THE BLUE BEAD

I. Read the extract given below and

answer the question that follows:
(i) What were sleepers? What made the
timber float down the river?
Ans. Sleepers are rectangular pieces of timber,
stone, or steel on or near the ground to support a
superstructure, or keep railroad rails in place.
Timber is less dense than water, and the strong
flow of water in the river made the timber float
down the rivers.
(ii) What is meant by dislodge? How can the
sleepers be dislodged?
Ans. Dislodge is an act of forcefully removing
something or someone from its place or position.
Sleepers that are lying stuck in the stones can be
dislodged by delivering sufficient force, manually or
mechanically, to the sleepers using a lever like a
contrivance. Also, floods can lift them and jostle
them along.
 (iii) From where did the crocodile come? Why
did he come? What was he doing in the
shallow waters?
Ans. The crocodile came from the deep black water
of the river where the flowing streams produced
whirlpools.
He came to rest in the glassy shallows, among logs
and balanced there on tiptoe on the rippled sand,
so that only his eyes and nostrils out of the water
to breathe in the fresh sunny air.
(iv) Why did the crocodile raise his eyes and
nostrils out of water? The author says,
“Now nothing could pierce the inch-thick
armoured hide”. What does she mean by
the sentence given above? Why does she
say so?
Ans. The crocodile raised his eyes to get a clear
sight of the area around the stepping stones and
raised his nostrils to breathe in the fresh sunny
air.The author means to say that the skin of the
crocodile was an inch-thick and very strong. The
author is suggesting that even the bullets could not
tears it if anybody would shot it, it would bounce
off.
(v) Who encountered the crocodile later in
the story? What did she do to the
crocodile and why?
Ans. Later in the story, a little girl named Sibia
encountered the crocodile. She killed the crocodile
with her hay-fork. She did so in order to save the
life of a Gujan woman, whom the crocodile
attacked on her leg and wanted to drag her deep
into the river.
 II. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) What is a mugger crocodile? Give its three
characteristics features.
Ans. The mugger crocodile is a species of the
freshwater crocodile of the Indian subcontinent.
The crocodile was twice the length of a tall man. It
had a tail with unimaginable and irresistible power
which could propel the strongest flow of water. His
mouth, running almost the whole length of his
head, was closed and fixed in that evil bony smile,
and where the yellow underside came up to it, it
was tinged green
(ii) Give Meaning of –
a) Antediluvian saurian
Ans. It means a large reptile which is very old as if it
belonged to the times before the biblical flood.

