Bholi · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 135 MCQs with answers

Sulekha

The other three are her sisters.

Very fair and pretty

Everything held against her was done by accident before she was two.

She had neither good looks nor intelligence

Her sisters were healthy and good-looking, and easily matched.

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'N-n-no, n-n-no'

Her father asked what was the matter with her, calling her a fool.

She was bathed and oil was rubbed into her dry, matted hair

Nobody explained the school to her at all.

Entangled — as hair becomes when it is never combed

Which is what neglect had done to her hair.

She stammered, began to cry, and the class laughed at her

Exactly what had always happened to her at home.

That if Bholi put the fear out of her heart she would speak like everyone else

The sentence on which the whole story turns.

That in one month Bholi would be able to read it

And then a bigger book, and a bigger one still.

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A well-to-do grocer with a big shop, a house and money in the bank

He was also lame and nearly Ramlal's own age.

A brass band played a film tune and the bridegroom came on a decorated horse

Ramlal was overjoyed and her sisters were envious.

Five thousand rupees before he would marry her

He had asked for no dowry until that moment.

She flung it into the sacred fire

Then she got up and threw away the veil.

In a clear, loud voice without a single stammer

The teacher's promise, kept exactly.

To serve her parents in their old age and to teach in her old school

She answers calmly and steadily, without a trace of anger.

The simpleton — a foolish person easily tricked by others

The glossary gives the meaning directly.

She fell off her cot on to her head, possibly damaging part of her brain

She remained a backward child afterwards.

It left only her eyes untouched and covered her body with deep black pock-marks

She was two years old at the time.

She did not speak until she was five, and then stammered

The other children mimicked her, so she talked very little.

Seven — three sons and four daughters

Bholi was the youngest of them all.

A prosperous farmer's household with no shortage of food or milk

Which is why her neglect cannot be explained by poverty.

They were sent to the city to study in schools and then colleges

The daughters, meanwhile, were being married off.

A primary school for girls

The mill, cinema and trains come years later in the story.

That as a revenue official he must set an example and send his daughters to school

He had come to perform the opening ceremony.

He had not the courage to disobey him

As a numberdar he was answerable to the revenue authorities.

She asked who would marry girls who had been to school

'Are you crazy?' is how she begins.

Send Bholi, since she was unlikely to be married anyway

Let the teachers at school worry about her, she said.

1 and 2 only

She was the fourth and youngest daughter.

An official who collects revenue

Which is why the Tehsildar has authority over Ramlal.

The household was prosperous, and the sons were sent to city colleges

Money is never the obstacle in this story.

Two accidents before the age of two decided how a whole family would treat her

The opening should name the injustice, not just the facts.

Ramlal — a numberdar with seven children

Radha is the eldest and Bholi the youngest; the Tehsildar only opens the school.

That it reduces a girl's chances of being married

'If girls go to school, who will marry them?'

A neglected daughter is sent to school because nobody expects anything of her

The decision, and its reasoning, are the point of the section.

It shows exactly how little the family expects, so that the ending can overturn it

The classroom and the wedding both come later.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the name Sulekha and the nickname; the fall at ten months and the backwardness; the smallpox at two, the pock-marks and the eyes; her prettiness at birth; the late speech and the stammer; the mimicking and her silence; the seven children and…

She did not know what a school was and feared she was being sent away like the cow Lakshmi

Lakshmi had been turned out of the house and sold.

Her sisters' old dresses, which nobody washed or mended

New clothes had never been made for her.

Champa's — it had shrunk after many washings

Clean, but a hand-me-down like everything else.

Girls squatting on mats, reading from books or writing on slates

'Squatted' means sat on one's heels.

A brown horse, a black goat, a green parrot and a cow like Lakshmi

Every one of them came from her own village.

She dared not leave her corner and sat sobbing with her head on the desk

'Scurried' — ran or moved hurriedly — describes the other girls.

Not as a command but as a friendly suggestion

The manner is the whole of the teaching here.

By waiting through the stammer and saying 'Well done, well done'

Patience and praise, and nothing cleverer than that.

