FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH - KSEEB - CLASS 07 - COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - INDIA THROUGH THE EYES OF A FOREIGNER

Unit – 05

INDIA THROUGH THE EYES OF A FOREIGNER 

C. Listening, Speaking and Writing

Take turns with your partner to ask or answer these questions. Explain to him/her why you think your answer is correct. Quote from the text if necessary. Write down your answers.

 

1) Mark Tully thought he would be closely connected with others in many activities in India.
Ans: True.

 

2) Mark was not able to make friends in India.
Ans: Not True.

 

3) “That, of course, is only part of the truth,” he says. What is “part of the truth”?

Ans: The foreigner is staying in India because of his friends and he is drawn to India’s beauty. Thus, this is the part of truth.

 

4) He watched the sunset in two places. What was the difference?

Ans: He viewed the dusk in two spots and the thing that matters was nightfall looked out for the Himalayan Mountains; other was looked out for the Middle Eastern Ocean. He saw the dusks in Great Himalayan Public Park where the mountains sparkled in the nightfall while in Kerala over the Arabian Sea looked as the sun slid like an extraordinary red arch.

 

5) He says he liked the early summer smells of India. What are they? Why do they evoke nostalgia in him?

Ans: The late-spring smells are dry fragrances in Delhi as the blue jacarandas, the red Gul Mohar, and different trees come into blossom, the sweet smell of the sovereign of the night and the newness of first of pine trees in the lower regions of the Himalayas after a long, hot and dusty drive over the fields. There are people tunes and traditional music with ragas that start with such gravity and end in rapture brings out sentimentality in him. They summon sentimentality in him since he is helped to remember such excellent sights back in Britain.

 

6) Why was the smell of pines particularly refreshing for him?

Ans: The smell of pines particularly refreshing for him because the foreigner was undertaking a very long and dusty drive across the plains.

 

7) Mark says he is perhaps the only foreigner who believes India and Indians are very special.
Ans: Not True.

 

8) Why, do you think, we Indians accept Mark, a foreigner, as one of us?

Ans: India is a nation of solidarity in assorted variety. No other nation has endless religions dialects, societies, customs, and so on. We have the nature of benevolent nature which makes us invite anyone who comes here. We Indians acknowledge everyone whoever comes to India. Similarly, Imprint was likewise acknowledged as one of us.

 

Exercise 1:

Answer these questions using the present participle and say how it is used.

a) What is Peacock doing?
Ans: Peacock is dancing.

 

b) What was the bird doing?
Ans: The bird was flying in the sky.

 

c) What will you be doing this evening?
Ans: I’ll be going to the cinema.

 

d) What is mother cooking all morning?
Ans: Mother is cooking breakfast.

 

Exercise 2:

Respond to the given sentences using the present participle.

Example: Some birds don’t fly. Some birds are not flying birds.

 

a) The peacock dances.                   

Ans: Some Peacocks are not dancing.

 

b) Is that book good?                     

Ans: Some books are not good for reading.

 

c) There are no buses today. How did you come?      

Ans:  I came riding a cycle

 

d) Why did you open the door?     

Ans:   I heard someone calling.

 

E. Writing.

Working with your partner, supply the missing words in the passage below:

 

A long time a g o an old m a n lived in London. His name was Benjamin Lewis Rice. One m o r n i n g he went to a b o o k Exhibition to see some books. He went o n t o a stall and l o o k e d at some titles. Then he went up to the guide in the s t a l l greeted him, and introduced h i m s e l f. After talking to the man pleasantly a b o u t things in general he burst out:

“Ayya,’ Kannadadalli mathandonave? Muddada Kannada Kiviya mele biddu thumba dinagaladavu.” (“Ayya, shall we speak in Kannada? It is many days since I heard that sweet language!”)

 

Born in Bangalore in 1837, this scho l a r l y type of English M a n had also held high administrative positions in the old Mysore State in M y s o r e. He was Director of Public Instruction, Secretary for Education and the Mysore Archaeological Department’s first Director. What is more, he was a scholar. He had mastered K a n n a d a and translated into E n g l i s h almost 9000 inscriptions from Karnataka. His m o s t notable works are the Epigraphia Carnatica and the Gazetteers.

 

(Source: Smt. Meera Iyer’s article”My Love for Mysore is Unedning” in Deccan Herald, December14, 2010. Historian A. Sundar has written about the incident in the bookstall)