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Question
Describe the changing relationship between the author and his grandmother. Did their feelings for each other change?
Solution
The story highlights the evolving relationship between the author and his grandmother. In his early childhood, they shared a close bond, but it weakened when they moved to the city. She stopped accompanying him to school, and the distance grew further when he went to university and later abroad for five years. Despite these changes, their affection for each other remained unchanged. Though she rarely showed emotions, she celebrated his homecoming wholeheartedly after his return.
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RELATED QUESTIONS
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
1. Air pollution is an issue which concerns us all alike. One can willingly choose or reject a food, a drink or a life comfort, but unfortunately there is little choice for the air we breathe. All, what is there in the air is inhaled by one and all living in those surroundings.
2. Air pollutant is defined as a substance which is present while normally it is not there or present in an amount exceeding the normal concentrations. It could either be gaseous or a particulate matter. The important and harmful polluting gases are carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ozone and oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. The common particulate pollutants are the dusts of various inorganic or organic origins. Although we often talk of the outdoor air pollutions caused by industrial and vehicular exhausts, the indoor pollution may prove to be as or a more important cause of health problems.
3. Recognition of air pollution is relatively recent. It is not uncommon to experience a feeling of 'suffocation' in a closed environment. It is often ascribed to the lack of oxygen. Fortunately, however, the composition of air is remarkably constant all over the world. There is about 79 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen in the air − the other gases forming a very small fraction. It is true that carbon dioxide exhaled out of lungs may accumulate in a closed and over-crowded place. But such an increase is usually small and temporary unless the room is really air-tight. Exposure to poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide may occur in a closed room, heated by burning coal inside. This may also prove to be fatal.
4. What is more common in a poorly ventilated home is a vague constellation of symptoms described as the sick-building syndrome. It is characterized by a general feeling of malaise, head-ache, dizziness and irritation of mucous membranes. It may also be accompanied by nausea, itching, aches, pains and depression. Sick building syndrome is getting commoner in big cities with the small houses, which are generally over-furnished. Some of the important pollutants whose indoor concentrations exceed those of the outdoors include gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and organic substances like spores, formaldehydes, hydrocarbon aerosols and allergens. The sources are attributed to a variety of construction materials, insulations, furnishings, adhesives, cosmetics, house dusts, fungi and other indoor products.
5. By-products of fuel combustion are important in houses with indoor kitchens. It is not only the brining of dried dung and fuelwood which is responsible, but also kerosene and liquid petroleum gas. Oxides of both nitrogen and sulphur are released from their combustion.
6. Smoking of tobacco in the closed environment is an important source of indoor pollution. It may not be high quantitatively, but significantly hazardous for health. It is because of the fact that there are over 3000 chemical constituents in tobacco smoke, which have been identified. These are harmful for human health.
7. Micro-organisms and allergens are of special significance in the causation and spread of diseases. Most of the infective illnesses may involve more persons of a family living in common indoor environment. These include viral and bacterial diseases like tuberculosis.
8. Besides infections, allergic and hypersensitivity disorders are spreading fast. Although asthma is the most common form of respiratory allergic disorders, pneumonias are not uncommon, but more persistent and serious. These are attributed to exposures to allergens from various fungi, molds, hay and other organic materials. Indoor air ventilation systems, coolers, air-conditioners, dampness, decay, pet animals, production or handling of the causative items are responsible for these hypersensitivity − diseases.
9. Obviously, the spectrum of pollution is very wide and our options are limited. Indoor pollution may be handled relatively easily by an individual. Moreover, the good work must start from one’s own house
(Extracted from the Tribune)
(a) (i) What is an air pollutant? (1)
(ii) In what forms are the air pollutants present? (2)
(iii) Why do we feel suffocated in a closed environment? (1)
(iv) What is sick building syndrome? How is it increasing? (2)
(v) How is indoor smoking very hazardous? (1)
(vi) How can one overcome the dangers of indoor air pollution? (2)
(b) Find the words from the above passage which mean the same as the following: (3)
(i) giddiness (para 4)
(ii) constant (para 8)
(iii) humidity (para 8)
Comment on the influence of English – the language and the way of life – on Indian life as reflected in the story. What is the narrator's attitude to English?
Did the boys return the horse because they were conscience-stricken or because they were afraid?
Look at the following set of words and mention what is common to them both in form and meaning.
Snuffle |
snort |
sniffle |
snore |
What impression would you form of a state where the King was 'just and placid'?
