7.1.

22 Ch-10

Coming Home to Delhi

-by Madhur Jaffrey

New Words

1. squawking 11. gleaming

2. terracotta 12. consisted
3. generous 13. stuffed
4. minarets 14. jostling
5. miniature 15. haze
6. invariably 16. stacked
7. conquerors 17. dawn
8. millennium 18. dusk
9. dashing
10. well- tended

Word meanings:-

1. dawn and dusk- the time just before sunrise and the time just after sunset
2. terracotta- made of clay and baked in fire
3. minarets- tall, thin towers on mosques
4. miniature paintings- pictures in ancient manuscripts- usually small pictures used to
illustrate the manuscripts
5. millennium- a thousand years
6. held court- (here) spoke like a king to the members of his court
7. well-tended- well looked after
8. sandstone- soft, yellow or red rock, often used in buildings
9. jostling- pushing aside people in a crowd in order to get past them
10. haze- smoke, dust or mist in the air- it is difficult to see through it

Question Answers

Q1. What did the children enjoy most during the train journey?

Ans. As the train approached the Yamuna, the children were given coins to throw into the
river. They were told that when the coins hit the water, they would get blessings. They
enjoyed sitting by the window and throwing the coins into the water.

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Q2. How does the author describe the sight of the city as the train enters it?

Ans. The author talks about the view of the city as a miniature painting, while the sun shines
on the domes and minarets.

Q3. The author focuses on two things about Delhi’s past. One is political power- forts,
wealth and fame. What is the other? Were Delhi’s rulers thinking about their own home, just
as the author is now doing? What did they miss the most?

Ans. The author describes the food in Delhi and the food that the Moghul rulers preferred.
We also learn about the history of Delhi’s cuisine. Yes, Delhi’s rulers were thinking about
their home just as the author is looking back on hers. They missed the climate and the food
the most.

Q4. What had made the family master ‘the art of getting thirty people into two cars’? What
was the art?

Ans. There were no less than thirty people in the author’s family. The author says that she
could not imagine a family being smaller than thirty members. About a dozen of them were
children.

The author’s family was very large and they must have had to use their cars for several times
to go out. They would have mastered the art while doing it so many times. The first layer in
the car consisted of short ladies and teenagers. On their laps went the second layer,
consisting of ten to twelve-year olds. The third layer consisted of children below the age of
ten. The tall men sat in the front seat. On their laps sat the ten to twelve-year-olds, holding
baskets and pots.

Q5. How did the author, when she was a school girl, get her lunch? Which words tell you
this?

Ans. The author, as a young girl, carried her lunch in a tiffin carrier with chapattis,
vegetables and a piece of mango pickle. The words which tell this are- “Chapattis are cooked
over hot fibres, buttered and stacked with the vegetables and a piece of mango pickle in a
tiffin carrier to be carried by many people on their way to schools and offices, just as I did on
my way to school in Delhi.”

Q6. Home is not just a brick-and-mortar building- it is made up of the things you love and
will miss the most when you leave. In the text, the writer describes what home means to her.
Read the text again and write what are the kinds of things she loved about Delhi.

Ans. The author fondly remembers her ancestral home in Delhi. But since a home is not just
brick-and-mortar, she remembers the food that was laid out at such times of family

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gatherings and says that the daily menu of the local people has not changed much since then.
She also reminisces the picnics and summer holidays at the hills.

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