51. Reading Skills Comprehension: JEWELLERY SHOP

JEWELLERY SHOP

Read the passage given below:

1. As dusk falls the neon lights of the jewellery shops in Bowbazaar come alive but the lights have no effect on the face of MahadeoYadav who is seated on the footrest of his rickshaw that is parked by the road, feeling very sad. He is sitting on his feet, hugging his knees to keep himself warm in the biting cold, so weakened and lifeless as if he had been dead for days without anyone noticing.

2. Who would, after all, notice a rickshaw puller, to check whether he is breathing or not? Yet when the same rickshaw puller goes about his work of pulling his rickshaw like a horse, he becomes the most noticed man in Calcutta. He makes a great subject for photographers, writers and film-makers. He is the symbol of poor Calcutta. Many a famous actor has pulled the rickshaw in films set in the city.

3. Calcutta is said to have about 6000 rickshaw pullers running on its roads, confined mostly to its old neighbourhoods. They have something in common apart from their poverty. All of them hail from the countryside. All of them wear the lungi to work, perhaps for better mobility. Almost all of them are elderly; I am yet to see a young man hand pulling a rickshaw. It can be a heartrending sight to watch the man almost as old as your father panting his way through the roads clad only in a vest and a lungi and often barefoot.

4.MahadeoYadav, the rickshaw puller is in his seventies and has been pulling the same rickshaw in and around Bowbazaar for fifty years. For him, fifty years, half a century is not an achievement, but merely the time that has passed ever since he came to Calcutta to earn a living.

5. He lives all alone in Calcutta, in a room in a nearby lane, paying a monthly rent of fifty rupees. He is out with his rickshaw between three in the afternoon and ten at night, sometimes earning sixty or seventy rupees a day and sometimes nothing. Every month without fail he sends 300 to his wife back home, and once every year visits her. “I will pull the rickshaw as long as I can,” he says, “This is my only source of livelihood. These days I tire easily. Sometimes my feet hurt and sometimes my back. But do I have a choice ?” He answers all my questions without looking at me even once but continued to stare ahead blankly, his arms folded around his knees. I take a good look at his rickshaw: the two — the rickshaw and the rickshaw puller — make quite a pair

Choose the correct alternatives from the options given below:

(a) A rickshaw puller is noticed only when he

 (i) acts in a film                      (ii) becomes a subject for photographers

 (iii) sits all alone                    (iv) is old and tired

(b) Pick out the statement which is not true

 (i) most rickshaw pullers are old

 (ii) the rickshaw pullers earn very little

(iii) many renowned actors are rickshaw pullers

 (iv) they are neglected by people

Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:                                            

(c) Why does Yadav ‘stare ahead blankly’?

 (d) Why are rickshaw pullers known as the icons of poor Calcutta?

 (e) Which instance tells us that Yadav loved his family?

(f) Where does Yadav stay?

 (g) What comparison does the writer draw between the rickshaw and its puller?

(h) What do the rickshaw pullers have in common?

Find words from the passage which mean the same as each of the following:

 (i) well-known (para 2)

 (j) income (para 5)

ANSWERS:-

 (a) The answer to this should be “When he pulls the rickshaw like a horse.” Because that is when photographers notice him. This is not listed among the options.

(b) (iii)

 (c) MahadeoYadav tells the narrator that pulling the rickshaw is his only means of livelihood. Although he is growing old and it hurts his back and feet to do so, he says he will keep pulling the rickshaw for as long as he can, as it is his only means to support his family. This helplessness is possibly why he is sad and hence ‘stares blankly’ while speaking to the narrator. (My invented answer. I don’t know how this question is listed as a 1 marker).

 (d) Most rickshaw pullers are elderly men who pull rickshaws like horses, dressed only in lungis and vests and often barefoot, for very little money. This sight makes them interesting subjects for photographers and filmmakers and who present them as icons of poverty in Calcutta.

(e) On some days MahadeoYadav earns between sixty to seventy rupees a day and sometimes, he earns nothing. Yet, he sends three hundred rupees back home to his wife every month, without fail. He visits her once every year. This tells us that he loves his family.

 (f) MahadeoYadav lives in a rented room in a lane near the jewellery shops in Bowbazar in Calcutta.

(g) Cannot find an answer to this except for an early reference to the rickshaw puller to a horse. The narrator just calls them “quite a pair.”

(h) Rickshaw pullers share a few things in common: most come from the countryside; most are elderly men who wear and lungis while working and are often barefoot, and they are all poor.

 (i) Famous.

(j) Livelihood.

Download the above Passage in PDF Worksheet (Printable)

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