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Question
Look up the dictionary for the meaning of the word ‘diaspora’. What do you understand of the Indian diaspora from this piece?
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Solution
A model answer has been provided for students' reference.
It is strongly recommended that students prepare the answer on their own.
The word 'diaspora' means a dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity, such as a language or culture. With reference to the context, Indian diaspora becomes more prominent in Ghosh's writings.
From this text, we come to know that a number of Indians have settled in different countries of the West, especially England and America. Agha Shahid, his brother and two sisters, Suketu Mehta and the writer form part of the Indian diaspora in America. Shahid belonged to Kashmir and migrated to America in 1975. his elder brother was already settled there. His two sisters also joined them later. These people, though living in another land, never forgot about their roots. These Indians feel a sense of unity and keep meeting each other on various occasions.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Read the extract and do the activities that follow:
The duke senior and his follower were sitting down to a meal one day when Orlando rushed out from among the trees, his sword in his hand. ‘Stop, and cat no more!’ he cried. The Duke and his friends asked him what he wanted.
‘Food,’ said Orlando. ‘I am almost dying of hunger’. They asked him to sit down and eat, but he would not do so. He told them that his old servant was in the woods, dying of hunger. ‘I will not eat a bite until he has been fed,’ Orlando said.
So the good Duke and his followers helped him to bring Adam to their hiding-place, and Orlando and the old man were fed and taken care of. When the Duke learned that Orlando was a son of his old friend sir Rowland de Boys, he welcomed him gladly to his forest court.
Orlando lived happily with the Duke and his friends, but he had not forgotten the lovely Rosalind. She was always in his thoughts andevery day he wrote poetry about her pinning it on the trees in the forest. ‘These trees shall be my books,’ he said, ‘so that everyone who looks in the forest will be able to read how sweet and good Rosalind is’.
Rosalind and Celia found some of these poems pinned on the trees. At first they were puzzled, wondering who could have written them; but one day Celia came in from a walk with the news that she had seen Orlando sleeping under a tree, and she and Rosalind guessed that he must be the poet. Rosalind was happy to think that Orlando had not forggoten her, because she loved him as much as he loved her.
A1. Complete - (2)
Complete the following sentences:
(i) Rosalind was happy to think _______
(ii) The Duke and his followers helped Orlando to bring _________
(iii) Orlando pinned the poems written about Rosalind on ______
(iv) When the Duke cam to know that Orlando was a son of his old friend, he _________
A2. Write a gist: (2)
Write a gist of the above given extract in about 50 words.
Give reasons for the following statement.
The author’s experience at Hor was in stark contrast to earlier accounts of the place.
Read the text below and summarise it.
The Great Desert Where Hippos Once Wallowed
The Sahara sets a standard for dry land. It’s the world’s largest desert. Relative humidity can drop into the low single digits. There are places where it rains only about once a century. There are people who reach the end of their lives without ever seeing water come from the sky.
Yet beneath the Sahara are vast aquifers of fresh water, enough liquid to fill a small sea. It is fossil water, a treasure laid down in prehistoric times, some of it possibly a million years old. Just 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a much different place.
It was green. Prehistoric rock art in the Sahara shows something surprising: hippopotamuses, which need year-round water.
“We don’t have much evidence of a tropical paradise out there, but we had something perfectly liveable,” says Jennifer Smith, a geologist at Washington University in St Louis.
The green Sahara was the product of the migration of the paleo-monsoon. In the same way that ice ages come and go, so too do monsoons migrate north and south. The dynamics of earth’s motion are responsible. The tilt of the earth’s axis varies in a regular cycle — sometimes the planet is more tilted towards the sun, sometimes less so. The axis also wobbles like a spinning top. The date of the earth’s perihelion — its closest approach to the sun — varies in cycle as well.
At times when the Northern Hemisphere tilts sharply towards the sun and the planet makes its closest approach, the increased blast of sunlight during the north’s summer months can cause the African monsoon (which currently occurs between the Equator and roughly 17°N latitude) to shift to the north as it did 10,000 years ago, inundating North Africa.