b) Prehistoric juggernaut:
Ans. A very ancient animal which is very strong and
powerful.
 (ii) Describe the appearance of the crocodile.
What made him move?
Ans.
The crocodile with a huge tail was twice the length
of a tall man.
It was blackish-brown on above and yellowish-
white on the under.
He was having a throbbing throat.
His armoured hide was one inch thick and nothing
could pierce it.
He lay motionless and able to wait forever till food
came.
The crocodile used the unimaginable and
irresistible power of his huge tail to move in the
water.
(iii) How can you conclude from the extract
that the crocodile was a strong and
dangerous animal?
Ans. The crocodile is described as “an antediluvian
saurian, a prehistoric juggernaut, ferocious and
formidable, a vast force in the water, propelled by
the unimaginable and irresistible power of the
huge tail”, suggests that he was a strong and
dangerous animal.
(iv) How does the crocodile form an
important component in the development
of the plot? Give reasons to support your
answer.
Ans. The mugger crocodile lived in the river where
the villagers used to work and take water. One day
while Sibia was taking a short break along with two
other Gujjar women, she saw a lady struggling and
screaming having been caught by a crocodile.
She immediately rushed to her help and stabbed
the crocodile. The crocodile immediately released
its grip on the lady who was saved by Sibia. The
crocodile is important in the building of the plot
because Sibia later finds a blue bead that she
always wanted. The story thus entails that Where
There is a Will, There is a Way.
III. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) What is said about the birth of the
crocodile? How can you say that the
crocodile was very active even before he
was fully hatched?
Ans. The author says that it may be possible that
the crocodile was born a hundred years ago, since
when it was hatched. The crocodile was very active
because as soon as he managed to get his head out
of his shell he was looking around ready to snap at
anything even before he was fully hatched.
(ii) What is meant by brainless craft and
ferocity?
Ans. It means making use of one’s craft and ferocity
guided purely by natural instinct. The young
crocodile could escape from predators by
instinctively using his skills and fierceness.
Brainless Craft: brainless, guided by instinct.
Ferocity: the quality or state of being ferocious.
(iii) What were the dangers facing the young
crocodile?
Ans. The young crocodile faced the dangers of
getting eaten by birds of prey and great
carnivorous fishes who fed on baby crocodiles.
(iv) How did the young crocodile get the
food? How did they store it? What did the
big crocodile feed on?
Ans. The young crocodile caught all the food he
needed and stored it in holes in the river bank till
putrid. The big crocodile fed mostly on fish but had
also caught deer, monkeys, ducks, pi-dogs full of
parasites, or a skeleton cow. He also went down to
the burning ghats and fed on half-burned bodies of
Indians caste into the stream.
(v) How is the body of the crocodile strong
enough to protect him? How was he
vulnerable to an attack?
Ans. The body of the crocodile is protected with an
inch thick layer of armoured hide on the above, and
nothing can pierce it, even rifle bullets would
bounce off.
His eyes and the soft underarms made him
vulnerable to an attack.
IV. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) From where did the little girl come? What
did she wear? What was she eating?
Ans. The little girl came from a shrill noisy village
above the ford. She was wearing an earthen color
rag which she had divided into two, one for a skirt
and one for a sari. She was eating chapattis on
which she had spread green chili and rancid butter.
(ii) Describe the physical appearance of the
little girl.
Ans. The girl was about twelve years old. Her
complexion was oily brown. She was thin and dark-
colored. Her eyes were big and her hair was black.
As she was eating her food her straight white teeth
were visible.
(iii) Give evidence to prove that girl was from
a poor household.
Ans. The girl belonged to a poor household as she
lived in a mud house and wore an earthen color
rag, which she divided into two, one for a skirt and
another for a sari. Her family could not afford the
meal of the day properly. She had never owned
even one anna- not a pice, not a pi, to buy anything
from the bazaar.
(iv)
Why was the little girl known as a child-woman
and born to toil?
Ans. The little girl was known as a child-woman and
born to toil because the circumstances had made
the girl to sacrifice all her wishes and to tolerate
the conditions like a mature woman. She had to do
very much hard work, she used to pull off the corn,
gathering the sticks, making the cow dung dry,
cooking, fetching water, and cutting the fodder for
animals.
(iv) Describe the strange object found near
the crocodile. Justify why the story is
named after the object.
Ans. A glimmering blue bead was found near the
crocodile. It was a sand-worn blue glass that was
perforated right through the middle and was
perhaps the neck of the bottle. When Sibia found
this, her happiness in killing the crocodile was
subsided. So, the title of the story was appropriate.

V. Read the extract given below and answer

the question that follows:
(i) Where was the bazaar? How did the girl
know about it?
Ans. The bazaar was near the railhead in the little
town. Very often Sibia had gone to the bazaar with
her parents and brother walking all the way
through the forests, and hence she came to know
about it.
(ii) What had she seen and heard while
passing through the bazaar?
Ans. She saw the milling people, and dogs and
monkeys full of fleas, the idling gossiping
bargaining humanity spitting betel juice. She had
heard the bell of a sacred bull clonking as he
lumped along through the dust and hubbub.
 (iii) What was her experience at the
sweetmeat stall? What did she sometimes
taste at home?
Ans. She had paused, amazed, before the
sweetmeat stall, to gaze at the brilliant honey
confection, abuzz with dust and flies. They smelled
wonderful, above the smell of drains and humanity
and cheap cigarettes
(iv) Describe what Sibia saw at the cloth stall.
Did she like the stall? Why?
Ans. She saw a cloth stall stacked with great rolls of
new cotton cloth stamped at the edge with the
maker’s sign of a tiger’s head. Yes, she liked the
stall as it was smelling very wonderful of dressing,
straight front from the mills. The smell was so nice
that she could have stood there all day.
(v) Was there any significance in Sibia’s life of
the things sold in the bazaar? What was
she marked for from her birth?
Ans. The significance in Sibia’s life of the things that
they collect and sell in the bazaar is that it shows
the hard way of living their lives. Her family works
very hard day today to make a living.
Sibia was marked for work from the time she was
born. Since she was ac child, she was put to work.
Her work as a child started from picking up sticks,
cooking, and other household chores.

