2. Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
(12)
1. As a novelist and storyteller, I have always drawn upon my memories places that I have known
and lived in over the years. More than most writers, perhaps, I find myself drawing inspiration
from the past my childhood, adolescence, youth, early manhood But to talk of my
early inspiration I must go back to my very beginnings, to the then small princely state of
Jamnagar, tucked away in the Gulf of Kutch. Here father started a small palace school for the
princesses. I was there at the age of six, and I still treasure vivid memories of Jamnagar's beautiful
palaces and sandy beaches.
2. Some of these landmarks are preserved for me in photographs taken my father, which I have to this
day. An old palace with pretty window of coloured glass remained fixed in my memory and many
years 1 gave me the story, "The Room of Many Colours", which also inspired episode in a TV serial
called Ek Tha Rusty. I spent a memorable year and a half with him in New Delhi, then still a very
new city -just the capital area designed by Edwin Lutyens and Connaught Place, with its gleaming
new shops and restaurants and cinemas. I saw Laurel and Hardy films and devoured milkshakes at
the Milk Bar, even as the Quit India Movement gathered momentum.
3. When I was seventeen, I was shipped off to the UK to "better my prospects" as my mother put it.
Out of a longing for India and the friends I had made in Dehra came my first novel - The Room on
the Roof featuring the life and loves of Rusly, my alter ego. In the 1950s everyone travelled by sea,
as air services were still in their infancy. A passenger liner took about three weeks from
Southampton to Bombay now Mumbai). After docking in Bombay, I took a train to Dehra, where I
stepped onto the platform of the small railway station and embarked on the hazardous journey of a
freelance writer. Railway stations! "Trains platforms'! I knew as long as these were there I would
never run out of stories.
4. I also looked for inspiration in tombs and monuments and the over-expanding city, but did not
find it, and my productivity dropped. Escape from Delhi had become a priority for me. I felt
drawn to the hills above Dehra. On the outskirts of mussoorie i found a small cottage surrounded
by oak and maple trees where the rent, thankfully, was nominal.
5. I'm of the opinion that every writer needs a window. Preferably two. Is the house, the room, the
situations important for a writer ? A good wordsmith should be able to work anywhere. But to me
the room you live in day after day is all-important. The stories and the poems float in through my
window, float in from the magic mountains, and the words appear on the page without much
effort on my part. Planet Earth belongs to me. And at night, the stars are almost within reach.
21 On the basis of your understanding of the above passage, answer
any four of the following questions in 30-40 words each
10
(a) What does the writer remember about Jamnagar?
(b) How did he spend time in Delhi?
(c) What was the inspiration for the first novel and why?
(d) What was the importance of trains and railway stations in his life?
Answers
Answer:
(a). The writer remembers and treasures all vivid memories of Jamnagar's beautiful palaces and sandy beaches. Where his father had started a small palace school for the princesses. He also describes Jamnagar as a price less state tucked away in the Gulf of Kuchh an old place with pretty windows of coloured glass remains fixed in the memory of the writer till date.
(b). The writer spent a memorable year and a half with his father in New Delhi. In Delhi the writer would spend time watching Laurel and Hardy films abd devoured milkshakes at the milk bar, even as the Quit India Movement gathered momentum.
(c). As a novelist and storyteller the writer have always drawn upon his memories places that he have known and lived in over the years. More than most writers, perhaps, he found himself drawing inspiration from the past of his childhood, adolescence, youth, early manhood But to talk of his early inspiration he must go back to my very beginnings, to the then small princely state of Jamnagar, tucked away in the Gulf of Kutch. Here his father started a small palace school for the princesses. He was there at the age of six, and he still treasure vivid memories of Jamnagar's beautiful palaces and sandy beaches.
(d). The importance of trains and railway stations in the writers life was as such that he know as long as these were there, he would never run of the stories.
Hope this helps u..