GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES

Ls: 7 - Packing

Short Answer Questions:

Question 1.
How many characters are there in the narrative? Name them.
Answer:
Jerome, George and Harris are the three human characters in the narrative. Jerome is the
narrator of the story. Their pet dog, Montmorency too is an important character, who
participates as enthusiastically in the packing as his masters.

Question 2.
The narrator took pride in his packing skills. Comment.
Answer:
The narrator felt that packing was one of those things that he felt he knew more about than
any other person living. This made him develop a sense of superiority about his ability as the
best packer and he took pride in his packing skills. However, he was disorganised and
bungling. First, he forgot to pack the boots and had to reopen the bag. Then, his frantic search
for his toothbrush resulted in a complete mess. Later, he had to reopen the bag to take out his
spectacles.

Question 3.
What did Harris and George do while Jerome was packing the bag? How did Jerome react to
their behaviour?
Answer:
When Jerome told George and Harris to leave the job of packing to him, they accepted his
suggestion at once. They settled themselves comfortably, George on the easy-chair and Harris
with his legs on the table and watched Jerome packing the bag all by himself. As they
watched, they smoked and found faults with Jerome’s packing and also made fun of him.
They made him reopen the packing by inquiring about items he had forgotten to pack. All
this irritated Jerome.

Question 4.
Why did Jerome have to reopen the packed bag again and again?
Answer:
Jerome had to reopen the packed bag because he kept forgetting things. First, he forgot to
pack his boots and then couldn’t remember having packed his toothbrush. After having spent
a lot of time unpacking and packing, he packed his spectacles and spectacles in by mistake
and had to reopen the bag yet again.

Long Answer Questions:

Question 1. How did the butter episode in the story cause nuisance?
Answer:
 GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES
The butter episode in the story caused a lot of nuisance as it brought out the bungling
clumsiness of George and Harris. First of all, George stepped on the butter and it stuck to his
slipper. After George had got it off his slipper, he and Harris tried to put it in the kettle. It
wouldn’t go in, and what was in wouldn’t come out. They d narrator id scrape it out at last,
and put it down on a chair. Then Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went looking
for it all over the room.

“I’ll take my oath I put it down on that chair,” said George, staring at the empty seat. George
finally noticed it behind Harris’s back from where it was removed and put inside the teapot.
Hence, the butter episode created a lot of nuisance and became the funniest episode in the
story.

Question 2.
Briefly describe Jerome’s attempt at packing.
Answer:
Right in the beginning Jerome volunteered to pack, because, according to him, he was
especially good at it and George and Harris agreed readily. What Jerome of course had meant
was that he would supervise the packing while they packed. They of course meant he’d pack
while they watched from lounging positions. Jerome packed all their personal belongings,
from boots to toothbrushes. When he had finished, Harris pointed out whether he wanted to
leave the boots out.

Once the boots were packed, Jerome realised he needed his toothbrush out for the morning,
so the entire bag had to be unpacked and the toothbrush searched. It was found in a boot. The
bag was again repacked when Jerome discovered he had packed his spectacles in. Once
again, the bag was unpacked to take out the spectacles and then repacked. After going
through several unpleasant rounds of unpack, repack, unpack, repack, the job was done, with
only the soap (possibly) having been forgotten.

Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.

Question 1.
I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know
more about than any other person living. (It surprises me myself sometimes, how many such
things there are.)

(a) Who is the speaker?

Answer:
The speaker is the narrator, Jerome.

(b) How many characters are there in the narrative?

Answer:
There are four characters in this narrative – the narrator, Jerome, his two friends, George and
Harris, and their dog, Montmorency.
 GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES
(c) Why was “I” going to pack?
Answer:
The narrator and his friends, George and Harris were going on a trip on the Thames. They
needed to pack for it.

(d) What do you learn about the speaker from the above lines.
Answer:
The speaker is rather boastful and arrogant.

P-6: No Men are Foreign

Short Questions and Answers:

Question 1.
What does the poet mean when he says “Remember, no men are strange, no countries
foreign”?
Answer:
The poet is making an impassioned plea telling readers to give up extreme nationalism and
perceived differences between people belonging to different nations. We are brothers because
we inhabit the same planet, drink the same water and breathe the same air, but we feel
different and behave like enemies at times. The poet wants us to give up our misplaced
patriotism and live-in universal brotherhood.

Question 2.
What is meant by uniforms? What is there beneath all uniforms?
Answer:
The word “uniform” refers to the distinctive clothing worn by members of the same
organization or body or by children attending certain schools. In this poem, the poet uses
“uniforms” to mean both the uniforms worn by soldiers and the varied traditional dresses
belonging to different cultures and civilisations of the world, or the different clothes that
symbolise who the wearers are. Beneath all uniforms lies the same human body.

