Reach for the Top Important Questions Class 9 Beehive English
Very Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. What is the special distinction of Santosh Yadav as a mountaineer?
Answer
Santosh Yadav is the only woman in the world who has conquered Mt Everest twice. She is a woman who got this distinction rising up from a rural background.
Question 2. What did Santosh tell her parents regarding her marriage?
Answer
Santosh was not in favour of early married life. She threatened her parents that she would never marry if she would not get a proper education.
Question 3. Why did Santosh decide to take up mountaineering?
Answer
Santosh Yadav began to climb mountains when she met some mountaineers in the Aravalli Hills, who not only let her join them but also motivated her to take up mountaineering.
Question 4. Where did Santosh take admission after passing high school?
Answer
After passing high school Santosh took admission in Maharani College Jaipur.
Question 5. What type of a social system was there in the village when Santosh was born?
Answer
In those days the birth of a son was regarded as a blessing, but the birth of a daughter was not generally welcomed in the society.
Question 6. What shows Santosh’s concern for the environment?
Answer
As a fervent environmentalist, Santosh showed her concern for the environment by collecting and bringing down as much as 500kg of refuse that littered the mountains.
Question 7. What type of a social system was there is in the village when Santosh was born?
Answer
In those days the birth of a son was regarded as a blessing, but the birth of a daughter was not generally welcomed in the society.
Question 8. Give a brief sketch of Santosh’s family.
Answer
Santosh was born in the Joniyawas, a small village in the Rewari District in Haryana. Her parents were affluent landowners. She was the only sister of five Brothers.
Question 9. What is the special distinction of Santosh Yadav as a mountaineer?
Answer
Santosh Yadav is the only woman in the world who has conquered Mt Everest twice. She is a woman who got this distinction rising up from a rural background.
Question 10. What great honour was given to Santosh Yadav by the government of India?
Answer
The government of India honoured Santosh Yadav with one of the nation’s top honours the Padma shri.
Question 11. What is the special distinction of Santosh Yadav?
Answer
Santosh Yadav is the only woman in the world who has scaled Mt Everest twice.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. How did Santosh show the contradiction to her name?
Answer
The girl was given the name Santosh, which means contentment’. But Santosh was not always content with her place in the traditional way of life. She began living life on her own terms from the start.
Question 2. Why was the ‘holy man’, who gave Santosh’s mother his blessings, surprised?
Answer
The holy man expected that like all other families in the villages, the family would also wish for the birth of a son. However, when he was told by Santosh’s grandmother that they wanted to have a daughter, he was surprised.
Question 3. What kind of society was Santosh born in?
Answer
Santosh was born in Joniyawas, a small village in the Rewari District in Haryana. The society in this region was very conservative and orthodox. People were rigidly patriarchal and gender-biased. The birth of a girl was generally unwelcome and people strictly adhered to conservative traditions.
Question 4. The grandmother wished her daughter-in-law give birth to a daughter. What light does this throw on her character?
Answer
Despite being the member of a conservative family, the grandmother wished to be blessed with a granddaughter. This was because there were already five boys in the family. Hence, the family now wished for a daughter. This also shows her as a woman of progressive views.
Question 5. Why was Santosh sent to the local school?
Answer
Santosh’s parents were affluent and could afford to send Santosh to a school in Delhi. But they sent her to the local village school because they strictly followed tradition and it was customary in their society to send girls to the local school only.
Question 6. When did Santosh leave home for Delhi, and why?
Answer
Santosh left home for Delhi when she turned sixteen because her parents had begun to pressurize her to get married in keeping with the traditional practice in their community. She decided that it was the right moment to rebel and she quietly got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi to continue her studies.
Question 7. Why did Santosh’s parents agree to pay for her schooling in Delhi? What mental qualities of Santosh are brought to light by this incident?
