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India Through a Traveller’s Eyes
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Objective Type Questions and Answers
1. Pearl S. Buck visited India to see………….
(a) the Taj Mahal
(b) Fatehpur Sikri
(c) the young intellectuals and the peasants
(d) glories of empire in New Delhi.
Answer:
(c) the young intellectuals and the peasants
2. Kashmir was invaded
(a) by the Japanese invaders
(b) by the Chinese invaders
(c) by Russian invaders
(d) by white barbarian invaders
Answer:
(d) by white barbarian invaders
3. Colonisation had made the Indian
(a) enervated and exhausted
(b) energetic and happy
(c) Bold and Frank
(d) Fearless and independent
Answer:
(a) enervated and exhausted
4. The worst effect of colonisation was seen in the form of………..
(a) happiness
(b) distress
(c) unemployment
(d) freedom
Answer:
(c) unemployment
5. According to the writer, the main quality of a leader is………
(a) Selfishness
(b) Communalism
(c) dishonesty
(d) selflessness
Answer:
(d) selflessness
Very Short Type Questions and Answers
Questions 1.
What does the word colour remind the writer of?
Answer:
The very word colour reminds the writer of the variety of complexion in Indian life, as many as her own American human scene.
Question 2.
What were the benefits of English rule?
Ans. The benefits of the English rule was an education in English and the knowledge of the west, which Indians acquired. They were well-versed talking in English fluently.
Question 3.
Why were the intellectuals in India restless and embittered?
Answer:
The intellectuals in India were disappointed with the British rule because they were not happy to live a life of slavery. As such, they were restless and embittered.
Question 4.
What was the ‘great lesson’ that India had to teach the west?
Answer:
The great lesson that India had to teach the west, was humanity. It is our culture and tradition as well.
Question. 5.
Where was the real indictment against the colonisation to be found?
Answer:
The real indictment against colonialism, however, was to be found in the villages in India. The British rule for all was the ills of India.
Textual Questions and Answers
B. 1.1. Read the following sentences and write ‘T’ for true and ‘F’ for false statements
(i) Pearl S. Buck had an Indian family doctor.
(ii) The Mongolian from Europe invaded Kashmir.
(iii) According to the writer, the Indians belonged to the Caucasian race.
(iv) The first woman President of the General Assembly of the United state was an Indian.
(v) The writer wanted to listen to four groups of people.
(vi) The young Indian intellectuals were disappointed with the English rule.
(vii) Indian were willing to fight in the Second World War at England’s command.
(viii) Indians believed in the mobility of means to achieve a noble end.
(ix) The worst effect of colonisation was seen in towns, in the form of unemployment.
(x) Indians under the British rule had a life span of just twenty-seven years.
Answer:
(i) T (ii) F (iii) T (iv) T (v) F (vi) T (vii) F (viii) T (ix) T (x) T.
B. 1.2. Answer the following questions briefly
Questions 1.
What does the word colour remind the writer of?
Answer:
The very word colour reminds me of the variety of complex in Indian life as many as our own American human scene.
Questions 2.
What were the benefits of English rule?
Answer:
They have availed the benefits the English gave and left the shortcomings of the west the pure and exquisitely enunciated English tongue of nen and women educated on both sides of the globe. English (100 Marks)
Questions 3.
Why were the intellectuals in Indian restless and embittered?
Answer:
The intellectuals in India were disappointed with the British rule as much they were restless and embittered.
Questions 4.
What was the great lesson that India had to teach the west?
Answer:
The great lesson, that India had to teach was humanity. It is our culture and it is our tradition as well.
Questions 5.
Where was the real indictment against the colonisation to be found?
Answer:
The real indictment against colonialism, however, was seen in towns in the form of unemployments. The British rule for all was the ills of India.
Questions 6.
Why was the writer moved at the sight of the children of the Indian villages?
Answer:
The children of the Indian villages were lean, and them, weak and with huge sad dark eyes. The writer moved to see their poor condition and it tore at her heart.
B.2.1. Read the following sentences and write T for true and ‘F’ for false statements
(i) The Writer blames the English rule for all the ills of India.
(ii) Colonisation had made the Indian enervated and exhausted.
