Complete, exam-ready answers to every question in NCERT Vistas Chapter 6 “Memories of Childhood” (Reading with Insight, the only exercise section in the current reprint).
1 Reading with Insight
Q. The two accounts that you read above are based in two distant cultures. What is the commonality of theme found in both of them?
Answer: Although Zitkala-Sa’s world is a school where Native American children are made to give up their blankets, moccasins and long hair, and Bama’s world is her own street in a Tamil village, the book’s own introduction describes what the two have in common: both are autobiographical episodes narrated by women from marginalised communities, looking back on their childhood and reflecting on their relationship with a dominant “mainstream culture”. In Zitkala-Sa’s account, this mainstream culture is the school’s authority, which cuts her hair by force, although among her people shingled hair was worn by cowards (and short hair by mourners). In Bama’s account, it is the upper-caste order of her village, which makes an elder carry food by its string, because upper-caste people believed that if they touched “us”, “they would be polluted”. Both narrators experience the power of this dominant culture directly and personally as children, and both accounts show some form of resistance to it, whether immediate and physical, as with Zitkala-Sa, or delayed and channelled into achievement, as with Bama. This shared experience of a marginalised childhood meeting an unequal, dominant culture, and responding to it, is the commonality of theme that unites the two otherwise very different accounts.
Q. It may take a long time for oppression to be resisted, but the seeds of rebellion are sowed early in life. Do you agree that injustice in any form cannot escape being noticed even by children?
Answer: Yes, both accounts support this view clearly. Zitkala-Sa notices and resists the injustice of the hair-cutting the very moment she learns of it, as a child at the school, declaring “No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!” even though her resistance in the moment fails. Bama, in the third class, “hadn’t yet heard people speak openly of untouchability”, but had “already seen, felt, experienced and been humiliated by what it is.” In the vadai episode she at first finds the elder’s walk funny (“I wanted to shriek with laughter”). Only when Annan explains the reason does she feel “terribly sad” and then angry enough to want to touch the vadais herself, insisting “we too are human beings”. Her sense of injustice in this episode is roused by an explanation rather than instantly, yet it still shows that a child feels unfairness, and that this feeling grows into her later resolve. The seeds of rebellion in Bama’s case grow into her later determination to study hard and “throw away these indignities”, showing that a child’s early, instinctive sense of injustice can, over time, become a deliberate, adult response to oppression, exactly as the question suggests.
Q. Bama’s experience is that of a victim of the caste system. What kind of discrimination does Zitkala-Sa’s experience depict? What are their responses to their respective situations?
Answer: Zitkala-Sa’s experience depicts discrimination against her Native American culture: at the school, her blanket is stripped from her shoulders, her moccasins are exchanged for shoes, and her hair is cut against her will by direct physical force, even though, among her people, short hair was worn by mourners and shingled hair by cowards. This is a different kind of discrimination from Bama’s: it happens inside the school, involves physical restraint, and targets a specific cultural custom, whereas Bama’s caste-based untouchability happens in the open, everyday life of her street, involves no physical contact at all, and rests entirely on the belief that upper-caste people who touched the elder’s community “would be polluted”.
Their responses also differ sharply. Zitkala-Sa resists immediately and physically: she declares “I will struggle first!”, hides under a bed, and fights back by kicking and scratching when discovered, even though she ultimately loses and says “I lost my spirit” once her hair is actually cut, with the account ending inside that unresolved trauma. Bama shows no resistance in the moment; at first she even finds the elder’s walk funny, and her anger surfaces only afterwards, once Annan explains what she has witnessed, and her response takes a constructive, delayed form: rather than confronting anyone, she pours her anger into studying hard, exactly as Annan advises, and goes on to stand first in her class as a result. So while both girls are discriminated against as children and both eventually push back against it, Zitkala-Sa’s response is immediate defiance in the moment itself, while Bama’s is a considered, long-term choice made only after the moment has passed.
A strong answer compares the kinds of discrimination first, then the two responses. Structure your answer exactly as above: first the kind of discrimination in each account, then the two responses, always naming at least one exact quotation from each account.