Answer
At the age of sixteen, Santosh got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi. When her parents refused to pay for her schooling in Delhi, she politely informed them that she planned to work part time in order to pay her fees. Her parents realized that their daughter was independent, had a strong will-power and firm self-belief. She could take her decisions and also stand by them. They saw her strong sense of conviction and her passion for education. So, they agreed to pay for her schooling in Delhi.
Question 8. How did Santosh develop a liking for mountain climbing?
Answer
From the window of her room in the Kasturba Hostel, Jaipur, Santosh used to watch the villagers going up the hills and then suddenly vanishing after a while. It inspired her to explore the hills. One day when she decided to check it out herself, she met a group of mountaineers. The mountaineers allowed her to join them and encouraged her to take up climbing. Thus, she developed liking for climbing.
Question 9. Why did Santosh write a letter of apology to her father?
Answer
Santosh had got herself enrolled in the Uttarkashi Nehru Institute of Mountaineering without seeking her father’s permission. She had thought of talking to her family about this during her holidays. But because her college term was extended by a few days, there was hardly any time between the end of the semester and her reporting date at the Institute. Due to her inability to go home, she wrote a letter of apology to her father.
Question 10. When did Santosh get an opportunity to scale Mt. Everest?
Answer
Santosh got an opportunity to scale Mt. Everest in 1992, just four years after she had met the mountaineers climbing the Aravalli Hills. She was hardly twenty years of age at that time when she became the youngest woman in the world to scale the highest peak.
Question 11. What incidents during the Everest expedition show Santosh’s concern for her team-mates?
Answer
During the 1992 Everest expedition, one of her team-mates lay dying at the South Col. Santosh made all efforts to look after him. Unfortunately, the climber could not be saved. However, she did succeed in saving the life of another fellow-climber, Mohan Singh. Santosh shared her oxygen with him and saved his life. These incidents show her concern for her team mates.
Question 12. When did Santosh scale the Mt. Everest for a second time?
Answer
Santosh was invited by an Indo-Nepalese Women’s expedition to scale Mt. Everest within a year of her first expedition in 1992. Santosh joined them to climb the Everest for the second time. Thus, she scaled the Everest twice setting a record as the only woman to have scaled the Everest two times.
Question 13. How did the government of India honour Santosh Yadav?
Answer
Santosh Yadav, by the age of twenty-two had climbed Mt Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world twice, the only woman in the world to have done so. In recognition of her achievements, the Indian government bestowed upon her one of the nation’s top honours, the Padmashri.
Question 14. How did Santosh Yadav get into the record books?
Answer
Santosh Yadav got into the record books for the first time when she scaled Mt. Everest at the age of twenty. She became the youngest woman in the world to climb Mt. Everest. She scaled the Everest for the second time next year, thus becoming the only woman in the world to do so.
Question 15. How did Santosh Yadav set records both the times when scaled Mount Everest?
Answer
Santosh Yadav set records both the times when scaled Mount Everest. When she scaled the peak for the first time she was the youngest woman to scale the Everest and when she climbed it the second time she was the only woman to scale it twice.
Long Answer Type Questions
Question 1. Write a brief note on Santosh’s journey from her local village school to the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi.
Answer
Born in an affluent but traditional and conservative landowners’ family in a small village of Rewari district in Haryana, Santosh was a rebel from early childhood. The local village school, but when her parents insisted she get married at the age of sixteen, she refused as she wanted to get a proper education first.
She got admission in Delhi school, despite her parents’ reluctance to send her there and informed them politely that she would earn by working part time. Santosh persuaded her parents to send her to Jaipur for higher studies after finishing high school. She got admission in Maharani College, Jaipur. She got a room in Kasturba Hostel which faced the Aravalli hills. She used to see the villagers going up the hill and disappearing.
This aroused her curiosity about the mountains. One day, when Santosh went near the hills, she met some climbers. They encouraged her to take to climbing. This whetted her interest in climbing and she saved money and took admission in Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi.
