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

NCERT Books Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 9 Madam Rides the Bus

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 9 Madam Rides the Bus is considered as the most scoring subject in Class 10 CBSE. So, a student needs to work on this subject to make good in Class 10 English Exam. It’s very important to build a strong command over the English language. Class 10 forms a stepping stone for a student’s bright future. In this competitive world, it is very important to have good English because effective communication can reach people better. Hence, the English language plays a powerful tool in communication.

Takshila Learning provides you with detailed and well explained NCERT Solutions for Class 10 of each chapter of each subject for NCERT Class 10. These NCERT Solutions help you to easily understand every concept so that you can score high in your CBSE Class 10 Board Exams.

Below you can find the NCERT solution for Class 10th English. You can get a Solution for the all-important question of “Madam Rides the Bus Class 9”

Ques 1: What was Valli’s favourite pastime?
Ans: The favourite pastime of Valli was to stand in the front doorway of her abode and watch outside to know what was happening on the street.

Ques 2: What was a source of unending joy for Valli? What was her strongest desire?
Ans: The view of the bus that travelled between her village and the nearest town, filled with a new set of passengers each time it passed through her street was a source of unending joy for Valli. Valli’s biggest desire was to ride on that bus.

Ques 3: What did Valli find out about the bus journey? How did she find out these details?
Ans: Valli found out about the bus journey was that the town was six miles away from her village. The thirty paise was for one way fare. The trip to the town took a maximum of forty-five minutes. On reaching the town, if she stayed on her seat and paid thirty paise then she could return home on the same bus. She knew these details because she listened carefully to the conversations between her neighbours and the people who regularly used the bus service for travelling. She also gained information by asking them questions.

Ques 4: What do you think Valli was planning to do?
Ans: Valli was planning to travel on that bus.

Oral Comprehension Check:

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

Ans: Valli is trying to behave more mature than she actually is. She is trying to look overconfident and smart. The conductor is amused at the behaviour she showed and in an effort to tease her calls her ‘madam’.

Ques 2: Why does Valli stand up on the seat? What does she see now?
Ans: Valli stood up on her seat because she was not able to see outside the window as her view was cut off by a canvas blind that covered the lower part of her window. She stood up to look over the blind that covered the lower part of the window. She saw that the road was very narrow and small, on one side of which there was the canal and beyond it was palm trees, grassland, distant mountains, and the blue sky. On the opposite side, there was a deep ditch and many acres of green fields.

Ques 3: What does Valli tell the elderly man when he calls her a child?
Ans: Valli told the elderly man when he calls her a child that there was nobody on the bus who looked like a child and she had also paid her fare of thirty paise like everyone else.

Ques 4: Why didn’t Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?
Ans: The elderly woman was having big earlobes with bigger holes, and she was also chewing betel nut and the betel juice was about to seep out of her mouth. She was giving a sight of an ill-mannered and unrefined elderly lady. These are some reasons why Valli did not want to make friends with her.

Oral Comprehension Check:

Ques 1: How did Valli save up money for her first journey? Was it easy for her?
Ans: Valli saved money for her first journey by making great sacrifices by controlling her normal kiddish urges of having candies, toys, and joyrides.  No, it was not easy for her because kids find it difficult to savour a candy or to enjoy a toy.

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

Ans: Valli saw a young cow on her way, whose tail was high in the air, it was running right in front of the bus in between the road. The bus slowed and the driver sounded his horn loudly, but the more he honked, the cow became more frightened and kept running fast in front of the bus. Valli found it so amusing that she had tears in her eyes. In the end, the cow moved off the road.

Ques 3: Why didn’t she get off the bus at the bus station?
Ans: She did not get off the bus at the bus station because she had to go back home from the same bus. She took out another thirty paise from her pocket and gave the coins to the conductor. Her main motive was to ride on the bus no matter what.

Ques 4: Why didn’t Valli want to go to the stall and have a drink? What does this tell you about her?
Ans: Valli did not want to go to the stall and have a drink because she did not have any money for that. Even when the conductor offered her a cold drink free of charge, she refused and said that she only wanted her ticket and nothing else. This thing shows that Valli had a lot of self-will and pride and she did not want to take anything for free and mainly from a stranger.

