Question - 11 : - Read the description given alongside this sketch from a photograph in a newspaper (Times of India, 4 September 1999. Make up a story about what the monkey is thinking, or why it is looking into a mirror. Write a paragraph about it.

Answer - 11 : - One day, a monkey was preening itself in a broken piece of mirror that he had picked up from the nearby garbage bin. He looked at himself for a long time and wondered why the female monkey he had recently approached rejected him. He had earlier judged himself too handsome to be declined. But the sudden turn of events left him bewildered. Hence, that day looked at himself in the mirror for a considerable amount of time. Finally, he concluded that the female was a fool and that he actually was one of the best-looking monkeys in their troop. He spend some time contemplating which other female monkey was worth his attention. Having made him up his mind, he decided that he would ask his mother to pick out the excess lice from his body before approaching his new-found love.

Question - 12 : -
Using some of the expressions given above in exercise III, talk about an incident when you were very scared. You may have a competition to decide whose story was the most frightening.

Answer - 12 : -

Once we went on a school excursion to Jim Corbett. Me and my friend Chhavi were asleep in our room at the resort when we heard some noises–rustling of leaves, scratching sound on our door and rattling of pebbles. Both of us got up in a jerk. I sat on my bed paralysed with fear. There was silence for the next few minutes before we heard that scratching sound again. This time I nearly jumped out of my skin. Chhavi got up from the bed to look out of the glass window but I sat there without moving a muscle. When she removed the blinders I could see darkness all around. Suddenly we noticed a hooded figure move in the darkness. Seeing this, my hair stood on end. Both of us started crying and shouting for help when we heard some voices calling our names. Somebody turned on the lights outside our room and we saw our friends standing outdoors. They apparently were playing a prank. Till this day I remember the way I was horrified and scared out of my wits.

Question - 13 : -
The text you read is a translation of a story by a well-known Malayalam writer, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer.

In translating a story from one language to another, a translator must keep the content intact. However, the language and the style differ in different translations of the same text.

Here are two translations of the opening paragraphs of a novel by the Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami. Read them and answer the questions given below.

A

B

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax.

I’m in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when the woman calls. Another moment until the spaghetti is done; there I am, whistling the prelude to Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra along with the FM radio. Perfect spaghetti-cooking music!

I hear the telephone ring but tell myself, Ignore it. Let the spaghetti finish cooking. It’s almost done, and besides, Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra are coming to a crescendo.

Compare the two translations on the basis of the following points.
• the tense of narration (past and present tense)
• short, incomplete sentences
• sentence length
Which of these translations do you like? Give reasons for your choice.

Answer - 13 : -

On comparing the tense of narration used in the two translations, we find that while translation A uses the present tense, translation B uses the past tense to narrate the events. Besides, compared to those in translation B, the sentences in translation A are lengthier, using a number of conjunctions and modifiers. Translation B uses sentences that are short and conversational and, at times, incomplete.

I think translation A is better than translation B because even though the sentences in this translation are long, yet they are complete.

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Chapter 9 – The Snake and the Mirror Solutions

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