NCERT Solutions for Class 8 English It So Happened Supplementary Reader Chapter 5 Princess September free PDF is given here. These Solutions contains answers to all questions provided in the textbook. Class 8th English It So Happened Chapter 5 solutions are explained by the expert English teacher and as per NCERT (CBSE) guidelines.
Class 8 English Princess September NCERT Questions and Answers
Comprehension Check Page No. 38
Question 1: How many daughters did the royal couple have?
Answer: The Royal couple had nine daughters.
Question 2: Why were they named after the months of the year?
Answer: They were named after the months of the year because the queen could not recall their names easily.
Question 3: The King had a peculiar habit. What was it? Why is it called peculiar?
Answer: The King had a peculiar habit. Instead of receiving gifts on his birthday he gave them. Kings usually receive gifts on their birthdays. So this way it was called peculiar.
Question 4: (i) What was Princess September’s reaction to the loss of her parrot?
(ii) What was her Mother’s reaction to it?
(iii) What do the reactions indicate about the nature and temperament of each?
Answer 4: (i) Princess September took the loss of her parrot to heart. She wept continuously. She was put to sleep without supper.
(ii) Her Mother said that Princess September’s weeping was simply nonsense. She asked the maids to put the child to sleep without supper.
(iii) The princess was very simple-hearted and sensitive. She was stricken with grief when her parrot died. But the Queen mother was not moved at all. She had nothing to console the child.
Question 5: What pulled the Princess out of her gloom?
Answer: The coming of a little bird to her room at night comforted her. She wiped her tears and sat up. She heard the little bird sing sweetly. She came out of her gloom.
Question 6: How did the Maids of Honour come to know that the Princess and the bird had become intimate friends?
Answer: The Maids of Honour saw the bird eat rice out of the princess’s hands. The bird had her bath in her saucer. The bird sang sweetly and this made the princess very happy. So they understood that the princess was very intimate with the bird.
Question 7: The new bird was full of new songs but the old parrots always repeated themselves. What did they say?
Answer: The old parrots only repeated what they had been taught. They could only say ‘God save the King’ and “Pretty Polly’.
Question 8: What is the king’s opinion about his Councillors? Why did he form that opinion?
Answer: The King had a low opinion about his Councillors because like parrots, they too repeated the same thing differently.
Question 9: (i) The eight Princesses made an offer to Princess September. What was it?
(ii) Why, in your view, did they do it?
Answer: (i) They offered their pocket money to Princess September to buy another parrot.
(ii) They did that because they felt jealous of the song bird’s friendship with Princess September.
Question 10: What did the sisters advise the Princess to do about her bird?
Answer: The sisters advised the Princess to put the little bird into the cage lest it should fly away forever.
Comprehension Check Page No. 43
Question 1: In the following sentence elaborate the parts given in bold. Under the circumstances it was a very unfortunate remark for the bird to make.
Answer: The circumstance was that the princess was really worried about the bird. The bird couldn’t come due to its father-in-law’s holding a party. But it worried the princess. The remark made her more worried. So it was an ‘unfortunate remark’.
Question 2: (i) What did Princess September do to ensure the safety of her pet?
(ii) How did the bird react to it?
Answer 2: (i) Princess September put the bird into a cage to ensure his safety.
(ii) The bird disliked his imprisonment. He stopped singing.
Question 3: Why did the bird refuse to be taken out in her cage?
Answer 3: The bird refused to be taken out in her cage for a reason. The world seems different when looked at through the bars of a cage. It wanted to see them freely without the cage.
Question 4: (i) What persuaded Princess September to give the bird his freedom again?
(ii) How did the bird react to it?
Answer 4: (i) The Princess freed the bird lest he should die in captivity.
(ii) The Princess kept the window open so that the bird might fly in and out making fresh air charming. Freedom helped the bird to sing and enjoy himself.
Question 5: Princess September kept her window open day and night.
(i) How did it help the bird?
(ii) How did it help the Princess herself?
Answer 5: (i) The bird opened his wings and flew away.
(ii) It helped the Princess herself by providing her fresh wind and natural light. It helped her make her beautiful.
Question 6: The eight sisters kept their windows shut. How did it affect them?
Answer 6: The eight sisters who kept their window shut all night became extremely ugly and disagreeable. They were married to the councillors.
Exercise
Discuss the following questions in small groups. Write their answers later.
Question 1: Are the sisters unkind and cruel? Find evidence in the text to support your idea.
Answer: Yes, the eight sisters of the princess were unkind and cruel. They were jealous too. They advised her to encage the bird. This suggestion might have killed the bird.
Question 2: Which, to you, is the most important idea in this story, and why?
(i) importance of music (ii) value of freedom (iii) beauty of nature
Answer: (i) value of freedom.
The reason is that ‘freedom’ to any living thing is ‘life’ itself. If one is denied ‘freedom’, its life is snatched.