Section 1 The Hero

Reading 1 (page s 16–17)

1. a. iii. Swami least expected Father to react that way. b. iv. help Swami become brave and
courageous. c. iii. challenging.
2. a. Swami’s father read out a newspaper story to him which described the bravery of a boy
who fought off a tiger that he encountered while walking through the jungle.
b. Father found Swami’s habit of sleeping beside his grandmother disgraceful.
c. Swami found the idea of sleeping in his father’s offi ce ‘a frightful proposition’ because he
had always slept beside his grandmother in the passage and the idea of sleeping alone left him
trembling and awake all night. He tried to avoid the situation by changing the subject in the
hope of distracting his father.
d. As the night advanced, Swami remembered all the stories of ghosts and devils that he had
ever heard in his life and felt faint with the fear that any second he would be carried away by
one of them.
e. Swami heard ordinary sounds through the silence of the night, such as ticking of the clock,
rustling of trees, others in the house snoring and the humming of night insects.
f. Late in the night, Swami heard a rustling sound and saw something coming towards him. He
was convinced that it was a devil that had come to fi nish him off. Instead of waiting passively
for the end, he attacked it and bit it as hard as he could. It turned out to be a burglar. Swami bit
his ankle so badly that it bled and he fell down, and was soon apprehended when the adults
came into room after hearing the commotion.
Reading 2 (page 17)
1. Answers may vary. Sample answer: I agree with Swami’s father that age and strength are
not the markers of courage. He is right to conclude that a strong and grown-up person is
only a coward if he lacks the courage to face problems and act in time.
2. Swami’s father believed that with courage a person could achieve anything, regardless of
their size or strength. He felt that a person who has courage but lacked physical strength
could achieve more than a person who lacked courage but had the strength of an elephant.
Swami disagreed because he wondered how, even if he had all the courage in the world, he
could possibly overcome a tiger if it attacked him.
3. Answers may vary. Sample answer: Swami’s mother and grandmother were softer and
kinder in their approach to Swami. While they were aware of his fear of the dark and of
sleeping alone, they did not stop him from sleeping with his grandmother. After Swami’s
encounter with the burglar, Swami’s mother did not allow his father to ‘risk his life again.’
However, Swami’s father believed in a tougher approach and wanted Swami to overcome
his fears by sleeping alone. I tend to agree more with his mother and grandmother’s view,
as Swami had already proven that he was capable of acting courageously in his encounter
with the burglar. I believe that he was only a child who would outgrow his fears naturally as
he grew older.
4. Answers may vary. Sample answer: Yes, I think Swami deserved the applause he got.
Despite his fears, he showed courage and acted appropriately in the moment that counted.
Even by his father’s definition of courage, Swami proved that his courage to act in urgent
circumstances made up for the lack of physical strength as a young boy.
Vocabulary (page 18)

1. Answers may vary. Sample answers: middle-aged thick/short/long/curly hair good-looking long-
legged
tanned complexion average height thick moustache well built
2. Sample answer: Wanted—Albert Abshire, a man of thirty-five with shoulder-length hair, dark-
complexioned and good-looking, is wanted by the Police for a robbery and murder on Elm
Street. Wanted—Thomas Jones is a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. He is grimfaced
and fair-complexioned. He has been missing for one month and his family is looking for him. 3.
Nafisa: You know, Mona, I like your hair short-length. Mona: Yes, I do too. But it was so hot and
sultry in Goa that I had to get my hair cut shorter. But, my fortnight in Goa was so beautiful and
rejuvenating that I didn’t even care that I was getting so tanned. Nafisa: Well, all I will say is that
you are very well-tanned from the Goa sun, and you are looking as good-looking as ever. Mona:
Thank you, Nafisa. But the sea, the waves, the sun and the moon plying the sea with their light is
far more beautiful, and as awe-inspiring as I had thought my first visit to a seaside would help
me experience.

Grammar (pages 19–21) Order of adjectives

1. a. Caesar is my trustworthy, tall, athletic, two-year-old Doberman. b. Where the road curves
you’ll see a gloomy, old, green brick house
c. She has written a boring, heavily researched, 560-page, detective novel. d. The large,
triangular, blue-walled meeting room was designed by my brother.
2. Answers may vary. Sample answers: a. Namita is wearing a nice, full-length, blue trouser for
the party tonight. b. Mr Acharya bought a warm, colourful, woollen sweater from the shop. c.
Ravi has a comfortable, round-necked, yellow t-shirt that he loves. d. I wore a plain, short, pink
pair of shorts to the beach. e. This winter I bought a warm, full-sleeve, pink jacket.
3. a. Sara is wearing a nice blue dress for the party tonight. b. Mr Acharya is the nice, kindly
young man you met the other day at my house. c. The new restaurant serves spicy and delicious
South Indian food. d. The room on the terrace was unclean, musty, old and dark. e. The strange,
tall, old man you met the other day is my cousin.
Punctuation (pages 20–21)
1. A sentence may end with a period (.),
a question mark (?), or an exclamation
point (!). 2. The comma (,) gets its name from the Greek komma meaning a ‘piece cut off’. 3.
The semicolon (;), colon (:), and dash (—) can be effective when used sparingly. Like

the comma, the colon originally referred to a section of a poem; later it came to denote a
clause in a sentence and finally a mark that sets off a clause. 4. The apostrophe (’) is used to signify
possession or to show the omission of letters in contraction. For example, do not as don’t. 5. Quotation
marks (“ ”) are used in pairs to set off a quotation or a piece of dialogue.

Editing

Dear Students,

I’m very excited. We have so much to learn and discover this year, and it all starts with you. I expect you
to attend school regularly. While you are in class, you ought to be cooperative, attentive and friendly to
all. I would expect you to work hard and regularly. I’m sure when school reopens everything will seem
new and exciting, but when it’s time to get to real work the excitement might disappear. You must not
let this thrill fade away. As a teacher, I would like to tell you that I really care about you. I do; I love
teaching. You can expect me to keep a well-organized classroom. I believe we work best if the
environment is neat, clean and pleasant. I shall communicate with your parents regularly and let them
know how you are doing in school. I hope that the year is a fruitful one for you. I am sending you your
first assignment in the form of this letter which you will have to correctly punctuate and bring along
when you come to school.

Best wishes,

Ms Jenny Peters