Around 5,000 years ago the monsoon shifted dramatically southward again. The prehistoric inhabitants of the Sahara discovered that their relatively green surroundings were undergoing something worse than a drought (and perhaps they migrated towards the Nile Valley, where Egyptian culture began to flourish at around the same time).
“We’re learning, and only in recent years, that some climate changes in the past have been as rapid as anything underway today,” says Robert Giegengack, a University of Pennsylvania geologist.
As the land dried out and vegetation decreased, the soil lost its ability to hold water when it did rain. Fewer clouds formed from evaporation. When it rained, the water washed away and evaporated quickly. There was a kind of runaway drying effect. By 4,000 years ago the Sahara had become what it is today.
No one knows how human-driven climate change may alter the Sahara in the future. It’s something scientists can ponder while sipping bottled fossil water pumped from underground.
“It’s the best water in Egypt,” Giegengack said — clean, refreshing mineral water. If you want to drink something good, try the ancient buried treasure of the Sahara.
Staff Writer, Washington Post
Tick the statement that is true.
The places mentioned in the story are all imaginary.
Why is the quality of pity earth-bound while the other two passions are elevating?
What are the cues that signal the presence of the peacock in the vicinity?
What is the central argument of the speaker?
Which are the lines in the poem that impressed you the most and why?
Identify the lines that reveal the critical tone of the poet towards the felling of the tree.
How does the poet bring out the immortality of the bird?
Some poets do not use uniformity in rhyming words, nor a steady rhythm. Such poems with no uniformity in rhyme, rhythm, length of lines or stanzas are called Free Verse. Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Rabindranath Tagore are some famous poets who have composed poems in Free Verse.
A quick glance at the poem ‘Vocation' reveals that the style used by Tagore is Free Verse.
Now turn the pages of your textbook and see if you can find other poems in Free Verse.
The poet encourages her brother in the second part of the poem by telling him about the brighter side of life. Discuss with your partner and make a list of the expressions in the poem that mean encouragement.
- Brighter garden
- ________________
- ________________
‘Never mind faded forests, Austin’. The word ‘faded’ means to become dim or faint. The word describes the forests that have become faint or dim in appearance. Now go through the poem again and complete the table.
| Describing word | Object | Explanation |
| 1. faded | forests | The forests have become faint or dim in appearance. |
| 2. silent | ||
| 3. unfading | ||
| 4. bright |
Make pair of sentences to show the difference between the meaning of the following Homograph from the story.
interest
Sue was a rich girl.
For preparing questions based on the poem, an overall understanding of the poem is a must. Discuss with your partner and prepare a set of five questions.
For example:
- What is the name of the bridge?
- ________________________________
- ________________________________
- ________________________________
- ________________________________
- ________________________________
Doctors who do special advanced study of specific parts of the body have special terms.
In your group try to match the specialist doctors with who / what they treat.
| Specialists | Who/What they treat | ||
| 1. | Dentist | a. | bone |
| 2. | Cardiologist | b. | brain/with spine |
| 3. | Ophthalmologist | c. | small kids |
| 4. | Orthopedic | d. | teeth |
| 5. | Pediatrician | e. | animals/birds |
| 6. | Neurologist | f. | eye |
| 7. | Veterinarian | g. | heart |
Read the poem and complete the web about the activities the planners do.
Discuss in your class.
Do you like to study science?
Read the passage and answer the following question:
What is 'Param Vir Chakra'?
In each of the following line, spot the sound that is used repeatedly -
- There’s a silver house in the lovely sky.
- As round as a silver crown
- It takes two weeks to build it up. And two to pull it down.
Now, talk to your friends or elders; refer to books and read about all the objects on which wheels are used. List them. (How many did you miss out on in your first list? Why?)
Read the passage and answer the following:
Why is the tollbooth called a ‘phantom’ tollbooth?
