Gul Mohar English Class 8 Chapter - 10 Coming Home to Delhi

Gul Mohar Edition 9 Orient Blackswan

Gul Mohar English Chapter - 10 Coming Home to Delhi

Writer of the story - Madhur Jaffery
Question and Answers
Question 1: How does Madhur Jaffery present the essay ‘Coming Home to Delhi’?
Answer: Madhur Jaffery presents her fascination towards Delhi, the 17th century Mughal capital, as well as the present day capital city. She shares her pleasant experiences while she was coming back to Delhi from her vacation and expresses her view of Delhi from the train, cherishing her memory while in a peaceful journey.
Delhi bore testimony to India’s long and rich history as well as the author’s personal history and memories of her childhood. In the end she writes about how Delhi retains some of the old traditions even now.

Question 2: What do the children enjoy most during the train journey?
Answer: As the train approached the Yamuna, the excitement would set in and the children were given handful of coins to throw into the river. They were told that when the coins hit the water, the children would get blessings but if it hit a washer man or a sandy island then no blessings would be expected. The children enjoyed sitting at the window and throwing the coins into the water.

Question 3: How does the author describe the sight of the city as the train enters it?
Answer: The author describes the sight of the city with vivid images in the morning light. The early morning sky was a feast to watch as birds circled the pink sky. The description of the sun “raining gold” on the domes and minarets of the 17th century Mughal capital  evokes an image of bright, dazzling sunlight which seems to make the spectacle look like a scene from a miniature painting . As the author’s hometown is Delhi, she describes it as the most beautiful part of India.

Question 4: 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?
Answer: The author describes the food in Delhi and the food that the Mughal rulers preferred. These rulers longed for the food and climate of their home. To bring change in weather they built water canals, gardens, water tanks. Later their dishes were accepted and included as the part of the city local food. Yes, Delhi’s rulers were thinking about their own home just as the author is looking back on hers. They missed the climate the most.

Question 5: What had made the family master ‘the art of getting thirty people into two cars’? What was the art?
Answer: Madhur Jaffery recalls with warmth her secure and happy childhood in an extended family with her grandfather as the head. 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.
Since, the author’s family was very large and they had to use their cars several times to go out, so they would have mastered the art while doing it 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.

Question 6: How did the author, when she was a school girl, get her lunch?
Answer: The author as a young girl carried her lunch in a tiffin carrier filled with chapattis, vegetables and a piece of mango pickle. “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.”

Question 7: Home is not just a brick-and-motor building-it is made up of the things you love and will miss the most when you leave. Write what are the kinds of things she loved about Delhi.
Answer: The author fondly remembers her ancestral home in Delhi. But since a home is not just brick-and-motor she remembers the food that was laid out at such times of family 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.