Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
What do Prashant and other volunteers resist the plan to set up institutions for orphans and widows? What alternatives do they consider?
Advertisements
Solution
Prashant and the other volunteers resisted the plan to set up institutions for orphans and widows because they felt that in such institutions, children would grow up without love and the widows would suffer from stigma and loneliness. Prashant’s group believed that orphans should be resettled in their community itself, possibly in new foster families made up of childless widows and children without adult care.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
Thinking about Poem
The poet says “No” in the beginning of the third stanza. What does he mean by this?
How does Bill Bryson end up in a “crash position” in the aircraft?
You can find more information about Robert Frost at the following websites.
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=1961.
Hear the poet (who died almost forty years ago!) reading the poem at
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm ?prmID= 1645
To view a beautiful New England scene with each poem on this web site: "Illustrated
Poetry of Robert Frost":
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/1487/index.html
Read the following story
There lived a wise old man in Purkul, Dehradun. The villagers looked up to him and approached him for all their problems. Three naughty boys Amar, Naveen and Praveen wanted to test the old man's wisdom. One fine morning they caught a butterfly while playing in the garden. Amar had the
butterfly in his hand. He said, "We will go to the old man and ask him ifthe butterfly is dead or alive. If the old man says, 'the butterfly is dead', I will open my hands and release the butterfly. It will fly away." "If he says it is alive?" asked N aveen looking at Amar with a smirk. "I will crush the butterfly and show him the dead insect," said Amar. The three of them set forth with their wonderful plan.
Amar went to the old man and said, "Sir, the villagers say you can predict the future. Now tell us if the butterfly in my hand is dead or alive?" The old man looked at the three boys with a serene smile and said, "It is in your hands."
What does he plant who plants a tree? a
He plants a friend of sun and sky;b
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh;
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard____
The treble of heaven's harmony_____
These things he plants who plants a tree.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death's still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
What does this say about what prejudice can do to people and the importance of working together?
Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair...
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
Explain the line’ lustrous tokens of radiant lives’.
Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling,luminous,tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
The poet has used several expressions which form pictures in the readers mind “fields of sunlit corn” and “circles of light”. Pick out more such expressions from the poem.
An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What does the reference to the old man in the beginning and the end of the passage indicate?
Read the extract given below and answer tire questions that follow:
Trotter: (Leaning on the refectory table) Those simple actions took you rather a long time, didn’t they, Mr Ralston?
Giles: I don’t think so. (He moves away to the stairs)
Trotter: I should say you definitely - took your time over them.
Giles: I was thinking about something.
Trotter: Very well. Now then, Mr Wren, I’ll have your account of where you were.
(i) What 'simple actions' of Giles was Trotter referring to? Where had Giles been? Who had sent him there?
(ii) How did Christopher Wren account for his whereabouts at the time of tire murder?
(iii} Where was Paravicini at that time? What was he doing?
(iv) Whom did Giles accuse of having committed the murder? On what did he base this accusation?
(v) Mollie shared her suspicions regarding the identity of the murderer with Trotter, later in this scene. Whom did she suspect of being the murderer? What reasons did she give for the suspicion?
Why did he ask for the king’s forgiveness?
What was the king’s reaction when he came to know that he had lost the challenge?
What type of shopkeeper was Mr. Purcell?
What was Vijay Singh’s weakness? Which awkward situation did it push him into?
Make noun from the word given below by adding –ness, ity, ty or y
honest ___________.
Make noun from the word given below by adding –ness, ity, ty or y
Bitter ___________.
The little elf was a nag. How did it tell Patrick’s health?
The words given against the sentences below can be used both as nouns and verbs. Use them appropriately to fill in the blanks.
(i) The boys put up a good athletic____________________________ . (show)
(ii) The soldiers ________________________ great courage in saving people from floods.
Why does the rebel choose to Wear fantastic Clothes?
Read the passage given below and answer the questions (i), (ii) and (iii) that follow:
|
(1) |
Something happens to cats after we have enjoyed a delicious meal. Call it a feline sugar hit or a rush of good feelings. Abandoning our usually sedentary nature, we transform into crazy beasts who thunder down corridors, spring from one piece of furniture to another, or pounce from behind half-closed doors to attack the shoelaces of unsuspecting passersby. It is as though we are temporarily possessed. |
5 |
|
(2) |
That, at least, is my excuse, dear reader - and the only explanation I can offer for my entirely unplanned global TV debut. |
|
|
(3) |
To be fair, I had no way of knowing that my master was receiving visitors that particular afternoon. Nor that he was being interviewed live, let alone by one of America’s most famous journalists. |
10 |
|
(4) |
All I knew was that, a few minutes after gorging myself on a favourite treat of creamy pudding, I felt that sudden, primal explosion of energy. I made my way back to the suite of rooms that I shared with my master and felt an overpowering compulsion to do something completely mad. I wanted to run like a furious jungle cat, at that particular moment. |
15 |
|
(5) |
Bursting through the door of the room in which my master received visitors, I tore up the carpet as I raced towards the sofa opposite where he was sitting. I ripped its fabric as I scrambled up its side like a savage creature clawing its way up a perilous cliff. Then with a final, frenzied burst, I launched myself off one arm of the sofa, leaping towards the other. |
20 |
|
(6) |
It was only at this point that I realised the sofa was occupied by the journalist. She was halfway through a sentence, and my abrupt appearance caught my master's guest completely by surprise. |
|
|
(7) |
You know, when something truly unexpected happens, time can seem to slow down. Well, that’s how it was. As I flew past the woman's face, her expression turned from one of calm engagement to that of total surprise. |
25 |
|
(8) |
I As she pushed back in her seat to avoid me, the shock on her face could not have been more evident. |
|
|
(9) |
But, dear reader, she was not more shaken than me. I had not been expecting anyone on the sofa, let alone a TV celebrity, nor one who was mid-interview. As I headed towards the opposite end of the sofa, for the first time I observed the lighting, the cameras and the crew watching the action from the shadows. By the time I landed on the other arm of the sofa, all the energy that had propelled me was gone. |
30
35 |
|
(10) |
I was, no longer, a furious jungle cat. |
|
|
(11) |
The journalist looked at me. I looked at her. Both of us were taking in what had just happened. I was also conscious of the cameras still rolling as well as many pairs of eyes watching me at that moment. My moment of global glory. |
|
|
|
Adapted from: The Dalai Lama's Cat Omnibus |
|
(i)
- Given below are three words and phrases. Find the words which have a similar meaning in the passage: [3]
- inactive
- eating in a greedy manner
- dangerous
- For each of the words given below, write a sentence of at least ten words using the same word unchanged in form, but with a different meaning from that which it carries in the passage: [3]
- thunder (line 3)
- spring (line 3)
- past (line 26)
(ii) Answer the following questions in your own words as briefly as possible:
- What is the usual nature of the narrator's kind? How is it differently presented in the passage? [2]
- What did the 'favourite treat of creamy pudding' do to the narrator? [2]
- Describe the actions of the narrator after bursting into the visitors' room. [2]
- How did the journalist react when the narrator 'flew past' her face? [2]
(iii) Summarise how the narrator became a global celebrity (paragraphs 4 to 11). You are required to write the summary in the form of a connected passage in about 100 words. Failure to keep within the word limit will be penalised. [6]