(iii) A long period of slavery made people quite dependent.
(iv) According to the writer, selflessness is the main quality of a leader.
(v) Very few people in villages had respect for age and experience.
(vi) The writer did not like the idea of eating with the right hand.
(vii) Indian is by nature religious.
(viii) The book ‘Come, My Beloved’ has an Indian background.
(ix) A Christian missionary believes that ‘God is the one’.
Answer:
(i) T (ii) T (iii) T (iv) T (v) F (vi) T (vii) T (viii) T (ix) T.
B.2.2. Answer the following questions briefly
Question 1.
Why was the land between Bombay and Madras famished?
Answer:
It is so because due to scarcity of water was no food and it was burning like a hot desert.
Question 2.
Why did the Indian always blame the British for their suffering?
Answer:
The Indian always blame the British for their suffering because it is an easy excuse to run away from their problems and realities.
Question 3.
Who was the real master of the house which Buck visited?
Answer:
The real master of the house which Buck visited was a younger brother.
Question 4.
Why did the writer not mind her host eating in the opposite comer of the room?
Answer:
It is so because he was able to understand that this reaction was due to their difference in culture.
Question 5.
What does she mean by saying’ Religion is ever-present in Indian life’?
Answer:
By saying so the writer means that is Indians life religion is a very important thing. All are very closely related to religion and it is present in all spheres of life.
Question 6.
What are her views on the Christian missionaries?
Answer:
The author says that for of all the people that I have known the missionary it, in his way, the most dedicated, the most single-hearted. He believes that God is the One the Father of mankind and that all men are brothers. At least the Christian says he so believes and so he preaches.
C. 1. Long Answer Questions
Question 1.
How does Pearl S. Buck describe Kashmir?
Answer:
In Kashmir where the white barbarian invaders from Europe long ago penetrated India, the people are often fair. Auburn-haired blue-eyed women are beauties there. A young India friend of mine has recently married a Kashmiri man who though his hair is dark, has eyes of clear green. The skin colour of the Kashmiri a lovely cream and the features are as classic as the Greek. But all the people of India must be reckoned as belonging to the Caucasian race, whatever the colour of the skin in the South, though it be as black as any African’s
Question 2.
How has India influenced the world in the post-independent era?
Answer:
The Indians make the third group between the South Africans and the black and white for that matter there was our Indian family doctor, and why should there have been an Indian doctor in a Chinese port or tend an American family and rumours of India. Persist, for they are memorable people, dramatic and passionate and finding dramatic lives. You see how India has a way of permeating human life and consider how India has managed, merely by maintaining her independence and yes by producing superior individuals to influence the world in these few short years of freedom, they have put to good use the benefits the English gave and left the knowledge of west.
Question 3.
Why had the Indian intellectuals decided not to support the British in the Second World War?
Answer:
The English, they declared had no real purpose to restore India to the people. I could believe it fresh as I was from China, where the period of people’s tutelage seemed endless and self-government further off every year. When you are ready for independence, conquerors have always said to their subjects, etcetera! But who is to decide when that moment comes, and how can people learn to govern themselves, expert, by doing it? So the intellectuals in India were Restless and embitter as, and I sat for hours watching their flashing dark eyes and hearting the endless flow of language the purest English into which they poured their feelings. The plants than was that when the second world war broke, in India world rebel immediately against England and compel her by this complication to set her free. They would not be forced, as they declared they had won the First World War, to fight at England’s command.
Question 4.
What lesson had India taught humanity by gaining independence?
Answer:
India has managed, merely by maintaining her independence and yes, by producing superior individuals, to influence the world in these few years of freedom, they have put to good use the benefits the English gave and left. The knowledge of west the pure and exquisitely enunciated English tongue of men and women educated on both sides of the globe-witness Nehru and with him a host of men learning how to govern, and the first women to be the President of the general assembly of the united nations a woman of India and the men in charge of the prisoner exchange in kore an Indian General, who won trust from all.
Question 5.
What was the psychological impact of colonisation on Indian people?
