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What were the lessons of life learnt in her younger days that Kumudini carried into her adult life?

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What were the lessons of life learnt in her younger days that Kumudini carried into her adult life?

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Solution

During her younger days Kumudini learnt many lessons that she carried into her adult life. She relates one incident when she used to stay in Delhi in a sprawling house allotted to her engineer father. Liaquat Ali(later Prime Minister of Pakistan) used to be their neighbour. When one day she saw and her brother were caught by his gardener picking guavas from his tree, Liaquat Ali did not punish them but gave an open invitation to pick the fruits whenever they wished. The author says that it was one of her first lessons in the games that politicians play.

In Queen Mary's college in Lahore, she could learn the value of discipline. She believes that discipline in one's daily routine does bring discipline in thinking. When her mother died she could learn the pangs of hunger. This shows up in her work. She could understand the nature of conflict which she dealt with in a play called Duvidha.

Kumudini could learn to differentiate between sensitivity and sentimentality. In her adult days she created a piece called Panch Paras, the five senses, to explore this realm. Kumudini relates how she learnt a lesson from Ram Gopal that before one begins to experiment, one need to perfect the technique with one experiment.
Kumudini could learn about her own personality touring with Ram Gopal.

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Chapter 3.7: Bridges - Understanding the text [Page 196]

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NCERT English Woven Words (Elective) Class 11
Chapter 3.7 Bridges
Understanding the text | Q 2 | Page 196

RELATED QUESTIONS

B1. Find reasons
(i) The effect of receding forest …………………………………. .
(ii) The number of animals is reduced because ………………………. .
(iii) Elephants entered the city because…………………… .
(iv) Elephants lived a wary life …………………….. .

On the left bank of the Ganga, where it emerges from the Himalayan foothills, there is a long stretch of heavy forest. There are villages on the fringe of the forest, inhabited by bamboo cutters and farmers, but there are few signs of commerce or pilgrimage. Hunters, however, have found the area an ideal hunting ground during the last seventy years, and as a result, the animals are not as numerous as they used to be. The trees, too, have been disappearing slowly; and, as the forest recedes, the animals lose their food and shelter and move further on into the foothills. Slowly, they are being denied the right to live
Only the elephants can cross the river. And two years ago, when a large area of the forest was cleared to make way for a refugee resettlement camp, a herd of elephants - finding their favourite food, the green shoots of the bamboo, in short supply - waded across the river. They crashed through the suburbs of Haridwar, knocked down a factory wall, pulled down several tin roofs, held up a train, and left a trail of devastation in their wake until they found a new home in a new forest which was still untouched. Here, they settled down to a new life but an unsettled, wary life. They did not know when men would appear again, with tractors,bulldozers and dynamite.

B2. Find out
Mention four things the elephants did when they found shortage of food:
(i)………………
(ii)………
(iii) …………
(iv) ………….

B3.Phrases
Make meaningful sentences by selecting any two of the following phrases:
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(ii) in short
(iii) on the fringe of.

B4. Language study
Select the proper alternative to make the correct voice:
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-An ideal hunting ground ........found by hunters. (had been, has been, was)
(ii) They are being denied the right to live.
- The people ........them the right to live. (are denying, were denying, denying)

B5.Personal response
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Read the following extract carefully and complete the activities given below :
A1 Complete the following : 
(i)
Books were found on the _____________ and ____________.
(ii) The tales are described as ______________ and __________.

 

Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One-half of their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
 
A2  What kind of books does the poet mention?

A3  Poetic Device :
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
Which words are repeated?

The figure of speech is _______________

Complete the call-outs:
A.1)

Our world is an institution
Of environmental pollution
We choose not to care
For our future generations
And I for one am guilty
For buying the hundreds of electronic gadgets
That attracts the industries to produce like maggots
environmental pollution is at the heart of our planet
The forests are dying
Wildlife is crying
Millions of fish are dying
Mother earth is sighing
Tell me is it right
That we sleep well at night
Replenishing ourselves
For tomorrow’s greedy fight
Overcrowded trains
Overloaded brains
Where is the light? What is our plight?
While the river break their banks
And greedy industries play their polluted pranks.

