08: The Blue Bead By Norah Burke : Icse-x-english

Change Unit Change Subject Last Menu

ICSE-X-English

08: The Blue Bead by Norah Burke

with Solutions - page 2

Note: Please signup/signin free to get personalized experience.

10 minutes can boost your percentage by 10%

Note: Please signup/signin free to get personalized experience.

Qstn #2
Which things attracted Sibia on her way to work?
Ans : Sibia was a little girl with little likings. She did not have high expectations. Very petty things attracted her attention. She could even enjoy the sight and smell of the honey confections, abuzz with dust and flies at the sweetmeat stall. The smell was wonderful above the smells of drains and humanity and cheap cigarettes. At home, she sometimes tasted wild honey or crunched the syrup out of a stalk of sugar cane. There was the cloth stall stacked with great rolls of new cotton cloth, stamped at the age with the maker's sign of a tiger's head and the smell was so dear to her that she could stand by it whole day.

Qstn #3
Other wonders also fascinated her. What were they?
Ans : The other wonders that fascinated her were satin sewn with real silver thread tin trays from Birmingham and a saree which had got chips of looking glass embroidered into the border. She also liked to follow the Kashmiri merchant on his way to bungalows. He had dawn coloured silks that poured like cream, a little locked chest with turquoises and opals in it. Best of all the things was a box which when pressed, a bell tinkled and a yellow woollen chicken jumped out of it.

Qstn #4
Which thoughts never troubled her?
Ans : Sibia was marked only for work since birth. She had started husking the corn and gathering sticks, putting the dung to dry, cooked and weeded, and carried and fetched the water and cut the grass for fodder, when she was just a toddler. She accompanied her mother to get the paper grass to sell it to the agent who was rich enough to sit on silk cushions smoking a hookah. But these things never troubled her.

Qstn #5
Why couldn't Sibia skip during her return journey?
Ans : Sibia was a child-woman but she had the heart of a child. She was not bothered by the thoughts of an agent sitting on silk cushions or smoking hookah. She, with her mother and other women, toiled all through the day. She skipped along with her sickle and homemade hayfork beside her mother. But on the way back home she couldn't skip due to excessive tiredness when the back ached and had a great load to carry.

#
Section : IV
The women came out on the shore, and made for the stepping-stones. They had plenty to laugh and bicker about, as they approached the river in a noisy crowd. They girded up their skirts, so as to jump from stone to stone, and they clanked their sickles and forks together over their shoulders to have ease of movement. They shouted their quarrels above the gush of the river. Noise frightens crocodiles.

Qstn #1
What were the ornaments of the village women? Why could not she make a necklace for herself?
Ans : The village women who wore the necklaces made of shiny scarlet seeds, black at one end, that grew everywhere in the jungle looked very beautiful to Sibia. They were made every year as it was better to discard the old faded ones. Sibia was making one for her too. But the seed was hard to pierce, it required a red hot needle and the family needle was snapped. So she could not make it for herself.

Qstn #2
Who were 'nomadic graziers'? Describe the nomadic Gujars.
Ans : Nomadic graziers are the people who roam from one place to another without a fixed pattern along with their cattle. While going towards the river, the village women passed a Gujar encampment where these nomadic graziers would live for a short period of time. They lived till their animals finish all the grazing or are unable to sell their white butter and white milk in the district or there is no one to buy the young male buffaloes for tiger bait.

Qstn #3
How were the Gujar women dressed? OR
What did Sibia notice about the Gujar women's appearance?
Ans : Sibia looked at the Gujar women as she went past. They were wearing trousers, tight and wrinkled at the ankles. In their ears, they wore large silver rings which were made out of melted rupees. One of the women was clinking a stick against the big brass gurrahs in which they fetched water from the river for the camp, to see which ones were empty.

Qstn #4
Where had the boys and men of Gujar community gone? Why were they called junglis?
Ans : The men and the boys of the Gujar community were out of the camp either with their herd for grazing or gone to the bazaar to sell the product when the women were away to fetch the water from the river. The Gujars were junglis as they were born and bred in the forest. They did not know the world outside the jungle. For many centuries, their forebears had lived like this, getting their living from animals, grass and trees. They were a man in the wandering Pastoral Age, not Stone Age hunters and not yet Cultivators.

Qstn #5
Why did the women make noises while crossing the river?
Ans : There was a river on the way where the women went to collect the paper grass twinkling between the trees, sunlit beyond dark trunks. The women came out on the shore and made for the stepping stones. They laughed and quarrelled while going towards the river. They clanked their sickles and forks together over their shoulders. They shouted above the gush of the river. It was all due to keeping the crocodiles away as the noises frightened them.

#
Section : V
Sibia hung back. She would just dawdle a bit and run and see if the little clay cups were still there in the cave, waiting to be painted and used. Although the women were now tired and loaded, they still talked. Tose in front yelled to those behind. They crossed the river safely and disappeared up the track into the trees on the other side. Even their voices died away. Silence fell. Sibia came down alone to the stepping-stones.

Qstn #1
What was the course of flow of the river which the women used to cross?
Ans : After crossing the river, the women had to climb the hillside to get the paper grass. Down below them was the broad river pouring powerfully out from its deep narrow pools among the cold cliffs and shadows, spreading into warm shallows, lit by kingfishers. Great turtles lived there along with mahseer which weighed more than a hundred pounds.

Qstn #2
Under what conditions did Sibia work? What did she keep in the cave?
Ans : Sibia was a hard worker. She worked nonstop under her mother's vigilance but her imagination sore high over the bright water and golden air to the banks where she had played as a child. She had stored some little bowls, moulded of clay while they hardened for painting. The only thing that cooled her sweating body was wind coming across the hundreds of miles of trees.

Qstn #3
Why was Sibia's mother angry with her? What was Sibia's reaction when her mother shouted at her?
Ans : The women used to climb a still hillside across the river to get the grass. Sibia also worked with them in harsh conditions but she never thought of that. Even she did not dare to stop for a moment but her imagination took a flight over the bright water and golden air to the banks where she had played as a child. In the cavelets above the high water mark of the highest flood, she had kept some little bowls of moulded clay for coloring while they hardened. Suddenly her mother cried in a sharp voice, "Child!" Hearing this and looking at the glare of her mother's angry sweating face pulled Sibia back to work.

Qstn #4
What was the condition of the women when they return?
Ans : In the evening, after collecting the grass, it was the time to go back for women to see their animals and the evening meal. The women carried the load and set out to cross the river again. Sibia hung back. She would walk slowly and run to see if the clay cups were still there in the cave. The women were now tired and loaded. Still, they talked. Those who were in front yelled to those who were behind. They crossed the river safely and disappeared in the track into the trees on the other side.