Question 2. Santosh “decided to fight the system in her own quiet way when the right moment arrived”. Elaborate.
Answer
Santosh was a very rational and progressive girl, who wished to shape her life herself. She says, “From the very beginning I was quite determined that if I chose a correct and a rational path, the others around me had to change, not me.” Though it was not easy for a girl who came from a rigid patriarchal and traditional environment, she decided to fight the system in her own quiet way when the right moment arrived. And the right moment came when she turned sixteen. At sixteen, most of the girls in her village used to get married.
Santosh, too, was under pressure from her parents to do the same. Instead of giving in, she opposed her parents’ decision to marry her off at the early age of sixteen and got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi. When her parents refused to pay for her education in the city, she told them politely that she would earn money for her fees by working part-time. She politely but firmly made it clear that she was determined to overcome all obstacles.
Finally, her parents had to surrender. Her decision to take up mountaineering as a career was also handled very boldly by her. She took admission in Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering without seeking the permission of her parents leaving them with no choice but to accept her decision. Thus, Santosh rebelled against the orthodox, conservative system in a quiet but firm way.
Question 3. Santosh is not only a good mountaineer but also a genuinely good human being. Discuss.
Answer
Santosh Yadav proved her mountaineering skills quite early in her career. She displayed an unflinching will and a fearless mind that fought a rigid, orthodox society to rise to the top. But the iron will and mental toughness did not overshadow her qualities of co-operation and concern for others. That Santosh is endowed with a caring heart is obvious from the fact that she took great care of a climber who lay dying at the South Col. Though, the climber could not be saved, Santosh’s concern for him was really commendable.
In another incident, she saved the life of a fellow climber, Mohan Singh, by sharing her own oxygen with him. This sense of sacrifice and team-spirit won for her the esteem of her team-mates. Moreover, Santosh’s heart overflowed with patriotism when she unfurled the national flag on the top of Mt. Everest. Her concern for the purity of the environment also proves that she is a good human being. Such is her love for nature that she brought down five hundred kilograms of rubbish from the Everest. Thus, Santosh is blessed with the human qualities of both head and heart.
Question 4. Write a brief character sketch of Santosh Yadav.
Answer
Santosh Yadav was born in a traditional family. She was born in the small village of Joniyawas in Haryana. The girl was given the name Santosh, which means ‘contentment.’ But Santos was not always content with her place in a traditional way of life. She began living life on her own terms from the start. Where ever other girls wore traditional Indian dresses. Santosh preferred short. Santosh did not yield to the traditions. In opposition to her family, she enrolled herself in a school in Delhi. When her parents refused to pay for her education, she politely informed them of her plans to earn money by working part-time to pay her school fees. This shows that she was a determined child. She developed a love for mountaineering. She saved money and enrolled herself in a course of mountaineering. She scaled Mt. Everest twice. This is the achievement of her heroic character.
Question 5. Imagine you are Santosh Yaday. You are feeling uncomfortable about enrolling yourself for climbing without seeking your father’s permission. Write a letter of apology to your father politely explaining your situation.
Answer
Kasturba Hostel
Maharani College
Jaipur
17th May 1988
Dear Father,
Both Mom and you must be looking forward to my visit during the holidays after the college semester. However, Pm afraid we all shall have to forego the pleasure of each other’s company this summer. I’m very sorry about it but let me explain the situation.
I have got myself enrolled for training at Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. Dad, my passion for climbing has got the better of me and I couldn’t resist this opportunity to get trained as a mountaineer. Pm sure you’ll understand and forgive me. I assure you both, that I’ll prove myself in this field and make you all proud. I need your and Mama’s blessings.
As for the holiday, my semester has ended today and I have to join the Institute on the twenty-first. So, I do not have enough g time to come home. I hope you’ll bear and forgive your dear daughter who loves you and respects you from the core of her heart.
Yours affectionately,
Santosh