NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 1: What was Valli’s favourite pastime?

Answer: One of Valli’s favorite activities was to monitor what was going on in the street outside her house while standing in the front doorway.

Question 2: What was a source of unending joy for Valli? What was her strongest desire?

Answer: Valli’s excitement never ceased when she saw the bus that traveled between her hamlet and the closest town, carrying a fresh group of people every time it drove by her house. The one thing she really wanted to do someday was ride the bus.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 3: What did Valli find out about the bus journey? How did she find out these details?

Answer: It took Valli forty-five minutes to find out how far the bus ride from her hamlet was to the town. It cost thirty paise for a one-way ticket. She asked a few inquiries to get some information and tiny details about the bus ride while paying close attention to the talks between her neighbors and the individuals who frequently took the trip.

Question 4: What do you think Valli was planning to do?

Answer: Valli intended to take the bus to the town, get off, and then get back home. It took her around forty-five minutes to reach the town, and she had heard that the further voyage ticket was thirty paise. She intended to do this by remaining in her seat and paying an additional thirty paise for the return journey. This meant she could leave her house at 2:45 p.m., catch the bus at 1 p.m., and arrive in the town at 1:45 p.m.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Oral Comprehension Check

Question 1: Why does the conductor call Valli ‘madam’?

Answer: Because Valli was acting like a lady in a bold and astute way, the conductor addressed her as “madam.” She answered the conductor’s inquiries quickly and refused to accept his assistance in getting on the bus. The conductor called her “madam” in jest since he found her antics and behavior amusing.

Question 2: Why does Valli stand up on the seat? What does she see now?

Answer: Valli was trying very hard to look outside the bus since she was so mesmerized by the gorgeous beauty outside. However, the canvas blind covering the bottom portion of the window obscured her vision. She got up on the seat and looked over the blind to get a better look. As the bus traveled along a tiny road by a canal, she could see palm palms, grasslands, far-off mountains, green meadows, and the blue sky. A huge ditch lay across the other side, and as far as her eyes could reach, miles and miles of verdant fields spread out.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 3: What does Valli tell the elderly man when he calls her a child?

Answer: When the old man on the bus called Valli a child, she responded right once that there was no child on the bus. She went on to say that she had paid the thirty paise fare, just like the other bus riders.

Question 4: Why didn’t Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?

Answer: The old lady appeared very disgusting to Valli, so she had no desire in becoming friends with her. She wore terrible earrings and had huge earlobes with wider holes in them. In addition, she had betel nut in her mouth and was chewing on it, so much so that it was probably going to drip all over her lips. Valli concluded after witnessing all of this that the old woman was too gregarious to be a friend.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Oral Comprehension Check

Question 1: How did Valli save up money for her first journey? Was it easy for her?

Answer: Valli had been very careful to preserve every spare cent that came her way. She fought the need to buy toys, peppermints, balloons, and other items in order to save enough cash for the bus ride. She had been having a lot of trouble controlling her desires and resisting the need to ride the merry-go-round at the town fair. She had to make several sacrifices before she could save up sixty paisa for her first bus ride.

Question 2: What did Valli see on her way that made her laugh?

Answer: When Valli spotted a young cow sprinting in the center of the road in front of the bus, tail up, she was ecstatic. The motorist continually shouted his horn to get the cow to go off the route. The cow, however, got more terrified the more he honked and raced as quickly as it could. When Valli saw all of this, she thought it was hilarious and laughed until tears came to her eyes.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 3: Why didn’t she get off the bus at the bus station?

Answer: Valli had no intention of exploring the town; all she wanted to do was catch the bus. For her bus fare to and from the destination, she had laboriously saved up sixty paise. Knowing that she wouldn’t have enough money to go by bus, she planned to spend thirty paisas on her next trip, see the town, and take the same bus back before her mother woke up from her afternoon sleep. She did not disembark from the bus at the bus station since she did not have the funds to tour the town or the time.

Question 4: Why didn’t Valli want to go to the stall and have a drink? What does this tell you about her?

Answer: Having saved sixty paise for the bus ride, Valli was reluctant to visit the vendor. She had to take the same bus back, so there was no way she could afford to spend money on anything else. She thus ignored the conductor’s suggestion to get down and obtain a drink for herself. She declined even after he offered to buy her a drink in case she was broke. This suggests that she was a self-reliant young woman who didn’t want to rely on anyone.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Thinking about the Text

Question 1: What was Valli’s deepest desire? Find the words and phrases in the story that tell you this.

Answer: The bus that Valli saw every day from her residence was her greatest ambition to travel aboard. Her passion is described in the novel as “an overwhelming desire,” “a source of unending joy,” “stare wistfully,” and “kindle in her longings, dreams, and hopes.”

Question 2: How did Valli plan her bus ride? What did she find out about the bus, and how did she save up the fare?