VI. Read the extract given below and answer

the question that follows:
(i) Mention any three of the wonders Sibia
had seen in the bazaar.
Ans. Sibia had seen many wonderful things in the
bazaar. She had seen the satin sewn with real silver
thread, tin trays from Birmingham. A sari which had
got chips of looking-glass embroidered into the
border. She had also seen a Kashmiri traveling
merchant showing dawn-colored silks that poured
like cream, and he’d got a little locked chest with
turquoises and opals in it.
(ii) What did the Kashmiri merchant sell?
Ans. The Kashmiri merchant sold dawn-colored
silks that poured like cream, a little locked chest
with turquoises and opals in it, and a box which
when been pressed, a bell tinkles and a yellow
woolen chicken jumps out from the box.
(iii) Describe the box having the best of
merchant’s goods.
Ans. The best of all was a box which, when pressed,
tinkles a bell, and a yellow woolen chicken jumps
out of it.
(iv) How did Sibia used to spend her time
since her childhood?
Ans. Sibia had spent her time doing the household
work. Sibia worked to earn for her livelihood since
her childhood. She had husked corn, and gathered
sticks, and put dunk to dry, and cooked and
weeded, and carried, and fetched water, and cut
grass from the fodder.
(v) What does Sibia’s life show about the life
of the people living in the vicinity of
forests? How was Sibia’s life different
from the Gujar women’s?
Ans. For the people residing in the vicinity of
forests, life is full of hardship. The mud house lacks
even the basic amenities. Sibia’s life is more
difficult than the Gujar women as she not only had
to do the household work but also had to go up the
mountains to cut the paper grass to make a
living.She appears out a hard-working and
adventurous girl in the Gujar community. She is the
specimen of intractable will power, in sharp
contrast to the Gujar woman.

VII. Read the extract given below and answer

the question that follows:
(i) What thoughts did not trouble Sibia?
Ans. Sibia and other women were working very
hard throughout the day but the maximum profit
was women by the agent who sat all day long on
the silk cushions enjoying his hookah, but such
thoughts dud bit trouble Sibia’s mind.
(ii) Where was the Sibia going? Why?
Ans. Sibia was going up the hills on the other side
of the riverbank. She was going with her mother
and the other women in order to get the paper
grass. They used to sell these grass to the agent to
get the money as their earning.
(iii) Who were with Sibia during her journey?
Why couldn’t Sibia skip during her return
journey?
Ans. Sibia was going up the cliffs with her mother
and the other women of the village. While going up
she was full of energy and was skipping along but
at the time of returning she could not do so
because she was tired and was having a big load to
carry.
(iv) Describe the necklaces worn by women.
Why did they want to wear new necklaces
every year?
Ans. Some of the women were wearing necklaces.
These necklaces were made out of lal-lal-beeges,
the shiny scarlet seeds, black one end, that grew
everywhere in the jungle. Every year when old
necklaces were faded they wanted to wear new
necklaces.
(v) What type of necklace did Sibia wish to
wear? What was the difficulty in getting
such a necklace?
Ans. Sibia also wished to wear one necklace made
of the shiny scarlet seed. She was making one but
each seed was as hard as stone and could be drilled
only with a red hot needle. Sibia broke her family
needle so she had to wait unless the new needle
could be bought.

