Telangana SCERT 8th Class English Guide Telangana State Unit 1C A Letter to a Friend Textbook Questions and Answers.
TS 8th Class English Guide Unit 1C A Letter to a Friend
Questions and Answers:
Answer the following questions.
Question 1.
How did Suresh and Ramesh spend their childhood ?
Answer:
Suresh and Ramesh spent their childhood together happily. They played gilli-danda, hide and seek and kabaddi. They went for swimming in their local tank every Sunday.
Question 2.
Why did Ramesh’s family move to the city?
Answer:
Ramesh was educated. He went to the city in search of a job. So Ramesh’s family moved to the city.
Question 3.
What change did you observe in Ramesh?
Answer:
Ramesh used to live with his family in his childhood. He enjoyed peaceful life with his friends and family. His world had many people like father, mother, grandparents, cousins, uncles, friends etc. He was brought up with love and affection. But now he is leading a busy life. Now there is none except his wife and daughter in his life. He missed everybody. His daughter was brought up in a child care centre. He realised he missed the joy of his family and their company. He missed the fairy tales of his grandfather. He missed his real life.
Question 4.
Do you think Ramesh is happy in the city? Why?
Answer:
No. I don’t think Ramesh is happy in the city because he is leading a very busy life there. He has no time to bring up his child. He missed his real and enjoyable life that he enjoyed in his village with his parents and grandparents.
Question 5.
What made Ramesh write to Suresh?
Answer:
Ramesh lived in Hyderabad. He could not meet his friend Suresh when he visited Hyderabad. He felt very sorry for his busy life that did not allow him to meet his childhood friend. He wanted to apologise his friend for this and to remind him of his childhood days spent with him. He wanted to share his feelings with his friend as he could not meet him personally through a letter. This made him write to Suresh.
Project Work:
Observe any five families in your neighbourhood and draw your conclusions, advantages and disadvantages of living in a joint/nuclear family.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Nuclear Family
A nuclear family is a family group consisting of father and mother and their children, who share living quarters. This can be contrasted with an extended family.
Nuclear family grows out of joint/extended family when there is migration from village to city for employment or other reasons where joint family is not possible due to paucity of needed larger residential accommodation, different occupation etc. That is why it is mainly seen in urban areas, cities and metropolis.
Nuclear families may also exist in rural areas because the joint family cannot go on indefinitely owing to physical and social limitations. There is a limit to the number of people a house can accommodate and thus, there is bound to be fission into smaller nuclear families in the family cycle of development.
Merits of a Nuclear Family:
Unlike the joint family, there is greater degree of freedom for spouses in the nuclear family. The status of the woman is higher and she often takes up employment outside the home. The material well-being of children, such as healthcare and education, is higher because of more resources available. Nuclear families are adaptable to social change.
Drawbacks:
The nuclear family misses all the advantages of joint living. It is too isolated and uncon¬nected to elicit support or assistance during need or crisis. Its limited size poses practical prob¬lems for child rearing and care, more so when the mother works outside.
Children are deprived of a wider social world, emotional bonding, love and affection that a joint family provides. The old parents are left in the village or at old age homes without personal care.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Joint Family
Joint Family is an extended family arrangement prevalent among the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of many generations living under the same roof.
All the male members are blood relatives and all the women are either mothers, wives, unmarried daughters, or widowed relatives, all bound by the common relationship. The joint family status being the result of birth, possession of joint cord that knits the members of the family together is not property but the relationship.
Six key aspects of Joint Family are :
- head of the family takes all decisions
- all members live under one roof
- share the same kitchen
- three generations living together (though often two or more brothers live together, or father and son live together or all the descendants of male live together)
- income and expenditure in a common pool, property held together.
- a common place of worship
- all decisions are made by the male head of the family.
Merits of a Joint Family:
The joint family is ideally suited for land-based rural families for its economic, social and psychological advantages. The joint operation of property allows increased efficiency of pooled labour and economies of a single kitchen and household. It provides for efficient geriatric and childcare, as there are many women to look after them.
This enables mothers to work in fields or do household work. Children grow up with care, love and affection from grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins etc., besides their own parents. Joint family is an ideal setting to learn virtues of co-operation and collective living for the young people.
Family festivals and occasions can be celebrated more elegantly, enhancing the prestige of all the members. In general, joint family ensures the happiness and well-being of all its members.
Joint families may also own industries/business (besides agriculture). There are many well known industry/business houses running their enterprises jointly owned them by brothers etc., in a joint family.
Drawbacks:
The system is not without disadvantages though. Women in general have a low status and are often excluded from decision-making. There is little freedom for junior male members. The family, more based on tradition, may not be open to change or accepting new elements. The weight of the family is heavy on young couples. It hinders the process of individual freedom.
Self Assessment:
How well have I understood this unit?
Read and tick (✓) in the appropriate box.
A Letter to A Friend Summary in English
Ramesh and Suresh are friends. Ramesh lives in Hyderabad. Suresh came to Hyderabad on some personal work. He asked Ramesh to meet him at certain place but Ramesh could not meet him. For this Ramesh felt sorry and wrote this letter to Suresh.
In his letter, firstly, Ramesh apologised Suresh for not meeting him in his visit to Hyderabad. He remembered how they both played and spent their time happily with their families. He told Suresh about his busy and meaningless life. He told Suresh how he spent his time from morning to evening. He felt that his life in the apartment was just like a frog in a well.
He reminded Suresh many events of his childhood with him like playing games, going to swimming pool, doing all the work together in school, going on a picnic, celebrating Dasara and Depavali etc. He pitied his daughter who was always silent and spent all her time playing computer games in a very limited world.
He felt that he missed the real world in city life. He felt that he missed everybody and everything in his busy life. Finally he was happy that he had found time to write to Suresh and share his feelings.
Glossary:
apologize (v) : say sorry for doing something wrong
fairy tales (n) : stories about fairies and magic
warriors (n) : persons who fight in a battle or war
faded (adj) : less bright
hardly (adv) : almost no / almost not I almost none
disgusting (adj) : extremely unpleasant and unaccepted
gilli-danda (n) : karra (danda) – billa (gull) (in Telugu) / a rural sport of India
played with a short stick and a long stick.
apartment (n) : a set of rooms for living in, usually built in stairs
room (n) : empty space
unheeded (adj) : heard, seen or noticed but then ignored
appreciated (v) : recognised the good qualities
caring (v) : feeling that something is important
moment (n) : time/occasion