Question 3.
What does the poet mean when he says “by war’s long winter starv’d”?
Answer:
If a war is raging in a country then that country faces the threat of starvation since all
agricultural production comes to a halt. Just as there are no crops in winter, war renders a
land barren. That is why there is a shortage of food in winters and in times of war, too, there
is deprivation and famine. People starve to death. Thus, starvation is associated with war and
with winter.

Question 4.
What do you understand by “Their hands are ours”? What are their lines? How can we
conclude that their labour is same as ours?
Answer:
Their hands are ours means that people living in other countries have hands just like ours
 GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES
which toil hard to earn a living. Their lines mean the lines on their face and body which are
just like ours. Hence, we can conclude that though they belong to another land, they have
worked hard throughout their lives, just like us.

Questions and Answers Long Answer Type:

Question 1.
What does the poet emphasize by beginning and ending the poem with the same line?
Answer:
By beginning and ending the poem with the same line, the poet emphasizes his message of
the oneness of spirit of brotherhood. Although the message in both the lines is same, the
opening line uses the adjective ‘strange’ with regard to men and ‘foreign’ in regard of
countries, while in the end, the adjective ‘foreign’ is used to describe men and ‘strange’ is
used to describe countries. This means that the two adjectives are one. Countries exist only
because men create nations; nature does not divide humanity; it is man who does so.
However, all human beings are the same.

Question 2.
How are all men our brothers?
Answer:
All men are our brothers. No human beings are strange or unfamiliar. Underneath the external
trappings of different cultures or civilisations or any colour of any soldier’s uniform
belonging to any nation, all human beings are the same. All men walk upon the same earth
and one day are laid to rest in their graves under the same earth. Each and every human being
is nourished by the same sun, breathes the same air and drinks the same water to survive.

All human beings have eyes that wake or sleep. In every land, there is a common life. Love is
paramount everywhere that wins the heart. When we hate others, fight with them, raise arms
against them, it is ourselves that we shall dispossess, betray and condemn Thus, despite
different living conditions, all human beings are one in spirit.

Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.

Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign

Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.
(a) Why does the poet feel ‘no men are foreign’?
Answer:
The poet feels that no human beings are strange or different as beneath a different exterior all
human beings breathe just like any other person.
(b) Who are referred to as brothers?
Answer:
All human beings are brothers, irrespective of their superficial differences.
(c) What two things are common to all people as referred to in lines three and four of the
extract?
 GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES
Answer:
This is because all walk on the same land and will be buried in the same earth after death.
d) ‘In which we shall all lie.’ When will this happen?
Answer:
We shall lie under the soil, in our grave, after our death.

Ls: 6 - Weathering the Storm in Ersama

Questions and Answers Short Answer Type

Question 1.
Why had Prashant gone to Ersama? What happened there?
Answer:
He had gone to Ersama to spend a day with a friend. He was caught in a terrible cyclonic
storm, the likes of which he had never been a witness to.

Question 2.
What did Prashant see on his way back home?
Answer:
He saw a number of dead bodies of humans and animals floating in the flood water. He also
saw that several villages had been entirely destroyed, where not even a single house remained
standing.

Question 3.
How did Prashant help the orphaned children?
Answer:
He brought them together and put up a polythene sheet shelter for them. Women were
mobilised to look after them while the men got food and materials to build the shelter.

Question 4.
How did Prashant’s wounded spirit heal?
Answer:
It healed because he was so busy making sure that the victims were taken care of by various
government agencies and NGOs that he had no time to worry about his own loss and pain.

Questions and Answers Long Answer Type

Question 1.
What havoc had the super cyclone wrecked in the lives of the people of Orissa?
Answer:
The super cyclone caused great damage and destruction, leaving hundreds of men, women,
children and animals dead or injured. It blew away houses, brought down trees and wiped-out
entire villages. The whole area was submerged in water. Family members were separated and
it left behind many orphans and widows. In addition, people had to go without food for days
together.
 GLOBAL INDIAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
UPPAL, HYDERABAD
SUBJECT- ENGLISH
GRADE IX NOTES
Question 2.
How did the people of the community help one another? What role did the women of
Kalikuda play during these days?
Answer:
First of all, they worked as a team under the leadership of Prashant. They helped him in
pressurising the local merchant to part with rice to feed the survivors. They cooked food by
collecting branches from fallen trees. They cleaned the shelter of filth, urine, vomit and
floating carcasses and took care of the people with wounds and injuries. They also helped to
create new foster families made up of childless widows and children without adult care. The
women also worked with an NGO in their food-for-work programme.