Answer the following questions in 30-40 words each.

(a) Why was Rajbir excited to see the tea-garden?

(b) Give examples from the text to show that Valli was a meticulous planner.

(c) What happened when Maxwell took Mijbil to the bathroom?

(d) How did Richard’s mother help him to become a scientist?

(e) Why did Matilda change her life style after the ball?

(f) Give examples from the text to show that Bholi was a neglected child?

(a) Rajbir was excited to see the tea-garden as he has never seen one his entire life. The trip to his friend’s house in Assam was his first time seeing a tea-garden which excited him unlike, Pranjol, his friend, who has lived around tea plantations his entire life.

(b) For months, Valli would listen carefully to conversations between her neighbors and people who regularly used the bus, and she also asked a few discreet questions here and there to find out all the details regarding the bus ride. She even calculated that she would need thirty paise to go and the same to return. She had to ensure that she would be back before her mother noticed. She therefore planned her time accordingly. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes. This meant that she could be back home by about two forty-five.

(c) When Maxwell took Mijbil to the bathroom, it was filled with joy and went wild in the water for half an hour. It was shooting up and down the bathtub, plunging and rolling in it, and making enough splash like a hippo.

(d) Richard’s mother always encouraged his interests. She often bought him things like telescopes, cameras and microscopes and even took him on trips. When he didn’t have anything to do, she found things for him to learn and experiment with. His mother once gifted him a book which became a turning point in his life.

(e) Matilda had lost a necklace that she borrowed from her rich friend and thus falls in a debt trap to buy a similar one, which forces her to live like an ordinary lower middle-class house wife. She decides to start doing all the household chores which a lady of her status normally does. This taught her to live in her means.

(f) Bholi was the youngest daughter of a prosperous farmer, Ramlal, who had seven children. Even though there was plenty of food for everyone, all the children except Bholi were healthy and strong. When Ramlal was asked by the Tehsildar to send his daughters to school, his wife had asked to send only Bholi as she was trying to get rid of her. Also, Bholi never had new clothes had. The old dresses of her sisters were passed on to her. No one even cared to mend or wash her clothes.