Chapter 9 Madam Rides the Bus Solutions
Question - 1 : - What was Valli’s favourite pastime?
Answer - 1 : - Valli’s favourite pastime was standing in the front doorway of her house and watching what was happening in the street outside.
Question - 2 : - What was a source of unending joy for Valli? What was her strongest desire?
Answer - 2 : - The sight of the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town, filled with a new set of passengers each time it passed through the street near her house was a source of unending joy for Valli. Her strongest desire was to take a ride on the bus someday.
Question - 3 : - What did Valli find out about the bus journey? How did she find out these details?
Answer - 3 : - Valli found out that the bus journey to the town from her village was six miles and took forty-five minutes approximately. The fare for one-way journey costed 30 paisa. She listened to the conversations carefully between her neighbours and the people who regularly took the bus trip and asked a few questions to gain some information and small details about the bus journey.
Question - 4 : - What do you think Valli was planning to do?
Answer - 4 : - Valli was planning to travel on the bus and go to the town and return back home on the same bus. She heard the onward journey fare was thirty paise that took forty five minutes approximately to reach the town. In this way, she planned that she would stay in her seat and pay another thirty paise for the return trip. This meant that she could take the one-o’clock afternoon bus, reach the town at 1.45 P.M. and return home by 2.45 P.M.
Question - 5 : - Why does the conductor call Valli ‘madam’?
Answer - 5 : - The conductor called Valli ‘madam’ because she was behaving like a woman in an audacious and smart manner. She did not accept his help to get into the bus and was very quick in replying to the conductor’s questions. Amused by her antics and behaviour, the conductor teased her by calling her ‘madam’.
Question - 6 : - Why does Valli stand up on the seat? What does she see now?
Answer - 6 : - Valli was enchanted by the view of the beautiful scenery outside the bus and was trying hard to look outside. But her view was blocked by the canvas blind that covered the lower part of the window. In order to catch a better glimpse, she stood up on the seat and peered over the blind. She saw the narrow road as the bus was going along the bank of a canal, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, green fields and the blue sky. On the other side, there was a deep ditch and many acres of green fields stretched far and wide as much as her eyes could see.
Question - 7 : - What does Valli tell the elderly man when he calls her a child?
Answer - 7 : - When the elderly man in the bus referred to Valli as a child, she instantly replied that there was nobody in the bus who was a child. She further stated that she had paid her fare of thirty paise like other passengers in the bus.
Question - 8 : - Why didn’t Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?
Answer - 8 : - Valli was not interested to make friends with the elderly woman because she looked quite repulsive to her. She had big earholes with bigger holes and wore ugly earrings. Besides, she was also chewing betel nut and her mouth was also filled with betel juice that was likely to spill all over her lips. Seeing all this, Valli thought that the elderly woman was not sociable enough to be friends with.
Question - 9 : - What was Valli’s deepest desire? Find the words and phrases in the story that tell you this.
Answer - 9 : - Valli’s deepest desire was to take a ride on the bus that she saw everyday from her house. The words and phrases in the story that depict her desire are ‘an overwhelming desire’, ‘source of unending joy’, ‘stare wistfully’, and ‘kindle in her longings, dreams and hopes’.
Question - 10 : - How did Valli plan her bus ride? What did she find out about the bus, and how did she save up the fare?
Answer - 10 : - Valli had been carefully listening since many days to the conversations between her neighbours and the people who regularly used the bus and asked a few discreet questions. She learnt from them that the town was six miles away from her village and the bus charged thirty paise as fare for the onward journey and it took forty-five minutes to complete one-way bus trip. She also made up her mind to stay in the bus and return in the same bus that would cost her sixty paise to and fro. She was determined not to get down from the bus to roam around the town as she didn’t have enough money. Hence, she saved sixty paise meticulously and resisted all kinds of urges and temptation to buy peppermints, toys, etc. and even a ride on the merry-go-round at the village annual fair. It was Valli’s secret adventurous bus trip that she had planned without her parents’ knowledge.