Answer:
I find that among the many impressions of India, absorbed while I live among them, and still clear in my mind, is their reverence for great men and women. Leadership in India can only be continued by those whom the followers consider being good that is capable of renunciation therefore, not self-seeking. This one quality for them contains all others A person able to renounce personal benefit for the sake of an idealistic and is by that very fact also honest, also high minded, therefore also Trustworthy. I felt that the people, even those who know themselves full of faults, searched for such persons.
Question 6.
Who, according to Buck, could be the real leaders of Indian people?
Answer:
The devotion was given by the people to Gandhi and finally even internationally is well known, but I found the same homage paid to a local person who in their measure were also leaders because of their selflessness. Thus I remember a certain Indian village where I had been invited to visit in the Home of a family of some modem education though not much, and some means, though not wealth, the house was mud-walled and the roof was made of thatch. Inside were several rooms however, the floors smooth and polished with the usual mixture of cow-dung and water.
Question 7.
What are some of the features of Indian family Life, as noticed by Buck?
Answer:
The maturing culture of organised human family life and produced philosophical religions had shaped his mind and soul, even though he could not read and write. And the children, the little children of the Indian villages, how they tore off my heart, thin, big believer, and all with huge sad dark eyes. I wondered that any Englishmen could look at them and not accuse himself. Three hundred years of English occupation and rule, and could there be children like this? Yes, and Millions of them! And the final indictment surely was that the life span in India was only twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years! No wonder, then, that life was hastened, that a men married very young so that there could be children, as many as possible before he died.
Question 8.
Give a portrait of India seen through the writer’s eyes.
Answer:
In India through a Traveller’s Eyes, Pearl Buck gives her personal impression of India. On the basis of these impressions, a portrait of India flashes before our eyes. This portrait is of India of the nineteen-fifties. Thus it appears idyllic to us. Even for that period, the portrait is not very realistic. The writer is a fond lover of India and the Indian people. Thus she sees only bright sides of Indian life. In a sense this was inevitable. Mrs Buck saw only those things and people that her hosts showed her. The hosts naturally did not show her the seamy sides of Indian life. So this portrait of India formed through this writer’s eyes is very bright. The picture includes scenes of poverty, disease, starvation and overall economic backwardness of the country. Bui for all these ills the British rulers are blamed. The writer begins at a very bright note.
She speaks about India’s superior individuals who have influenced the course of modem history with their non-violent freedom movement as also by human-faced administration and reconstruction work after independence. She finds that Indian intellectuals have made excellent use of some of the good gifts including the English language that the British rule gave to India. The writer is charmed by quality calibre and self-confidence of the Indian intellectuals. She finds Indian Freedom Movement a rare thing in which the whole people including the intellectuals and the peasants fought hand in hand. And this Freedom Movement was far loftier than the American War of Independence. It was the triumph of a bloodless revolution. Here noble means was used to achieve noble ends. It has a great lesson for the world as it shows the futility and destructiveness of movement carried on by violence and blood-shed.
Mrs Buck gives an impressive picture of Indian village life. Here people live according to the great ideals of their tradition. Their conception of goodman is quite lofty. They think only those people good who practise self-renunciation rather than self-seeking. Such people sacrifice their personal good for the sake of noble ideals. Mahatma Gandhi is the supreme example of such great good man of Indian conception. But all through the country, such people are to be found and people flock to them and follow their wise advice in a village Mrs Buck finds a paralytic elderly man who for being such a liberated man is surrounded by people all through the day.
Despite his suffering, he lives in a cage-like enclosure where people may come unrestricted. All his life he has been a selfless Wiseman. Now he has become a saint for the people. In the same way, the writer is impressed by the cleanliness and clean habits of Indian Villagers. Even the paralytic man was spotlessly clean. In people’s home, she found homespun towels to cleanse the hands. The custom of taking food from green banana leaves through the right hand only also convinced Mrs Buck of the clean habits of the Indian people. Thus the portrait of India seen through Mrs Buck’s eyes is impressive though bit over-bright. It is not as realistic as E. M. Forester’s portrait of India But it has an idyllic charm that is very appealing.
Q. 9. What did Pearl Buck see in India? Or, What did Pearl Buck hear from the young intellectuals and the peasants in Indian villages?