 

A.2) Find the examples that show that we do not care for our future generation

A.3) Match:
Match the lines in Column ‘A’ with the figures of speech in Column ‘B’: 

  Column ‘A’    Column ‘B’ 
(i) Our world is an institution  (a)  Personification 

(ii) Mother earth is sighing (b)  Simile
    (c) Metaphor

Read the text below and summarise it.

Green Sahara

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.

JOEL ACHENBACK
Staff Writer, Washington Post

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Happy Moments Sad Moments
1. Winning the first prize in a competition Losing your mobile, bicycle, or wallet
2.  
3.  

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Epics are long poems that ______________________.


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Charlie Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889, in London England. His birth name was Charles Spencer Chaplin, though he had many nicknames growing up such as Charlie, Charlot, and The Little Tramp. His father, Charles Chaplin, and his mother, Hannah Chaplin, were inducted into the music hall of fame, leading the way to his exposure even as a young boy. His first onstage moment was when he was 5 years old; he sang a song that was intended to be sung by his own mother; she had become ill at the time of the performance, so little Charlie Chaplin stood instead and performed for his mother.

Charlie Chaplin came to the United States in 1910, at the age of 21. He was brought to New York, which was known to be a great place to start out for anyone trying to become a professional actor. Two years later, in 1913, Chaplin signed his very first contract at Keystone and it was no time before he headed to Hollywood. His first movie premiered in 1914, “Making a Living,” and went on to make over 35 movies total in that year alone. Charlie Chaplin grew to become one of the most popular and successful actors of all time. The moment that really kicked off his long career was in 1921 when he starred in, and produced, his first full-length film called “The Kid.” From then on, most people all over the world knew Charlie Chaplin and loved his movies. He had a great career and life, dying on December 25, 1977, in Vevey, Switzerland. He had apparently died of natural causes in his sleep from old age.


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What did Gilson want the writer to bring for him?


Read the following line from the poem and answer the question given below.

They growl at that and they growl at this;
Whatever comes, there is something amiss;

  1. What does the word ‘growl’ mean here?
  2. Why do they find everything amiss?

Identify the speaker/character.

‘ The one that spits deadly poison straight into its opponent’s eyes.’


What did Aravind confess?


Underline the words or phrases that tell you what the wind does to the village.


He exercised with Louise every day.


Identify the speaker/character.

They somehow managed to put him on the platform.


How did Gulliver overcome the adversity?


The eggs hatched and the babies flew away.


What was the epidemic that broke out in the story?


How was he honoured by the Indian government?


Name the character or speaker.

"The robot will do all your work."


Choose and write the adverbs to complete the sentence.

She won the game _____


The official visited the rehabilitation centre daily.


Why relationships are more important than wealth?


Read the advertisement and answer the question given below.

When does the offer end?


Imagine your world and write its qualities in the cloud.


List the things that humans should save.


Choose the correct one.

Rooster


Write the word with same meaning.

pants- ______


Mugund learnt the art from his ______.


Why did the headmaster give Megala a special prize?


How did the boy enjoy the company of the tree?


What did the books in the library look like ?


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______.

  1. five
  2. ten
  3. eight
  4. eleven

b) The train is expected to reach ______ around 8.45 PM

  1. Warangal
  2. Vijayawada
  3. Bhopal
  4. Nagpur

c) Between ______ the train runs at its maximum speed.

  1. Bhopal and Gwalior 
  2. Bhopal and Jhansi
  3. Bhopal and Hazarat Nizamudin
  4. Bhopal and Agra

d) Almost ______ the train reaches Vijayawada.

  1. the day after
  2. around early morning
  3. late night
  4. around noon

e) People prefer the Rajadhani Express to travel from Chennai to reach the capital because ______.

  1. it reaches the destination on the same day
  2. the charge is reasonable.
  3. the train halts at ten stations.
  4. it is the shortest route from Chennai to New Delhi.

f) The destination of Rajadhani express is______.

  1. Hazarat Nizamudin.
  2. New Delhi junction.
  3. Old Delhi.
  4. Rajkot.

Mention any three details that should not be revealed in public domain.


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