Coloured pictures of animals with a word under each in big black letters

One of the animals is a cow just like Lakshmi.

More learned than anyone else in the village, listened to with respect

Becoming a teacher is Bholi's own idea, years later.

As if temple bells were ringing and the trees had blossomed into big red flowers

Her heart throbbed with a new hope and a new life.

1 and 2 only

The teacher promised she would read it in a month.

She was terrified, and thought she was being disposed of like the old cow

Her only words on the way are a stammered refusal.

She waits for Bholi's words instead of laughing at them

The other children had always mimicked her.

She gets a mocked child to speak, and then to imagine a future

Four stammered syllables, and a month's promise.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: her ignorance of school and the memory of Lakshmi; her stammered refusal; the bath, the oil and Champa's shrunk dress; the real reason for the clean clothes; her belief that she was going somewhere better; the classroom with mats and slates;…

It had become a small town with a cinema, a ginning mill and a railway station

The primary school had also become a high school.

Because he asked for no dowry at all

It was lucky, the mother added, that he came from another village.

He was lame, nearly Ramlal's age, and had grown-up children from his first wife

Her mother said forty-five or fifty is no great age for a man.

That their witless daughter, being no better than a dumb cow, would raise no objection

Bholi lay awake in the next room and heard it all.

Her veil slipped back and he saw her pock-marked face

Everything that follows comes from that one glance.

He insisted on the five thousand rupees all the same

Five thousand, or the party would go back.

He placed his turban at the bridegroom's feet and offered two thousand

The turban stands for his honour.

With tears streaming, Ramlal counted five thousand and laid it at the bridegroom's feet

Bishamber smiled triumphantly — he had gambled and won.

That her father should take his money back, because she would not marry this man

Her first public sentence in the story.

They whispered that she was shameless — so ugly and so shameless

Nobody in the crowd blames the bridegroom.

That the dumb cow, the stammering fool, was now speaking

'Does he want to hear any more?'

The confused bandsmen struck up a closing song

Ramlal stood rooted to the ground with his head bowed.

1 and 2 only

The teacher watched from a corner and said almost nothing.

He begged, offered two thousand, and then paid the whole five thousand in tears

It is Bholi, not her father, who stops the marriage.

Bholi's mother — 'She is like a dumb cow'

The izzat line is Ramlal's, and the last two are Bholi's.

An educated daughter refuses a bought marriage and chooses to teach instead

Nobody persuades Bholi; she decides alone.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the band, the horse and Ramlal's pride; Bishamber's advantages and the absence of a dowry; the veil slipping and the sight of the pock-marks; the demand for five thousand; the turban, the plea and the offer of two thousand; the payment in te…

Because the other children made fun of her and mimicked her

Her silence was taken by everyone as proof of stupidity.

Education was for boys, while girls were valued for their looks and marriage

A girls' school opens in the village later in the section.

That she was considered a loss already, so nothing could be risked by her

She is educated precisely because she is thought worthless.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both are true, but the size of the family is not what shows the neglect had a cause other than want.

The qualities counted against her are what get her sent to school

And school is what will eventually give her a voice.

So that we notice it has been replaced by a nickname for the whole story

It returns only in the last page, when she has earned it back.

Both the fall and the smallpox happened before she was two

And nobody in the story ever says so aloud.

That her parents regarded her as a problem to be passed on

The teacher does take the trouble — which is the story's answer to the remark.

The neglect looks normal rather than wicked, which makes it more damning

Nobody beats her or turns her out; she is simply not thought about.

To show what a daughter's future normally was, and what Bholi was denied

Bridegrooms were not difficult to find for good-looking, healthy girls.

Officials are expected to set an example, whatever they privately believe

Ramlal obeys out of fear, not conviction.

The moment at the end when she looks straight at her bridegroom

Her eyes, in the last scene, hold neither anger nor hate but cold contempt.

