the short summary of ch 1 snapshots class 11
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This is a story of two tribal Armenian boys who belonged to the Garoghlanian tribe. For their family, even in times of extreme poverty nothing could match the importance of honesty. They never did anything wrong and never lied or never even stole anything. The story talks about an incident that revolves around two cousins Aram who is nine years old and Mourad who is thirteen. The world, for Aram, at that time, seemed to be a delightful and extremely joyous yet mysterious dream. People believed in every imaginable kind of magnificence. Mourad was considered to be crazy by everybody he knew.
The story opens with Mourad coming to Aram’s house at four in the morning one fine day. He tapped on the window to Aram’s room. When Aram looked out of the window, he was taken aback and startled to see Mourad riding a beautiful white horse. In fact, he was so dazed that Mourad had to say “Yes, it’s a horse. You are not dreaming.” All this was too unbelievable because Aram knew that they were too poor to be able to afford to buy a horse. The only way Mourad could possess it could be by stealing. They were too honest to lie and yet too crazy to ride a horse.
The story opens with Mourad coming to Aram’s house at four in the morning one fine day. He tapped on the window to Aram’s room. When Aram looked out of the window, he was taken aback and startled to see Mourad riding a beautiful white horse. In fact, he was so dazed that Mourad had to say “Yes, it’s a horse. You are not dreaming.” All this was too unbelievable because Aram knew that they were too poor to be able to afford to buy a horse. The only way Mourad could possess it could be by stealing. They were too honest to lie and yet too crazy to ride a horse.Thus, they kept the horse for two weeks, enjoying its ride in cool air and singing to their heart’s content on the country roads. They hid it from the rest of the world by keeping it in a barn of the deserted vineyard. Meanwhile, Aram came to know that the horse was stolen from John Byro. They planned not to return it to him so soon although it pricked their conscience to steal, which was completely their ethics and tribal norms.
One fine day they came across John, the farmer. Such was the boys’ family famous for their honesty that the thought of his horse being stolen by the boys never crossed John’s mind. He was just amazed at the resemblance and said: “I would swear it is my horse if I did not know your parents.” This moving experience led the boys towards John’s vineyard the very next morning. They left the horse in the barn after patting it affectionately. Later that Based on day, John seemed to be very pleased and shared the news of the return of his horse with Aram’s mother. The story teaches us the importance and necessity of honesty even in the face of greed and passion.
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The Portrait of a Lady- Summary
The chapter ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is the story of the author and his grandmother. The grandmother was an old woman with a wrinkled face. The author had always seen her like this, for the past twenty years. She appeared to be so old that he could not imagine her being ‘young and pretty’, someone who had a husband. She was short, fat and slightly bent. The author had seen his grandfather’s portrait- an old man with a turban and a long white beard covering his chest. To the author, his grandfather didn’t seem like a man who could have a wife and children, but someone who could have lots of grandchildren. His grandmother used to move around the house in ‘Spotless White’ with her one hand resting on her waist and her other hand counting the beads of her rosary.
In the initial days, the author and his grandmother had a good relationship. She used to wake him up and get him ready for school. She used to pack the things required by him for the day and walked him to school everyday. She used to visit the temple that was attached to the school. She had a routine of reading the scriptures. The author along with other children sat on the verandah singing alphabets and morning prayers. They both used to come back home together with stray dogs roaming around them as his grandmother would carry the stale chapattis to feed them.
Soon, the parents of the author who went to the city to settle in and called them. As they reached the city, his relationship with his grandmother took a turn. Though they shared the room, there bond grew apart. He started going to an English medium school, she no longer accompanied him to his school, and there were no longer stray dogs who roamed around them while walking back home. She, however, used to ask him about his day and what he had learned. She didn’t understand anything as everything was in another language which she could not understand. She didn’t approve of the new syllabus that he was studying because she thought that they did not teach him about God and the scriptures. They saw less of each other.
As the days passed, he grew older and soon went to the university. He had his own room and this made their relationship sour. She stopped talking to everyone and spent her whole day sitting at her spinning wheel, reciting prayers and moving beads of the rosary with one hand. However, she loved feeding sparrows in the verandah at dawn. Breaking bread into pieces and feeding it to the birds was her daily routine. The birds would sit on her legs, her head, some even on the shoulders.
Soon, the author decided to go abroad for further studies. She came to the railway station to leave him off. She was not sentimental, continuously recited her prayers, her mind lost in the prayers, and she kissed him on the forehead. After five years, as he returnedhome, she was there, came to pick him at the station, was still the same as she had been five years ago. She clasped him within her arms and didn’t say a word. She still used to feed her sparrows.
One day, she didn’t recite her prayers but instead collected the women of the neighbourhood, got a drum and started singing. The next morning, she was ill with mild fever. The doctor said that there was nothing to worry about but she was sure that her end was near.
She didn’t want to waste her time talking to anyone in the family anymore but spend her last hours in reciting her prayers laying on the bed. She died and so her body lay on the bed, lifeless. As they prepared for her funeral, they saw all the sparrows sitting in the verandah around her, mourning her death.