Answer:
In India, Through a Traveller’s Eyes, Pearl Buck gives a moving and somewhat idyllic picture of India. In the authoress opinion, the Indian People as a whole are of the Caucasian race. True there are variations from the white-complexioned and green-eyed Kashmiris to black coloured people of the south. But qualitatively the Indian people have an innate dynamism. They are assimilative adjustable and pragmatic. The Indian ways of life and philosophy running all through the ages have made them so. They are unexpectedly found living decently and doing well in different parts of the world in different capacities. They may be alone as family doctors in the interiors of China or one-third of the whole population of a country as in South Africa. Then the Indians to Mrs Buck are “a memorable people.
Dramatic and passionate and fond of dramatic lives.” The influence of Indian ways of life is being pervasive within a few years of her independence. She has made a mark on the international scene through her superior individuals. Nehru turned out to be a great and noble leader. An Indian woman became the president of the General Assembly of the U. N. An Indian army general did exemplary impartial work in effecting an exchange of prisoners in Korea. The newly emerged independent India has been full of quiet confidence based on her unyielding idealism. Mrs Buck came to see the spirit of India as reflected in the young intellectuals of Indian cities and in the I peasants of Indian villages. She met the young intellectuals about the second world war period.
She found them seething with anger for their British rulers, who had bluffed India during the First World War and were likely to do the same after this war. So they wanted that India should be given freedom first and then she would decide in what way and from what side she would fight that war. But the savageries and aggressions of Nazism. Fascism and Japanese adventurism forced India to fight the war from the side of the Allies and not from the side of the Axis. India had enough wisdom to choose civilization rather than barbarism. And despite Churchill’s prediction of blood-baths the saner leaders of Britain gave India her freedom. There was no other option left to Britain because the Freedom Movement under the banner of Mahatma Gandhi.involved all sectors of the people indeed the whole nation and this people’s non-violent war proved more powerful than the bloody wars. mankind had seen so far.
And the message behind this Movement is of crucial significance. Mrs Buck thinks that the Americans have not fully understood this message though beside India’s “mighty triumph of a bloodless revolution our war of Independence shrinks in size and concept”. The great lesson of India’s Freedom ’ Movement has total relevance to the present world. It triumphantly states that » war and killing achieve nothing but loss and destruction. So noble non-violent means must be used to achieve noble ends. Coming to the pitiable condition of India as a result of British colonialism. Mrs Buck says that Indian intellectuals despite their immense abilities and calibres had been left, languishing. All top positions went to white Englishmen though they were second rate or even worse. So the country was in ferment because these highly educated competent and cultured people shaped the mood of the nation.
However, the worst effects of British Imperialism were most obvious in India’s miserable villages. The condition of the Indian peasants was worse than that of the Chinese peasants. This was very much like the condition of the Russian peasants before the Bolshevik Revolution. But Russian peasants were culturally much inferior to the Indian peasants. Indian peasants were very much like the Chinese in being “innately civilized” Indian culture has been maturing through the age and it has been stable because it is based on intact family life. Above all India’s pragmatic and philosophical religions have shaped the mind and soul of the Indian. So even the illiterate Indian peasant have been innately civilized. Under British rule, India was sucked white f people’s life-span was of 27 years only. Their children were deshaped diseased I and died too young.
The rickety big-bellied nad skeletonic babies with sunk dark eyes were the worst indictment of the British imperialism. The authoress is amazed that the English in some ways the finest people on Earth could be l so diabolically corrupted by colonialism. But imperialist do not work for the welfare of people. They rather sit on their back and demoralize them. People are made to tolerate the worst on one excuse or other. Coming to the shining bright culture of the Indian masses, Mrs Buck finds in them a reverence for great men and women intact. By great men and women, they mean people of sacrifice and renunciation. Gandhiji has been the most supreme example of such people dedicated to the service and welfare of people. Such people the authoress found in India’s villages. One such person was an elderly man crippled by paralysis. He lived in a cage-like compartment in the courtyard of the family.
