What Happened to the Reptiles - Worksheets

 CBSE Worksheet 01

What Happened to the Reptiles


  1. What was it that made Prem leave his own village?

  2. Who were the first reptiles ordered by Makara to leave the forest. Why did he not like them?

  3. Why did Prem leave his village?

  4. How did the narrator of the story What Happened to the Reptiles manage to run away?

  5. Why did Makara dislike tortoises, snakes, and lizards? Write a line about each. Write your answer in the context of What Happened to the Reptiles.

  6. How did the old man take care of Prem? (What Happened to the Reptiles)

  7. How do all those creatures return to Pambupatti? (What Happened to the Reptiles)

  8. Narrate the story of the reptiles as told by Zai Whitaker.

CBSE Worksheet 01
What Happened to the Reptiles


Solution

  1. The communal riots in Prem's village had made life unsafe for the residents. There were tension and chaos everywhere. So, Prem left his own village.

  2. The tortoises were the first ones to be ordered to leave the forest. Makara said that he did not like them because they were slow and stupid because they carried their houses on their backs.

  3. Prem left his village because of violence. People fought with each other and burnt temples and mosques over religion. His house was also burnt in the communal violence.

  4. He picked up some clothes, coins and a little statue of Ganesh and ran away.

  5. Makara disliked tortoises because they were stupid and slow and carried their houses on their backs. He disliked the snakes because they were slimy and made funny noises and so no one wanted weird creatures like them around. He also disliked lizards because they had the strangest habits, and some of them even changed colours and it was not possible to trust someone who was green one minute and read the next.

  6. The old man looked after Prem, putting food in his mouth and bringing him sweets and cold water from the stream.
    He rubbed Prem's feet gently and made the pain go away. Neighbours, as well as, strangers came to see him.

  7. All the crocodiles realised that their happiness lay in their fellow-creatures happiness and homecoming, so, they sent urgent messages all over the place for the tortoises, snakes and lizards to come back to the Pambupatti forest. They all returned thereafter.

  8. Prem was a native of a village far from Pambupatti. Communal riots broke out and Prem had to leave the village. Somehow after taking a train and a bus he finally reached Pambupatti. There at Pambupatti an old man told him a tale of reptiles which are the snakes, crocodiles, lizards, and turtles. He told him that the leader of the reptile group was Makara, the biggest crocodile who was very strong and powerful. One by one he asked all the reptiles of the forest to go away from there as he wanted to have the entire forest to himself and other crocodile families. He became selfish. He managed to get rid of all the tortoise, lizards, snakes and other reptiles. As a result, there was an imbalance in the food chain. Slowly the forest was infested with rats, rotting fruits and rotting animals in the river, etc. Awful things started happening. Finally, an urgent message was circulated among all the reptiles, and they were invited again to come back to the forest to strike a balance.