Adventure with Books

1. Like ships and trains, books can transport a reader to various lands. The reader
can visualise what he/ she reads instead of actually seeing the sights. The reader
doesnt actually travel but is transported to the land he/ she is reading about in his/
her mind.
2. In a ship, the captain decides where the ship will sail to. Similarly, an engineer
decides which track a train runs on. While deciding which book to read, the reader
decides where he wants to travel to or what kind of a journey he wants to go on.
3. Books about animal life describe animals in detail just like a visitor to a zoo can
study an animal kept in an enclosure. However, the animals in a book are not free
to roam at their will. They have to behave according to the author unlike an animal
in the zoo that does whatever it wants to in the confines of the zoo enclosure.
4. The line that shows that books give information about real things is:.., and
people Like ourselves.
5. The poet. Yes.
6. The metaphors used for books in the poem are: ships, trains, zoos, and garden.
7. I would call a book a magic carpet. (The answer should nary.)
8. Books are the best source of information about the world around us. They
provide entertainment of all sorts. They tell us about human civilisations and
human nature over the ages.
9. Regardless of what is written in a book, every reader interprets it in his/ her own
manner. People tend to visualise events and analyse characters in their own
manner. The reader may not be able to change the central plot of a book but each
person understands and remembers their own interpretation of the characters and
events.
A Tiger in the School
1. The tiger seemed to be coming under the spell of the holy man. He seemed to
have lost all his strength and his body did not seem to obey his mind. He could not
will himself to do anything. The sentences from the text which indicate this are:

How l was beginning to understand his speech was a mystery. He was exercising
some strange power over me. His presence sapped all my strength. When I made
one more attempt to spring up, I could not raise myself. When he touched me, I
tried to hit him, but my forepaw had no strength and collapsed like a rag. When I
tried to snap my jaw, again I bit only the air' and I had to become subdued while
he went on talking.
2. The master said that even a human child does acts of violence like crushing ants
but soon grows out of it when he or she attains maturity and gains an education.
Similarly, a violent person would someday grow old and thus dependent. He or she
would lack the energy and strength to look after himself or herself, leave alone
harm others. The tiger was well beyond his prime and he ought to accept that and
not attempt to be aggressive any more.
3. It was a logical assumption that the master was talking to the headmaster since
the master could not be expected to have a discourse with the tiger, who was the
only other living being in that room apart from the headmaster. Even if he talked to
the tiger, he would have uttered commands and instructions as is normal when one
is dealing with animals. But here, he was talking philosophically and at length. So,
the fact that he was talking to the headmaster was the obvious assumption.
4. The master told the people that the tiger was a changed being and would not hurt
anyone (he was perhaps old and incapable of hurting). Moreover, he was as afraid
of humans as they were of him. He wanted the people not to behave in a manner
that may excite the tiger and thus make him attack them. He requested them to
treat him as a harmless cat or any other person like them.
5. The tiger wished for the open spaces and fresh air of the jungle with only wild
animals for company. He regretted the moment that he had left the forest and
entered the area where men lived. In the civilized world, there were too many
humans and he felt hemmed in or claustrophobic in their company. The civilized
world was teeming with people, the tiger felt. Another thing he did not like about
humans was their curiosity about other peoples affairs and their habit of poking
their noses everywhere.
6. The tiger had been trained in the circus to follow commands. Hence, when the
master gave him the instructions, he followed them out of sheer habit. The
sentence, Whatever its disadvantage, circus life had accustomed me to understand
commands... indicates this. He had been taught to obey his master. The tiger also
says, I understood, which might mean that he understood what he ought to do or

that he realized that he could not have his way here. So it was not really that he had
begun to understand the masters philosophy but he had finally reconciled himself
to and accepted the fact that the only way to survive was to do what the master
asked him to.
7. The headmaster, who was the senior-most teacher in the school and held sway
over the school, was reduced to a groaning and whimpering mass in the presence
of the tiger. He had jumped on to the loft when the tiger entered and had to be
pulled down by the tigers master to make him leave his safe perch. Ironically, he
was in his turban and dress, which was the symbol of authority in the school, but in
contrast, his behaviour was that of utter helplessness. What made it worse was that
he was humiliated as it was witnessed by a large crowd.
8. There were people falling over each other to hear what was going on inside the
room from their safe position, as the door was locked from the inside. The moment
the tiger and his master emerged from the room, they ran to the nearest safe place.
Now they peeped from the safe hideouts and talked in whispers for fear of exciting
and angering the tiger. Despite the masters assurances, they still considered the
tiger a threat but were willing to let the master face the threat single-handedly. It is
a comment on the humans concern for personal safety and selfishness. Nothing
matters more than that to them. In short, humans are rather cowardly.
9. The master meant that though outwardly, it was the same tiger; it had undergone
a change in its nature and behaviour. Hence it was the same tiger with different
characteristics. This tiger seemed to follow the master meekly like a cat and did not
exhibit any of his earlier aggressiveness.
10. The tiger was an animal. He had been trained in the circus. So he was used to
commands or the whip to tame him. Without these, the headmaster may not have
been successful to have reasoned with the tiger. The master was a holy man who
had cast some special power over the tiger. Or, perhaps his benign presence had a
calming effect on the tiger which the headmaster may not have been able to
achieve. There is no way to tell what the outcome would have been. The
headmaster ought to have shed his fear and spoken firmly. Naturalists say that if
one is suddenly confronted by a bear or a tiger, one should not turn around and take
heel. Instead, one should look at it in the eye and wear an angry expression,
scolding the animal, as one slowly walks backwards. If this is to be believed, then
certainly, a more confident headmaster may have been able to achieve some
control over the tiger.