“One day back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream. ” The story begins in a

Question

“One day back there in the good old days when I was nine and the world was full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and mysterious dream. ” The story begins in a mood of nostalgia. Can you narrate some incident from your childhood that might make an interesting story?

Answer in Brief

Solution

A model answer has been provided for students' reference.

It is strongly recommended that students prepare the answer on their own.

We are a small happy family consisting of three members. Luckily, we shared a common hobby of travelling. We were in the lap of Himalayas, somewhere near Ranikhet in the Garhwal range, when suddenly my parents suggested that I should study in a residential school there. I seemed extremely elated with the fantastic idea. Years later, when I was in Grade 7, my parents started searching for a good boarding school where they could put me in for my further studies. I don't have words that could describe my exact feeling at that point of time. I was very happy as well as equally scared at the very thought of living separate from my family. I knew this very well by then that this would be a final farewell from my home and my family. Further studies, college and now in a job, I have always gone back home on vacations and had a very great time, but I have always been very aware deep inside that I was a boarder and had to leave within a few days. I never knew where the towel was hung, when the milkman came, when my mother sat down to have her evening tea, nothing. I did not even find it necessary to know all these minor details because I knew one thing for sure, I was a guest for merely a week so why bother!

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Reading Skills

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Q 3.Q 2.Q 4.

Chapter 1: The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse - Reading with insight [Page 8]

APPEARS IN

NCERT English Snapshots (Core) Class 11

Chapter 1 The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse
Reading with insight | Q 3. | Page 8

RELATED QUESTIONS

A1. True or False
State whether the following statements are true or false:
(1) The author's new house was situated at Bangalore.
(2) The writer was delighted because their new house, was the biggest they ever lived.

One of the advantages of growing up in an Army household was the frequency with which we moved. 'Postings' came with predictable regularity every three years. What was unpredictable and therefore exciting was the suspense. Where would we go this time? Ambala, Pune, Dehradun, Allahabad, Tejpur, Bangalore, Yo! ............ In my short span of thirteen years we had moved lock. stock and barrel eleven times!
Every move meant change. New journeys, new places, new schools, my new books, new uniforms, new friends and new houses. We lived in tents, bashas, Nissen huts, flats and bungalows. No matter what the shape and size of the dwelling, mother soon put her own special stamp on it and transformed it into a familiar place - our home - complete with bright yellow-curtains, coffee-brown carpet, assorted pictures, hanging ferns and potted palms - providing a comforting sense of continuity in our essentially nomadic life.
I was thirteen, the year we moved to the Cantonment at Allahabad. In stark contrast to the razzle-dazzle of the city's commercial areas like Katra and Chowk, the Cantonment was a quiet, orderly place with broad tree-lined roads that still carried the names of long-dead Britishers. Our bungalow was on a sleepy by-lane called MacPherson Road. When we first saw it, my brothers and I were delighted. It was by far the biggest house we had ever lived in. The task of furnishing those huge, echoing rooms daunted Mother.

A2. Complete
a. The broad tree-lined roads were named after.............................
b. Katra and Chowk are .............................
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A3. Personal response
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Life is a gift to be used every day,
Not to be smothered and hidden away,
It isn’t a thing to be stored in the chest
Where you gather your keepsakes and treasure your best;
It isn’t a joy to be sipped now and then
And promptly put back in a dark place again

Life is a gift that the humblest may boast of
And one that the humblest may well make the most of
Get out and live it each hour of the day,
Wear it and use it as much as you may,
Don’t keep it in niches and corners and grooves,
You’ll find that in service its beauty improves.

(1) What do we treasure in a chest?
(2) How does the poet went us to use the gift of life?
(3) Do you agree that life should be measured un deeds and not in years? Why?
(4) Which words in the poem mean the following :
(a) Kept from developing
(b) Hollow places in a wall
(5) Life is a gift to be used every day. [Name and explain the figure of speech]

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