No Place for Us
NCERT Exercise Part 2
Think
Question 1: What had Jatryabhai thought while moving to Mumbai? Did he find Mumbai as he had imagined?
Answer: Jatryabhai thought of a better life while moving to Mumbai. But life at Mumbai was difficult. For poor people, finding a roof on the head is nearly impossible in Mumbai. Day to day survival is tough.
Question 2: What kind of school do you think Jatrya’s children would be going to in Mumbai?
Answer: I think, Jatrya’s children must be going to government schools, because such schools are free for everyone.
Find Out and Write
Question 1: Do you know of any family that has come to your town after having moved out of their place? Talk to them and find out:
(a) From where have they come? Why did they have to come here?
Answer: There is a slum across the road. A new high-rise building is under construction nearby. The construction workers live in that slum. My father says that all of them have come from Bengal.
(b) What kind of place did they live in there? How do they find this new place compared to the old one?
Answer: They lived in a remote village somewhere in the eastern part of West Bengal. There are thick grooves of bamboo all around. There are many rivulets in the area. People of that village catch fish and grow paddy. They find their new place unfit for human beings.
(c) Is their language and way of living any different from that of the people here? In what ways?
Answer: They speak Bengali among themselves. They speak rudimentary Hindi. Sometimes, I find it difficult to understand their Hindi. They eat rice all the time, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At my house, we eat different items, like chapatti, paratha, bread, omlette, etc.
(d) Learn some words from their language and write them in your notebook.
Answer: Water is called Jal (pronounced as Jol) in Bengali. Red chilli is called Lonka.
(e) Do they know how make some things that you cannot make? What?
Answer: One of the boys showed me beautiful pouches made from colourful threads. I want to learn to weave such pouches from him.
(f) Have you ever read or heard of a city slum being removed? How do you feel about this?
Answer: Recently, there was news of a slum in Noida being removed. I saw horrible photos of rubble of huts and shanties. People were trying to recover their belongings from the rubble. I felt very bad.
(g) People also shift from one place to another when they get transferred in their jobs? How do they feel then?
Answer: Three years ago, one of my classmates came from Ranchi to Delhi. His father works for a Bank. He was transfferred. Now, I have heard that they are now going to Agra because of another transfer. I will miss my friend. He must be feeling the same way.