Thinking about the Text:

Ques 1: What was Valli’s deepest desire? Find the words and phrases in the story that tell you this.
Ans: Valli’s biggest desire was to ride on the bus that she saw every day. The sentences in the story which depict this are:
“Day after day she watched the bus, and because of this a tiny wish crept in her head and grew there: she wants to ride on that bus for once. This wish became stronger and stronger until it was an overwhelming desire.”

Ques 2: How did Valli plan her bus ride? What did she find out about the bus, and how did she save up the fare?
Ans: Valli planned her bud ride in this way that she would take the one o’clock afternoon bus and would reach the town by one forty-five, and can be back to her home by about two forty-five. She also found out that the town was six miles away from her village. The fare of the bus was thirty paise one way. The trip to the town took forty-five minutes approximately.  She also thought that if on reaching the town, she stayed in her seat and paid another thirty paise, she could return back to her home on the same bus. She had saved whatever coins came her way, resisting every temptation to buy peppermints, toys, balloons, etc, and finally, she had saved sixty paise for her first bus ride.

Ques 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 ______________.”

Ans:

(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.”

For Valli, the bus journey probably symbolized the adult world. Like anyone else, she spent her money to buy the ticket. She would have attained a great sense of pride and satisfaction in doing so. Therefore, though a child, Valli wanted to be treated as a grown-up on the bus. She had a great sense of self-respect which prevented her from taking anyone’s help. She felt she was able to take care of herself very well and was easily irritated when anyone treated her as a child.

Ques 4: Why does the conductor refer to Valli as ‘madam’?
Ans: When the conductor gave his hand to help her get on the bus, Valli that she could manage by herself, and that she did not need his help. She did not act like a little child, but as an adult and therefore, the conductor called her ‘madam’. When the elderly man called her a child and asked her to sit down on her seat, she replied that nobody was a child on the bus and she kept stressing on the fact that she had paid her fare like everybody else in the bus and so, she should not be treated in a different way.

Ques 5: Find the lines in the text which tell you that Valli was enjoying her ride on the bus.
Ans: The following lines in the text show that Valli was enjoying her ride on the bus:
(i) “Valli devoured everything with her eyes.”
(ii) “On the 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!”
(iii) “Everyone laughed, and gradually Valli too joined in the laughter. Suddenly, Valli clapped her hands with glee.”
(iv) “Somehow this was very funny to Valli. She laughed and laughed until there were tears in her eyes.”
(v) “Valli wasn’t bored to the slightest and greeted everything with the same excitement she’d felt the first time.”

Ques 6: Why does Valli refuse to look out of the window on her way back?
Ans: Valli refused to look out of the window on her way back because she saw a young cow lying dead by the roadside, just where it had been struck by some fast-moving vehicle. It was the same cow that was running in front of their bus. She was overcome with sadness. The memory of the dead cow haunted her and therefore, she refused to look out of the window.

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

Ans: Valli’s mother said that many things happen around us, but we are not aware of them. Valli had gone on a bus ride to town alone without telling anyone and had come back home without any harm. She did all this without the knowledge of her mother. Hence, she agreed with whatever her mother said.

Ques 8: The author describes the things that Valid sees from an eight-year-old’s point of view. Can you find evidence from the text for this statement?
Ans: The author has interpreted the things that Valli saw from an eight-year-old’s point of view. She was captivated. Watching the bus filled with a new set of people every time was a source of unending joy for her. Her biggest ambition was to ride the bus. She conserved money by cutting on peppermints, toys, and balloons, and even resisting the temptation to ride the merry-go-round at the fair. When the author describes the bus, the points he stresses are the color and look of the bus. It was a ‘new bus’, painted a ‘gleaming white’. The overhead bars ‘shone like silver’. The seats were ‘soft and luxurious’. The descriptions that the author gives when Valli looked outside are also conventional for an eight-year-old. The ‘blue, blue sky’ and the ‘acres and acres of green fields − green, green, green’ show the enthusiasm of a kid on looking at different colors. Valli clapped her hands in glee on watching a cow run right in front of the bus. She found it so funny that tears came into her eyes. On the other hand, she was overcome with sadness on her way back when she saw the same cow lying dead. It had been a ‘lovable, beautiful creature’ and later it ‘looked so horrible’. The memory of the dead cow haunted her so much that she refused to look outside the window. These are the typical reactions of a young child.