglo-Indian teacher, was returning to his school late one night on the outskirts of the hill station of Shimla. The school was conducted on English public school lines and the boys – most of them from well-to-do Indian families – wore blazers, caps and ties. “Life” magazine, in a feature on India, had once called this school the Eton of the East.
Mr. Oliver had been teaching in this school for several years. He’s no longer there. The Shimla Bazaar, with its cinemas and restaurants, was about two miles from the school; and Mr. Oliver, a bachelor, usually strolled into the town in the evening returning after dark, when he would take short cut through a pine forest.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
When did Mr Oliver return from the town?
The women came out on the shore, and made for the stepping—?stones. They had plenty to laugh and bicker about, as they approached the river in a noisy crowd. They girded up their skirts, so as to jump from stone to stone, and they clanked their sickles and forks together over their shoulders to have ease of movement. They shouted their quarrels above the gush of the river. Noise frightens crocodiles. The big mugger did not move, and all the women crossed in safety to the other bank. Here they had to climb a steep hillside to get at the grass, but all fell to with a will, and sliced away at it wherever there was foothold to be had. Down below them ran the broad river, pouring powerfully out from its deep narrow pools among the cold cliffs and shadows, spreading into warm shallows, lit by kingfishers. Great turtles lived there, and mahseer weighing more than a hundred pounds. Crocodiles too. Sometimes you could see them lying out on those slabs of clay over there, but there were none to be seen at the moment.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What did the women carry?
Then, trying to hide my nervousness, I added, “How are you?”
“I’m fine. The question is: How are you?“
“What do you mean?” 1 asked “Something must be eating you,” he said—proud the way foreigners are when they’ve mastered a bit of American slang. “You should be able to qualify with your eyes closed.”
“Believe me, I know it,” I told him—and it felt good to say that to someone.
For the next few minutes we talked together. I didn’t tell Long what was “eating” me, but he seemed to understand my anger, and he took pains to reassure me. Although he’d been schooled in the Nazi youth movement, he didn’t believe in the Aryan-supremacy business any more than I did. We laughed over the fact that he really looked the part, though. An inch taller than I, he had a lean, muscular frame, clear blue eyes, blond hair and a strikingly handsome, chiseled face. Finally, seeing that I had calmed down somewhat, he pointed to the take-off board.
“Look,” he said. “Why don’t you draw a line a few inches in back of the board and aim at making your take-off from there? You’ll be sure not to foul, and you certainly ought to jump far enough to qualify. What does it matter if you’re not first in the trials? Tomorrow is what counts.”
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Did Owens tell Long what was eating him? If not, why?
Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass. “What’re you looking at ?” said William. Margot said nothing. “Speak when you’re spoken to.” He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Why was Margot sad?
What type of shopkeeper was Mr. Purcell?
Why did the farmer’s wife strike the mongoose with her basket?
Why are dreams important? Mention two reasons.
Fill in the blank in the sentence below with the words or phrases from the box. (You may not know the meaning of all the words. Look such words up in a dictionary, or ask your teacher.)
This ____________ we are going to have a class exhibition.
Say what you feel about homework. (The words and phrases in the boxes may help you.) Do you think it is useful, even though you may not like it? Form pairs, and speak to each other.
For example:
You may say, “I am not fond of homework.”
Your partner may reply, “But my sister helps me with my lessons at home, and that gives a boost to my marks.”
(not) be fond of
(not) take to
(not) develop a liking for
(not) appeal to
(not) be keen on
(not) have a taste for
- support
- assist
- with the aid of
- help
- be a boon
- give a boost to
What did the speaker’s brother say about the Shed?
When did the angel appear to Abou Ben Adhem?
Read the following extract from Jesse Owens's short story, ‘My Greatest Olympic Prize’ and answer the question that follows:
| I wasn't too worried about all this. I'd trained, sweated and disciplined myself for six years with the Games in mind. While I was going over on the boat, all I could think about was taking home one or two of those gold medals. I had my eye especially on the running broad jump. |
- What does Owens mean by 'all this'? What games does he refer to? [3]
- What made Owens confident of winning a gold medal or two? [3]
-
What was the ‘surprise’ that Hitler had kept hidden from the world?
How did Owens feel when he came face to face with the ‘surprise’? [3] - Describe Owens’ performance in the broad jump trials.
What doubts filled his mind at this time? [3] - What makes Luz Long’s behaviour at the ‘Games’ truly remarkable in the context of the times?
Identify a theme that is common to the short story ‘My Greatest Olympic Prize and the poem ‘Nine Gold Medals’. [4]
In Ama Ata Aidoo’s short story, ‘The Girl Who Can’, Nana expressed her disapproval of Adjoa’s legs because ______.