He was always surrounded by people who came to be enlightened by his wisdom. This sacrificial mode of life was common in India even now. The old idyllic life continued in the villages. There was a caste system no doubt. There was also crankish behaviour of people in matters of religion and worship. But they were mostly harmless. The worst aspects of religion were there too including fanaticism. But by and large, the religious ways of life had not corrupted or poisoned the social life. Above all the spirit of self-sacrifice was very much present. Whereas others including the Christian made compromises with the idealism of their mission, the simple unsophisticated Indians stood firm in supporting their idealism and paid in full measure the price involved in their infiinching attachment to it. so whereas the Christian Missionaries had failed to effect brotherhood of man that Christ preached, the simple poor Indian masses by their sheer sacrifice had implemented their innate idealism in the practical life of their society to a great extent.
Question 10.
Who according to Pearl S. Buck is blame for India’s poverty and backwardness?
Answer:
Pearl S. Buck came to India in the period just before and after India’s independence. In that period India was what the British rulers had made her. She found India in a pitiable condition. The condition of the villages, in particular, was very deplorable. People suffered from poverty and starvation. The fertile land stretching from Bombay to Madras was dry and without crops due to lack of irrigation facilities. What to say of artesian wells there were not even shallow wells. The people themselves could have done something about it. But centuries of colonialism had taken all strength and vitality out of them. They were sunk in sloth and idleness.
They were full of excuses for not working and remaining helpless, spectators all the time. They blamed the Britishers for all the ills of their society. They thought that their British rulers had taken all the responsibilities to feed and clothe them. It they suffered and died of hunger and disease it was the fault of the foreign government. The people in themselves were not responsible for it. Such behaviour of the people showed that the colonialism of centuries had made them lose their heart and their spirit. So ultimately the British imperialists were responsible for this all-round degradation and backwardness of India and her people.
C. 3. Composition
Question 1.
You have a pen Friend in America who wants to know about India. Write a letter to your friend describing some of the values that govern Indian family life.
Answer:
Khazanchi Road Patna
July 5,200.
Dear Yuvraj
I hope my letter finds you in a happy and healthy mood. I know you are highly impressed by our Indian culture. We have a strong family bonding. It is our love, understanding and cooperation which strengthens our relationship
Yours, lovingly
Amithanshu
Question 2.
Write a paragraph in about 100 words in India’s contribution to world peace.
Answer:
India has taught the lesson of peace to the whole world. We are a peace-loving country and spread the same philosophy all over the world. We have always been a supporting hand to the U.N.O. in maintaining world peace. We have sent our army to restore peace and order in the different parts of the world. We have criticised the countries and their policies if it hampers the world peace. We are always ready to Help in all spheres the world for its harmony.
D. 2. Word-formation
Read the following sentence carefully:
India has always been part of the background of my life but I had never seen in whole and for myself until now.
In the sentence given above background’s of my life but I had never seen in whole and for myself until now.
In the sentence given above background’s made of back and ground, similarly, myself s made of my and self.
From compound words using the words given below:
D. 3. Word-meaning
Ex. 1. Match the words given in Column A with their meanings given in Column B
Column A Column B
Answer:
1. (e), 2. (c), 3. (d), 4. (g), 5. (a), 6. (b), 7. (f)
D. 4. Phrases
Ex. 1. Read the lesson carefully and find out the sentences in which the following phrases have been used. Then use these phrases in sentences of your own.
further off in spite of live upon search for as long as serve on Putin
Answer:
further off — The doctor advised the patient to stop the medicine further off.
in spite of — In spite of heavy rain the match continued.
live upon — Deepak lives upon his own rules.
search for — They have made a deep search for the thief.
as long as — They worked as long as they could.
serve on — We should serve in our country.
put in — Manoj knows how to put in with different people.
E. Grammar
Ex. 1. Change the following sentences as directed
(i) The features of the Kashmiri are as classic as the Greek, (from positive to comparative)
(ii) My host said, “I was called to kill a dangerous snake, (from direct to indirect speech)
(iii) My life has been too crowded with travels and many people for me to put it all within the covers of one book. (Remove too)
(iv) What did I go to India to see? (from interrogative to assertive)
Answer:
(i) The features of the Kashmiri are not more classic than the Greek.
(ii) My host said that he had been called to kill a dangerous snake.
(iii) My life has been so crowded with travels and many people that it is impossible for me to put it all within the covers of one book.
(iv) I went to see India
