Questions and Answers – “The Refugee” by K.A. Abbas

Target Audience: Polytechnic Teachers and Students in Tamilnadu
Subject: English-2, II YEAR MOP, M SCHEME
Objective: Students should be able to interpret and explain a content in English. 
Question Pattern in Exam: II. Answer any FIVE questions  each in 30 words : (5 x 2=10)
Eight questions from 4 lessons will be given in the exam and students should answer FIVE questions in 30 words.
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1.      What does Abbas mean by the words “the tragic storm of August- September, 1947”?  (OR) What happened to the minority communities in the wake of partition?

 Horrible events happened during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.  Nearly ten million people fled from Pakistan to India and vice versa as refugees.  They were uprooted from their home,  family, friends, relatives and lost all their possessions.  There was bloodshed everywhere.

Abbas calls this “the tragic storm of August –September, 1947.”

2.       What was the pattern of living in Punjab before Partition? (OR) How did Abbas’s mother win the respect and affection of all her neighbours?

Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims lived together as friends in the same place with love and attachment. This was the pattern of living in Punjab before Partition.  Maanji represents this. Being a Sikh, She distributed butter milk to all her neighbourhood and won the love and affection of all her Muslim neighbours.  The Muslim women called her Behanji (sister) or Maanji or Chachi (mother) affectionately.

3.     What was Maanji’s reaction to the impending partition? (OR) What did Maanji say when she heard about the hatred of Muslims for the Hindus in Rawalpindi?

The news about impending Partition in newspapers worried many Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab (now in Pakistan) but not Maanji.  Muslim friends warned her that it was dangerous for a Sikh to live there and even her own son in Bombay asked her to come there.  But she strongly believed that her Muslim neighbours were friendly to her and all of them were her own children.

4.      4 How did Muslim neighbours show their affection for Maanji?

Muslim friends warned her that it was dangerous for a Sikh like her to live there and urged her to leave Rawalpindi.  However some Muslims assured her that they would protect her by all means.  A Muslim tailor, also her tenant, kept watch night and day on her house to save her family. Thus they showed affection for Maanji.

5.      What snapped the last thread of Maanji’s faith? OR How did Maanji describe the murder of tongawallah?

In front of Maanji’s house, a tongawallah (horseman) was stabbed to death because he was a Hindu.  They also went on stabbing the poor horse and killed it that had “neither religion nor caste.”  This incident snapped the last thread of Maanji’s faith in  the safety of Sikhs in Rawalpindi.

6.      What were Maanji’s thoughts when she moved out of Rawalpindi?

In the beginning Maanji thought that the madness of people and communal riots would soon cool off.  But on the way to Delhi, she saw horrible things here and there and came to a conclusion that she would never return to Rawalpindi.

7.     How did Maanji take the loss she had suffered?

Maanji lived with her family in a single room in Bombay as a refugee.  Now all her life’s savings and possessions are lost but not her hospitality.   She suffered a lot but never cursed anyone for that.  There was no anger or self-pity in her silent heart against anyone.