As ordinary people following the custom of their time, not as villains

Which is precisely what makes the treatment of Bholi so damning.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the opening of the school and the Tehsildar's instruction; Ramlal's fear of disobeying; the mother's objection about marriage; the contrast with the marriageable sisters; the reasoning that Bholi has no prospects to protect; the phrase about the teachers wo…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the different futures of sons and daughters with evidence; appearance as a daughter's qualification; the treatment of education as a risk to marriage; obedience to authority rather than conviction; the writing-off of a disabled girl; and the observation tha…

So that the teachers and schoolgirls would not think badly of the family

Even this kindness is really about the family's reputation.

She began to believe she was being taken somewhere better than her home

Three ordinary attentions were enough, because she had never had them.

There were girls of her own age who might become her friends

Her first hope at school is friendship, not learning.

The classroom was made of things she already knew, so it stopped being frightening

The cow in the book is described as being just like Lakshmi.

The voice was so soft and soothing that nobody had ever spoken to her like that before

The story says simply that it touched her heart.

She said 'say it aloud', so that Bholi would use her voice

Bholi answered 'Ye-Ye-Yes', astonished at herself.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

There is no special technique — only attention nobody else had given.

That she believed her family valued her no more than an old animal

And nothing in the household's behaviour had told her otherwise.

To show the ordinary daily neglect she lived with

The harm in this story is made of small omissions.

That she wants Bholi to use her voice, not avoid it

Every step she takes is towards speech.

That one of the girls of her own age might become her friend

Minutes later, those same girls laugh at her stammer.

To show that the promise felt to her like a festival, not a lesson

It is the first joy she has been given in the story.

That her voice and her courage are the teacher's gift, worked for over years

The teacher is watching from a corner when Bholi finally speaks.

It shows how completely alone she had been until then

Moments later, those same girls laugh at her.

A bath, oiled hair and a clean dress made her think she was going somewhere better

The bar for hope in her life is astonishingly low.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the soft voice and the effect of being addressed kindly; 'get up' as a suggestion not a command; the patience through the stammer and the praise of the attempt; 'put the fear out of your heart' as naming the real cause; the refusal to accept a nod; the pict…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the initial terror and the Lakshmi comparison; the father's dismissal; the fear-laden eyes and the laughter in class; the sobbing after the bell; the small kindnesses and the familiar pictures as counterweights; the teacher's soft voice and patience; 'put t…

She went into the marriage knowing exactly what her family thought of her

And she went through with it anyway, for her father's sake.

They were not downcast, but looking straight at the bridegroom

There was neither anger nor hate in them, only cold contempt.

Because he had shown himself mean, greedy, contemptible and a coward

She says she had been willing to marry him for her father's izzat.

That she turns her father's own argument back on him

The disgrace, she implies, was the demand at the fire.

With the satisfaction an artist feels at the completion of a masterpiece

She had watched from a corner and said only 'Yes, Bholi, of course'.

Because she is no longer the simpleton the nickname described

The first line took the name away; the last page returns it.

A is false, but R is true

She refuses at the last moment and stays, so the assertion is false. The reason correctly states what she was and was not refusing.

That he chose the moment when refusal would disgrace the family most

The triumphant smile afterwards makes the calculation plain.

The sacred fire that would have bound the marriage destroys it instead

She speaks immediately afterwards, clearly and without a stammer.

Bholi is left unmarried, with a voice, a purpose and a livelihood instead of a husband

Her plan is to serve her parents and to teach.

That the teacher's real work was the making of a person, not a lesson

The artist image is the story's final judgement on education.

It shows that the family judged even this marriage by its show

The band and the decorated horse are what they envy.

That her refusal came from judgement rather than temper

She answers her father calmly and steadily about the future.

Her education, which gives her a voice and a way of earning

She can read, she can speak, and she can teach.

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the modest, gradual nature of what the teacher did; the exact terms of her promise; the fulfilment of each term in the final scene; the reasoned quality of Bholi's refusal; the livelihood that makes independence possible; the artist image and its meaning; a…

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Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the acceptance of an unsuitable match because no dowry was asked; the mother's reasoning about the pock-marks; the timing of the demand at the sacred fire and the triumphant smile; the turban, the payment and the appeal to izzat directed at the bride; the g…