VIII. Read the extract given below and answer

the question that follows:
(i) Why were the women going to the river?
What were the dangers they encounter
on the way?
Ans. The women were going towards the river in
order to collect the paper grass from the cliffs on
the other bank of the river, which they would sell
to the agent who arranges and dispatch it for paper
mills.
On the way, they might encounter wild animals and
big crocodiles which could kill them.
 (ii) What is meant by ‘nomadic graziers’?
How long do these people stay in one
place?
Ans. ‘Nomadic graziers’ are the people who roam
around from place to place, frequently, or without
a fixed pattern of movement, until they will get the
greenery around to graze their animals. Their
occupation is cattling (here). They stay in one place
until their animals had perhaps finished all the easy
grazing within reach, or they were not able to sell
enough of their butter and white milk in the
district, or there was no one to buy the young male
buffaloes for tiger bait.
(iii) Describe the appearance of Gujar women
as seen by Sibia?
Ans. Sibia saw the appearance of Gujar women.
They wore trousers tight and wrinkled near the
ankles. They were wearing large silver rings in the
ears. These rings were made out of pure silver by
melting the rupees.
(iv) Where were the men and boys from the
camp? Explain why Gujars are called the
“men in the wandering Pastoral Age.”
Ans. The men and boys were mostly out of the
camp, either to graze their animals or to sell their
produce in the market. The Gujars are referred to
as “men in the wandering Pastoral Age” because
they did not have a permanent house. They were
neither the hunters nor the cultivators, they earned
their living from the animals, grass, and trees in the
forest.
(v) Explain how was Sibia like the Gujars, a
jungli. Give two points of difference
between Sibia and Gujars?
Ans. The Gujars were junglis, as Sibia was too, born
and bred in the forest. For countless centuries,
their forebears had lived like this, getting their
living from animals, from grass and trees. Sibia was
having a permanent house whereas the Gujars
were nomadic. The Gujars were well-off people
while Sibia belongs to a poor household, her family
could not afford even two meals of the day.
IX. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) How was Sibia compared to the bird in the
passage?
Ans. When the cool wind touched the sweating
body of Sibia and she could look down over the
river as if she were a bird. Her imagination took her
in swooping flight over the bright water and golden
air to the banks where she had played as a child.
(ii) What did she keep in the cave? Why?
Ans. In the cavelets on the mountains, Sibia had
kept the small bowls made up of clay so that these
bowls becomes hard. She wanted to paint them
with marigolds and elephants.
(iii) Why was the mother angry with her? How
did Sibia react to the situation?
Ans. When Sibia’s mother found her lost in the
world of imagination she called her. On hearing the
strict tone of her mother, Sibia got alert. She came
back to the world of reality and started to coil
again.
 (iv) Why did the women carrying the load go?
Why?
Ans. The women carrying the load were going back
to their homes as it was the evening time. They had
to look after their animals and had to cook the
evening meal.
(v) At the end of the day, how did Sibia feel?
What does it reveal about her character?
Ans. Even after being the heroine of such an
adventurous and life-threatening battle with the
crocodile, the only detail that she considered
important to tell her mother was that she had
found a blue bead for her necklace. This incident
reveals that though Sibia had accepted her poor
condition, deep in her heart, she wished to have
the “wonders of the world.”
X. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) What happened when the Gujar woman
walked on to the stepping-stones?
Ans. When the Gujar woman walked on to the
stepping stones, she was within one yard of the
reach of the crocodile. The crocodile lunged at her.
The woman screamed with fear and dropped the
pots.
(ii) When the crocodile attacked the woman,
how did she react?
Ans. When the crocodile attacked the woman, she
recoiled from the crocodile, but his jaws closed on
her leg at the same moment as she slipped and fell
on the bone-breaking stone, and clutched one of
the timber logs to save herself.
(iii) Describe the struggle between the woman
and the crocodile?
Ans. When the crocodile attacked the woman, she
recoiled from the crocodile, but his jaws closed on
her leg at the same moment as she slipped and fell
on the bone-breaking stone, and clutched one of
the timber logs to save herself. The crocodile was
pulling the woman on her legs and was beating her
with his powerful tail. He was doing it so that the
woman might lose her grip on the timber logs and
he could drag her deep into the river.
(iv) Briefly state the theme of the conflict
between human beings and wild nature as
shown in the story.
Ans. While nature is beneficial to human beings, it
can also be wild; it has something of the savage
and awful. The Blue Bead presents both these
aspects. The people of the village live in the lap of
nature and enjoy its benefits. But, as the village is
on the edge of a forest, they are also vulnerable to
dangers from wild animals. They fall prey to fatal
diseases and are often threatened by wild animals.
The dense forest cut them off from the benefits of
urbanization.

(v) On seeing the woman being attacked by a

crocodile what was Sibia’s first thought?
Show how Sibia came to help the woman
immediately?
Ans. As soon as Sibia saw the woman attacked by a
crocodile she sprang to help her, without thinking
about the danger in the river. From boulder to
boulder she came leaping like a rock goat in order
to help the woman. She came on wings choosing
her footing in midair without even thinking about
it, and in one moment she was beside the shrieking
woman
XI. Read the extract given below and answer
the question that follows:
(i) Why did crocodile go into convulsion?
What happened during his convulsion?
Ans. As Sibia hit the crocodile in his eyes, he reared
up in pain and moved in convulsion. It was groaning
with pain this much that his nose and tail were
meeting at his stony back.
(ii) How did Sibia attend to the Gujar woman?
Ans. Sibia got her arms around the fainting woman
and somehow dragged her from the water. She
stopped her wounds with sand, and bound them
with a rag, and helped her home to the Gujar
encampment where the men made a litter carry
her to someone for treatment.
(iii) Where was Sibia’s sickle and fork? What
strange object did she see in the water?
Ans. Sibia’s sickle and fork were still in the water.
She bent down to pick up her fork but she noticed a
strange object in the water. Due to the dim light,
the object was looking in no-color white-blue. It
was ready for use as it had a hole in the center of it.
 (iv) How did she take possession of the
strange object? Describe the object.
Ans. Sibia reached her arm down into a yard of the
cold silk water to get it, but she missed it at first
because of refraction. In her second attempt, Sibia
was able to get the blue bead in her hands. The
object was perfect, white-blue, and even pierced
ready for use, with the sunset shuffled about inside
it like gold dust.
(v) State why was Sibia more thrilled at
finding the blue bead than saving the
Gujar woman from the crocodile. What
does this reveal about Sibia?
Ans. A blue bead was one of the “unattainable
wonders” for her that she managed to attain at the
end. Thus, it was only natural for her to rejoice at
having discovered the glittering bead. Hence, Sibia
says to her mother in ecstasy, “I found a blue bead
for my necklace.”
Even after being the heroine of such an
adventurous and life-threatening battle with the
crocodile, the only detail that she considered
important to tell her mother was that she had
found a blue bead for her necklace. This incident
reveals that though Sibia had accepted her poor
condition, deep in her heart, she wished to have
the “wonders of the world.”