Madam Rides the Bus · Class 10 English · First Flight: 60 flashcards
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1. What is Valli's full name, and how old is she?
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Valliammai, called Valli for short; she is eight years old.
2. What was Valli's favourite pastime?
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Standing at her own front door and watching whatever went by in the street.
3. Why was the doorway all she had to do?
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There were no playmates of her own age on her street.
4. How does the writer stop the doorway seeming pitiful?
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He says that for Valli it gave her quite as much pleasure as the complicated games the other children got up to, and that watching the street gave her many new and unusual experiences.
5. What was a source of unending joy for Valli?
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The bus between her village and the town, carrying a different set of faces every time it passed.
6. What was Valli's strongest desire?
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To ride on that bus, even if just once — a tiny wish that crept into her head, grew there, and became an overwhelming desire.
7. What did Valli shout when friends described the town?
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'Proud! proud!' — in English, a slang expression of disapproval whose meaning neither she nor her friends really understood.
8. How did Valli find out about the bus journey?
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By listening, month after month, to what neighbours and regular passengers said to one another, and slipping in the odd careful question of her own.
9. How far was the town, and how long did the trip take?
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Six miles from her village, and forty-five minutes each way.
10. What was the bus fare?
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Thirty paise one way, and another thirty paise to return on the same bus if she stayed in her seat.
11. What did a well-dressed man say about the fare, and what did Valli think?
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He brushed it aside as almost nothing; to Valli, who rarely handled such a sum in a whole month, it was a small fortune.
12. What timetable did Valli work out?
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The one o’clock bus out, the town at a quarter to two, and home again by about a quarter to three.
13. How much money did Valli save in all?
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Sixty paise — thirty for each direction.
14. How did Valli save the money?
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Coin by stray coin, turning down peppermints, toys, balloons and everything else she wanted.
15. What was the hardest test of Valli's saving?
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The village fair, where she had the money in her pocket and still refused herself a turn on the merry-go-round.
16. How did Valli plan to leave the house unnoticed?
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Her mother napped from about one to four every day after lunch, and Valli always used those hours for her 'excursions'.
17. What does Valli call her wanderings around the village?
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Her 'excursions' — standing in the doorway or sometimes venturing out into the village.
18. What does 'wistfully' mean?
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Longingly — how Valli stared at the people getting on and off the bus.
19. What does 'discreet' mean, as used of Valli's questions?
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Careful — asked so that nobody would guess what she was planning.
20. What does the chapter's introduction say the journey will become for Valli?
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Her induction into the mystery of life and death, and a glimpse of the gap between knowing that there is death and understanding it.
21. How did Valli stop the bus?
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She shouted 'Stop the bus! Stop the bus!' and raised a tiny hand commandingly as the bus was about to turn into the main highway.
22. What did Valli say when the conductor offered to help her up?
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She waves the help away: “I can get on by myself.”
23. Why does the conductor call Valli 'madam'?
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He was a jolly sort, fond of joking, and was teasing a small girl who insisted on being treated as a grown-up passenger — 'make way for madam'.
24. How many passengers were on the bus, and why so few?
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Only six or seven, because it was the slack time of day — a time when there is not much work.
25. How did Valli react to the passengers laughing?
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She was overcome with shyness, avoided everyone's eyes, and walked quickly to an empty seat and sat down.
26. Describe the bus Valli travelled in.
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A new bus, gleaming white outside with green stripes down the sides; inside, the rails overhead had a silvery shine, there was a beautiful clock above the windshield, and the seats were soft and luxurious.
27. What did the conductor do before the bus started?
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He asked, 'May we start now, madam?', smiling, and blew his whistle twice; then the bus moved forward with a roar.
28. Why did Valli stand up on the seat?
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Because a canvas blind covered the lower part of her window and cut off her view, so she stood and peered over it.
29. What did Valli see on one side of the road?
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The canal; and past it palm trees, open grass, mountains far off, and a sky she calls blue twice over.
30. What did Valli see on the other side?
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A deep ditch, and past it field after field of crops — green everywhere she looked.
31. What did the elderly man say, and why?
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'Listen, child, you shouldn't stand like that. Sit down.' He had honestly been concerned for her safety.
32. What did Valli tell the elderly man?
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Haughtily: 'There's nobody here who's a child. I've paid my thirty paise like everyone else.'