Read the following sentence aloud. Write who said it and to whom.
“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in !”
Think and answer:
Are the boys and girls happy that it is raining?
Turn the story into a play as a group activity and present the scenes in the classroom.
Form groups of 5-8. This passage tells us only what the compère says. Try to visualize and write what the other people on the dais must have said in their speeches (Write only the main points.)
- The School Principal
- The Chief Guest
- The Art teacher who offered a vote of thanks
Find out how the following game is played.
Football
Read the word. Write the words that combine to make it.
snowwhite
Write in short how the travellers crossed the first ditch.
What is used to make Rangoli designs?
What happened to the young seagull when it landed on the green sea?
Read the incident again and answer the following question.
What did Gilson want the writer to bring for him?
An Anagram is a word or a phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once.
Now try to solve these anagrams
| 1. | ELBOW | |
| 2. | SECTION | |
| 3. | VIEWER | |
| 4. | RIPPLES | |
| 5. | NEEDLESS |
With their treasure, the boys would buy ______ in Eidgah.
What do you think are the two most important lessons that the speaker mentions?
Identify the character/speaker.
Oh no, I'll never get back to the right size.
Why does Alice drink from the bottle that says ‘DRINK ME’ and why does she eat from the cake that says ‘EAT ME’?
He exercised with Louise every day.
Everyone in the ship started to pray because ______.
The turtles use their flippers and make a hollow for their nests.
What are the two reasons the author gives for the plants moving towards grandfather?
The boy was so inspired by Mithali that he was happy for his sister to play cricket.
The horses were four and a half inches tall.
Complete the sentence given below with word/phrase.
The hole in the ground was filled______.
What was the epidemic that broke out in the story?
Where is Jaswantgarh located?
Write the rhyming word.
Bird - ______.
Humans give importance to save______.
Why did Jana chase the squirrel?
Who made the tree become a monster?
Mostly piggy banks look like______.
In real the plate was made of ______.
______ is a great risk to the environment.
We ______ yarn to make sarees.
Do we worry when the progress is slow?
How can we do our work better?
Why was Chris worried?
Where did they go to buy books?
Read the following information given in the table below and answer the questions.
| A nice choice from Chennai to the National capital | |||
| RAJADHANI EXPRESS TIMETABLE | |||
| Shortest Route between Chennai and Hazrat Nizamuddin 8 Halts & 324 intermediate stations in between | |||
| Station Name | Departs | Day | Speed |
| Chennai Central | 06.05 | 1 | 75 |
| Vijayawada | 11.55 | 1 | 76 |
| Warangal | 14.40 | 1 | 77 |
| Balharshah | 18.00 | 1 | 78 |
| Nagpur | 20.45 | 1 | 74 |
| Bhopal | 02.10 | 2 | 89 |
| Jhansi | 05.31 | 2 | 99 |
| Gwalior | 06.32 | 2 | 85 |
| Agra Cantt | 07.57 | 2 | 76 |
| Hazrat Nizamudin | 10.25 | 2 | - |
a) The number of stations between Chennai Central and Hazrat Nizamudin is______.
- five
- ten
- eight
- eleven
b) The train is expected to reach ______ around 8.45 PM
- Warangal
- Vijayawada
- Bhopal
- Nagpur
c) Between ______ the train runs at its maximum speed.
- Bhopal and Gwalior
- Bhopal and Jhansi
- Bhopal and Hazarat Nizamudin
- Bhopal and Agra
d) Almost ______ the train reaches Vijayawada.
- the day after
- around early morning
- late night
- around noon
e) People prefer the Rajadhani Express to travel from Chennai to reach the capital because ______.
- it reaches the destination on the same day
- the charge is reasonable.
- the train halts at ten stations.
- it is the shortest route from Chennai to New Delhi.
f) The destination of Rajadhani express is______.
- Hazarat Nizamudin.
- New Delhi junction.
- Old Delhi.
- Rajkot.