Identify the common characteristics shared by tribal communities all over the world.
Paraphrase the poem in your own simple language. Write it down in your notebook.
The soldier-bees carry home ______.
Form pairs. Make a list of as many games as you can. (At least 25) Then classify the games using the following criteria:
- Indoor and outdoor games.
- Games played with and without any equipment.
- Games which have one-to-one matches and those in which teams play against each other (Single-player or team)
- Games played mostly by children and games played by adult players.
- Shape and size of the court or field.
Use the following figures to show your classification.
Discuss what makes the following sentences funny.
- Your wasted time will be refunded.
- There was no highway attached to the booth.
Answer in your own words.
What excuses did Neel give to avoid cleaning his room?
Mention the various places that the brook flows past.
Write your own impressions about the news items given in (a), (b), (c), and (d) in the table below.
News item | Good news Bad news | Reliable Unreliable | Interesting Uninteresting Boring | Others |
(a) | ||||
(b) | ||||
(c) | ||||
(d) |
Gather more information about cold winters in Russia.
Find the meaning of the following word.
delicious
How was the young seagull’s first attempt to fly?
Read the incident again and answer the following question.
When did the writer remember the fact that he had to buy something for Mr. Gilson?
What was the e-mail message sent to Somu by Dr.Krishnan?
With their treasure, the boys would buy ______ in Eidgah.
What story did grandfather tell them about the haunted hill?
stained by - mark made on clothes or materials
The white washed walls were stained by many monsoons. ______
The author did not want to plant saplings in the forest because______.
Why did the girl reply haughtily?
Jaswantgarh is named after the Indian soldier ______.
Identify the character or the speaker.
“I will camp here for the night.”
Like whom did they want to do?
What was Farhan's father's advice to his son?
Why did the headmaster give Megala a special prize?
On the basis of your understanding of the given passage, make notes in any appropriate format.
The Sherpas were nomadic people who first migrated from Tibet approximately 600 years ago, through the Nangpa La pass and settled in the Solukhumbu District, Nepal. These nomadic people then gradually moved westward along salt trade routes. During 14th century, Sherpa ancestors migrated from Kham. The group of people from the Kham region, east of Tibet, was called “Shyar Khamba”. The inhabitants of Shyar Khamba, were called Sherpa. Sherpa migrants travelled through Ü and Tsang, before crossing the Himalayas. According to Sherpa oral history, four groups migrated out of Solukhumbu at different times, giving rise to the four fundamental Sherpa clans: Minyagpa, Thimmi, Sertawa and Chawa. These four groups have since split into the more than 20 different clans that exist today
Sherpas had little contact with the world beyond the mountains and they spoke their own language. AngDawa, a 76-year-old former mountaineer recalled “My first expedition was to Makalu [the world’s fifth highest mountain] with Sir Edmund Hillary’’. We were not allowed to go to the top. We wore leather boots that got really heavy when wet, and we only got a little salary, but we danced the Sherpa dance, and we were able to buy firewood and make campfires, and we spent a lot of the time dancing and singing and drinking. Today Sherpas get good pay and good equipment, but they don’t have good entertainment. My one regret is that I never got to the top of Everest. I got to the South Summit, but I never got a chance to go for the top.
The transformation began when the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and the New Zealander Edmund Hillary scaled Everest in 1953. Edmund Hillary took efforts to build schools and health clinics to raise the living standards of the Sherpas. Thus life in Khumbu improved due to the efforts taken by Edmund Hillary and hence he was known as ‘Sherpa King’.
Sherpas working on the Everest generally tend to perish one by one, casualties of crevasse falls, avalanches, and altitude sickness. Some have simply disappeared on the mountain, never to be seen again. Apart from the bad seasons in 1922, 1970 and 2014 they do not die en masse. Sherpas carry the heaviest loads and pay the highest prices on the world’s tallest mountain. In some ways, Sherpas have benefited from the commercialization of the Everest more than any group, earning income from thousands of climbers and trekkers drawn to the mountain. While interest in climbing Everest grew gradually over the decades after the first ascent, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the economic motives of commercial guiding on Everest began. This leads to eclipse the amateur impetus of traditional mountaineering. Climbers looked after each other for the love of adventure and “the brotherhood of the rope” now are tending to mountain businesses. Sherpas have taken up jobs as guides to look after clients for a salary. Commercial guiding agencies promised any reasonably fit person a shot at Everest.
Pick out word which mean the same as
place or fix (para 2)