33. What did Valli say when the conductor teased her about being a grown-up madam?
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That she is **not** a madam, and that he has still not handed over her ticket.
34. How did the argument about the ticket end?
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He promised to remember, copying her tone as he said it; everybody laughed, and before long Valli was laughing too.
35. Why did the conductor want Valli to sit down?
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Because if she stood on the seat she might fall and hurt herself when the bus made a sharp turn or hit a bump.
36. What made Valli finally sit down?
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The bus stopped, new passengers got on and the conductor got busy; afraid of losing her seat, she finally sat.
37. Why didn't Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?
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She found her absolutely repulsive — the big holes in her ear lobes, the ugly earrings, the smell of the betel nut she was chewing and the betel juice threatening to spill over her lips.
38. What did the elderly woman ask Valli?
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Whether she was travelling alone, whether it was proper for such a young person to travel alone, and whether she knew the street and house number she was going to.
39. What does 'drivel' mean, as used of the old woman's talk?
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Silly nonsense — which is how Valli regarded her questions.
40. What does 'slack time' mean?
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The quiet hours when there is little business — which is why barely half a dozen people were aboard.
41. How does the story describe the trees seen from the moving bus?
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They came running towards the bus, then stopped as it reached them and stood for a moment at the roadside not knowing what to do, and then bolted off the other way.
42. What did Valli see that made her laugh?
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A young cow with its tail high in the air, running fast right in the middle of the road in front of the bus; the more the driver honked, the more frightened it became and the faster it galloped.
43. How hard did Valli laugh at the cow?
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She clapped her hands with glee and laughed until her eyes were wet.
44. What did the conductor say about her laughing?
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'Hey, lady, haven't you laughed enough? Better save some for tomorrow.'
45. What happened at the railroad crossing?
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What began as a dot in the distance swelled until it tore past the gate, roaring and rattling hard enough to shake the bus.
46. What did Valli see in the town?
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A busy, well-laid-out shopping street and a wider thoroughfare, with big bright-looking shops, glittering displays of clothes and other merchandise, and big crowds; she was struck dumb with wonder and gaped at everything.
47. Why didn't Valli get off the bus at the bus station?
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Because she had come for the ride itself, not for the town; she paid another thirty paise and said, 'she simply felt like taking a ride on the bus.'
48. Why didn't Valli want to see the sights of the town?
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'All by myself? Oh, I'd be much too afraid.' She had studied the bus for months, but the town she did not know at all.
49. What did Valli say when the conductor pointed out she had not been afraid to come in the bus?
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'Nothing to be afraid of about that.'
50. Why didn't Valli go to the stall for a drink? What does it show?
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She said she could not do that and had not enough money; and when the conductor offered to treat her she refused firmly — 'No, no, please, no.' It shows her self-respect and her refusal to accept anything she has not paid for.
51. What did Valli see on the way back that changed her mood?
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The same young cow lying dead by the roadside, at the spot where something moving fast had hit it.
52. How is the dead cow described?
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What had been a lovable, beautiful creature a little while ago had lost its charm and its life and looked horrible and frightening, legs flung wide, the dead eyes fixed on nothing, blood everywhere.
53. Why would Valli not look out of the window on the homeward journey?
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The memory of the dead cow haunted her and dampened her enthusiasm; she sat glued to her seat instead.
54. At what time did the bus reach Valli's village?
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Three forty — well inside her mother's nap, which lasted until about four.
55. What were Valli's parting words to the conductor, and his reply?
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'Well, sir, I hope to see you again.' — 'Okay, madam. Come along whenever you feel like a ride — and bring your fare.'
56. Whom did Valli find at home, and what was she like?
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Her mother, awake and talking to an aunt from South Street — a real chatterbox who never closed her mouth once she started talking.
57. What did Valli's mother say that startled her?
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That there are so many things in our midst and in the world outside that we cannot possibly know about everything, and that even when we do know about something we often cannot understand it completely.
58. What does Valli mean by 'things happening without our knowledge'?
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On the surface, the journey her mother knows nothing about; underneath, the death of the cow — a thing she had always known about but only that afternoon understood.
59. How does the story end?
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The aunt calls her a chit of a girl who pokes her nose into grown-up conversation; Valli smiles to herself, not wanting them to understand her smile — and there was not much chance of that.
60. What does 'spreadeagled' mean?
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Spread out — the word used for the dead cow's legs.
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