INTERNATIONAL INDIAN SCHOOL, RIYADH

CLASS-12
POETS AND PANCAKES
QUESTION & ANSWERS
Understanding The Text:
1. The author has used gentle humour to point out human foibles. Pick out instances of
this to show how this serves to make the piece interesting.
A: The author used gentle humour in various instances, which adds to the story’s eccentricity.
For example, the author cleverly framed the make-up artists and pancakes. Subbu’s point of view
was fantastic. It’s amazing how he applies his principal and solves problems. Similarly, the
author has incorporated gentle humour into the frustration of the office boy, the praising of
Gandhi, the episode of an illegal adviser causing the end of an actress’s career, hatred against
communism, and the mystery surrounding Stephen Spender.
2. Why was Kothamangalam Subbu considered No. 2 in Gemini Studios?
A: Using flattery, Kothamangalam Subbu was able to secure the position closest to The Boss.
He wasn’t brilliant, but he was a cheerful person who was fiercely loyal to The Boss. When The
Boss was in a jam, he offered solutions. As a result, the other employees ranked him second in
Gemini Studios.
3. How does the author describe the incongruity of an English poet addressing the
audience at Gemini Studios?
A: The English poet was speaking in English to the Tamil audience at Gemini Studios, with a
typical provincial accent. He was speaking to a dazed and silent audience about the joys and
tribulations of being an English poet. This was the inconsistency because his audience had no
idea what he was saying.
4. What do you understand about the author’s literary inclinations from the account?
A: The author was often interested in prose, as evidenced by his book choices, his admiration for
Stephen Spender, and the account’s recurring theme of prose writings.
Talking About The Text:
Discuss in small groups taking off from points in the text.
1. Film-production today has come a long way from the early days of the Gemini Studios.
2. Poetry and films.
3. Humour and criticism.
A:SELF ATTEMPT.
EXTRACTS:
1) A strict hierarchy was maintained in the make up department. The chief make
up man made the chief actors and actresses ugly, his senior assistant the
‘second’ hero and heroine, the junior assistant the main comedian, and so
forth. The players who played the crowd were the responsibility of the office
boy. (Even the make up department of the Gemini Studios had on ‘office boy!)
On the days when there was a crowd-shooting, You could see him mixing his
paint in a giant vessel and slapping it on the crowd players.

Questions:
(a) What do you understand by ‘hierarchy’ ?
(b) Whose responsibility was to make up the crowd ?
(c) How the office boy used to prepare the make up paint?
(d) Name the chapter and the writer.

2) An extremely talented actress, who was also extremely temperamental, once

blew over on the sets. While every¬one stood stunned, the lawyer quietly
switched on the re¬cording equipment. When the actress paused for breath,
the lawyer said to her, “One minute, please,” and played back the recording.
There was nothing incriminating or unmentionably foul about the actress’s
tirade against the producer. But when she heard her voice again through the
sound equipment, she was struck dumb.

Questions :
(a) What happened to the actress once on the sets ?
(b) What did the lawyer said in the mid of the shot ?
(c) Was there something special about actress’s tirade ?
(d) Why was the actress struck dumb ?

3) Gemini Studios was the favourite haunt of poets like

S.D.S. Yogiar, Sangu Subramanyam, Krishna Sastry and Harindranath
Chattopadhyaya. It had an excellent mess which supplied good coffee at all
times of the day and for most part of the night. Those were the days when
Congress rule meant Prohibition and meeting over a cup of coffee was rather
satisfying entertainment. Barring the office boys and a couple of clerks,
everybody else at the Studios radiated leisure, a pre-requisite for poerty.

Questions :
(a) Why all four poets mentioned above gathered at Gemini Studios ?
(b) What was the use of mess at Gemini Studios ?
(c) What was the meaning of Congress rule those days ?
(d) Why leisure, a pre-requisite for poetry was ?
 4) A few months later, the telephone lines of the big bosses of Madras buzzed
and once again we at Gemini Studios cleared a whole shooting stage to
welcome another visitor. All they said was that he was a poet from England.
The only poets from England the simple Gemini staffknew or heared of were
Word worth and Tennyson; the more literate ones knew of Keats, Shelly and
Byron; and one or two might have faintly come to know of someone by the
name Eliot. Who was the poet visiting the Gemini Studios now ?

Questions: .
(a) Why did they clear the whole shooting stage ?
(b) What did they come to know about the visitor ?
(c) Which poets were known among the more literate peoples of Gemini Studios ?
(d) Was they sure about the visitor that time ?