Answer:

Valli had been quietly asking a few pointed questions and listening intently for many days to the talks between her neighbors and the bus users. They informed her that the town was six miles from her hamlet and that the bus fared thirty paise for the additional voyage. The one-way bus ride took forty-five minutes to complete.

In addition, she decided that she would pay sixty paise each way to remain on the bus and return on the same one. With her limited funds, she was adamant that she would not disembark from the bus to explore the town. Because of this, she carefully saved sixty paise and resisted all temptations to spend it on toys, peppermints, or even a trip on the merry-go-round at the village’s yearly fair. Without informing her parents, Valli had organized a covert and thrilling bus excursion.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 3: What kind of a person is Valli? To answer this question, pick out the following sentences from the text and fill in the blanks. The words you fill in are the clues to your answer.

(i) “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised ______________________________.

(ii) “Yes, I __________________ go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus.

(iii) “There’s nobody here ______________________,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.”

(iv) “Never mind,” she said, “I can ___________________. You don’t have to help me. ”I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said, ___________________________________.

(v) “You needn’t bother about me. I ___________________________,” Valli said, turning her face toward the window and staring out.

(vi) Then she turned to the conductor and said, “Well, sir, I hope _________________________.”

Answer:

Valli was a confident eight-year-old girl who believed that her age was not a limiting factor for her to travel alone in the bus to the town. She considered herself to be a grown up person and also acted like one.

(i) “Stop the bus! Stop the bus!” And a tiny hand was raised commandingly.

(ii) “Yes, I simply have to go to town,” said Valli, still standing outside the bus.

(iii) “There’s nobody here who’s a child,” she said haughtily. “I’ve paid my thirty paise like everyone else.”

(iv) “Never mind,” she said, “I can get on by myself. You don’t have to help me. ”I’m not a child, I tell you,” she said irritably.

(v) “You needn’t bother about me. I can take care of myself,” Valli said, turning her face toward the window and staring out.

(vi) Then she turned to the conductor and said, “Well, sir, I hope to see you again.”

Question 4: Why does the conductor refer to Valli as ‘madam’?

Answer: When Valli acted like a mature adult and became agitated at being addressed like a kid, the conductor addressed her as “madam.” At eight years old, she felt confident in her ability to ride the bus by herself. Additionally, she firmly declined his assistance when he reached out to help her board the bus, stating that she could do it on her own.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 5: Find the lines in the text which tell you that Valli was enjoying her ride on the bus.

Answer: Valli thoroughly enjoyed her bus ride to the town. The following lines from the text are proof that exhibits her excitement:

“Valli devoured everything with her eyes.”
“The bus was now going along the bank of a canal. The road was very narrow. On one side, there was the canal and, beyond it, palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue, blue sky. On the other side was a deep ditch and then acres and acres of green fields — green, green, green, as far as the eye could see.”
“Oh, it was all so wonderful!”
“Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter.”
“Suddenly, Valli clapped her hands with glee. A young cow, tail high in the air, was running very fast, right in the middle of the road, right in front of the bus.”
“Somehow, this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes.”
“Valli wasn’t bored in the slightest and greeted everything with the same excitement she’d felt the first time.”

Question 6: Why does Valli refuse to look out of the window on her way back?

Answer: When Valli saw the dead corpse of the cow racing toward the bus on her route back to her hamlet, she became distraught and refused to look out of the window. This was during her trip to the town. Some fast-moving car on the road struck the poor animal. With the image of the cow plaguing her, she was filled with melancholy and too afraid to look out the bus window.

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Chapter 9 – Madam Rides the Bus

Question 7: What does Valli mean when she says, “I was just agreeing with what you said about things happening without our knowledge.”

Answer: Valli agreed with her mother’s statement that certain things occur in their environment without their knowing about it when she remarked, “I was just agreeing with what you said about things happening without our knowledge.” Her excitement stemmed from her daring bus journey to the town, which she had undertaken without her parents’ knowledge.

Question 8: The author describes the things that Valli sees from an eight-year-old’s point of view. Can you find evidence from the text for this statement?

Answer:

Indeed, the writer had presented a number of topics from the perspective of an eight-year-old. Some examples of this are “she was fascinated by the bus” and “she never stopped smiling when she saw the bus fill up with a new group of people.” The new bus’s exterior was characterized by the author as “gleaming white with some green stripes along the sides,” describing its color and appearance. The overhead bars within gleamed silver. The author aimed to convey in this text the way a youngster might be drawn to the bus’s color.

“The seats were opulent and plush.” It seems from this description that the author intended to convey the thrill of a youngster taking their first bus ride in style. The phrases “acres and acres of green field” and “the blue sky” convey a child’s energy and excitement. In addition, Valli was as enthralled with the cow sprinting in front of the bus as she was with the dead cow, which made her cry. She was plagued by the cow’s memories, and on her way back, she wouldn’t look out the window. Some of the sentences that aptly and perfectly captured the normal responses and behaviors of an eight-year-old youngster were these ones.