On Being An Indian Questions & Answers

Hi Everyone!! This article will share On Being An Indian Questions & Answers.

In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of Who Ate The Sun, The Thousand Petalled Lotus and The Microscope so, you can check these posts as well.

On Being An Indian Questions & Answers

Word Galaxy

  • Nordic – from North Europe; mostly fair, tall, golden-haired and blue eyed
  • Paranoid – extremely suspicious and afraid
  • Red Indian – a Native American
  • Mass emigration – Leaving one’s country to settle down in another
  • Timur the Lame – a conqueror of Turkish origin who invaded India in 1398

Question 1: Choose the correct option:

(a) Home for Ruskin Bond is………

i. in Norway, the land of one of his grandparents.
ii. the palm-fringed coasts and pine-clad mountains of India.
iii. the whole world.
iv. England, where his parents came from.

(b) The main question that Ruskin Bond explores in this piece is……….

i. why other Indians want to leave the country.
ii. why he considers himself an Indian.
iii. why he doesn’t want to leave India, his country.
iv. where he considers himself an Indian.

(c) People ask Ruskin Bond where he hails from because they………..

i. need some proof of identity.
ii. refuse to believe him
iii. think he doesn’t look Indian.
iv. think he is an American.

(d) Ruskin Bond decided not to go Hong Kong because……

i. he was worried that if he left, he would not be able to come back.
ii. he did not want that job.
iii. he disliked leaving India and going away.
iv. the job would distract him.

(e) ‘Surely that entitles me to a place in the Indian sun?’ Here, ‘that’ means……

i. he loves India.
ii. he has gone out of India only once.
iii. he and his father were born in India and lived here all their lives.
iv. his grandmother was a descendant of Timur.

Question 2: What does Ruskin Bond mean by the following:  

(a) For India is more than a land. India is an atmosphere.

Answer: India is not merely a geographically defined nation or county; it is an atmosphere. It is a melting pot that has the flavour of amazing diversified cultures from all over the world. India is special; it is like no other place in the world.

(b) It must be the land itself that holds me.

Answer: For Ruskin Bond, it is the very charm of the land that holds him back. It is not only the beauty of the physical features of the land, but also his feelings associated with it, which binds him to his surroundings.

(c) I’m as Indian as the postman or the paanwala.

Answer: Ruskin Bond wants to establish the fact that even though he has foreign blood in him, circumstances have made him an Indian. He was born and brought up in India and has grown up amidst the Indian ambience and culture like any other Indian. He is as Indian as the local ‘paanwala’ or the postman and identifies himself with each and every Indian. To him, home is essentially India, a place that he has always loved.

On Being An Indian Questions & Answers

Question 3: How would you feel if people asked you if you were an Indian – annoyed or flattered?

Answer: I would feel very proud and flattered if people asked me whether I was an Indian. With a civilization that is more than 5000 years old, India boasts of multiple cultural origins. Unity in diversity is unique to our nation. Today, it is an emerging global, scientific and technological super power with a diverse environment in flora and fauna.

Question 4: Why does Ruskin Bond feel he is an Indian? What makes you feel you are an Indian?

Answer: Ruskin Bond feels he is an Indian because it was the place where he was born and spent his whole childhood. Also, his grandparents were born here. So, he is very much connected to India.

The diversity in my country makes me feel as an Indian.

Question 5: Race did not make me an Indian. But History did. What does Ruskin Bond mean by history?

Answer: Ruskin Bond is a European by race. However, both Bond’s father and mother were born and brought up in India and have been in the country for many years. On his mother’s side too, he can claim a lineage that dates back hundreds of years. This ‘history’, according to Bond, has earned him a place on Indian soil. In spite of his origins, he is an Indian as any other native dweller of the land. Thus, history, to him, is more important than ‘race’. History decides where a person has been his entire life and the way in which he has adapted to his surroundings. I agree with Bond that history is more important than race. With the passage of time, people all over the world have left their motherlands and have travelled to various places. They have settled in far-off lands and have made these places, their home. They have loved these lands and have lived there till the end, irrespective of where they came from.

Question 6: Find words from the passage that mean:

(a) To give a person the right or claim to something – entitle
(b) To return to a former condition – regress
(c) An abnormal tendency to suspect and mistrust others – paranoid
(d) Mental confusion – distraction
(e) Mysterious, cannot be defined – strange
(f) An observed or apparent object, fact or occurrence – phenomenon
(g) The only one of its kind – unique
(h) Mix with, blend – combine

So, these were On Being An Indian Questions & Answers.

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