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Chapter: 7 Why We Travel· Prose

Read the extract and complete the activities given below : (12 marks)This is what Camus meant when he said that “what gives value to travel is fear” — disruption, in other words, (or emancipation) from circumstance, and all the habits behind which we…

Q.1 (A) Read the extract and complete the activities given below : (12 marks)

This is what Camus meant when he said that “what gives value to travel is fear” — disruption, in other words, (or emancipation) from circumstance, and all the habits behind which we hide. And that is why many of us travel not in search of answers, but of better questions. I, like many people, tend to ask questions of the places I visit, and relish most the ones that ask the most searching questions back of me: “The ideal travel book,” Christopher Isherwood once said, “should be perhaps a little like a crime story in which you’re in search of something.” And it’s the best kind of something, I would add, if it’s one that you can never quite find.

I remember, in fact, after my first trips to Southeast Asia, more than a decade ago, how I would come back to my apartment in New York, and lie in my bed, kept up by something more than jet lag, playing back, in my memory, over and over, all that I had experienced, and paging wistfully through my photographs and reading and re-reading my diaries, as if to extract some mystery from them. Anyone witnessing this strange scene would have drawn the right conclusion : I was in love.

When we go abroad is that we are objects of scrutiny as much as the people we scrutinize, and we are being consumed by the cultures we consume, as much on the road as when we are at home. At the very least, we are objects of speculation (and even desire) who can seem as exotic to the people around us as they do to us.

All, in that sense, believed in “being moved” as one of the points of taking trips, and “being transported” by private as well as public means; all saw that “ecstasy” (“ex-stasis”) tells us that our highest moments come when we’re not stationary, and that epiphany can follow movement as much as it precipitates it.

A1. Read and rewrite the following sentences and state whether they are True or False : (2)
(a) A traveller may sink in love with his travel-memoirs.
(b) One gets inspected as he inspects the world around him.
(c) Quest for something may end in more mystery.
(d) Staying in comfort at home gives one more happiness than travelling.

A2. Match the persons given in column ‘A’ with opinions/characteristics given in column ‘B’ : (2)

Column ‘A’Column ‘B’
(1) Narrator(a) ideal travel should be like a crime story.
(2) Camus(b) in love with his memoirs.
(3) Isherwood(c) more happy when on move.
(4) Traveller(d) fear gives value to travel.

A3. Give reasons : (2)
“We are objects of scrutiny,” because ................
(i) _____________________
(ii) _____________________

A4. “Travelling is an interesting teacher.” Write your views in 3-4 sentences. (2)

A5. Do as directed : (2)

(i) I like to ask questions of the places I visit. (Choose the correct tense form of the above sentence from the following options and rewrite.)
(a) Simple past tense
(b) Simple present tense
(c) Past perfect tense
(d) Present perfect tense

(ii) I would come back to my apartment in New York. (Choose the correct option using ‘used to’ for the given sentence and rewrite.)
(a) I use to come back to my apartment in New York.
(b) I have used to come back to my apartment in New York.
(c) I used to come back to my apartment in New York.
(d) I had used to come back to my apartment in New York.

A6. Find out the words from passage which mean : (2) (i) reminiscence (ii) exhilaration

1 answer

Best answer

Answer: A1 — (a) True (b) True (c) True (d) False; A2 — 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c; A5 — (i) (b), (ii) (c); A6 — memory, ecstasy. Full answers below.

A1.
(a) A traveller may sink in love with his travel-memoirs. — True
(b) One gets inspected as he inspects the world around him. — True
(c) Quest for something may end in more mystery. — True
(d) Staying in comfort at home gives one more happiness than travelling. — False

A2.

Column ‘A’Column ‘B’
(1) Narrator(b) in love with his memoirs.
(2) Camus(d) fear gives value to travel.
(3) Isherwood(a) ideal travel should be like a crime story.
(4) Traveller(c) more happy when on move.

A3. “We are objects of scrutiny,” because
(i) when we go abroad, we are being consumed (observed and studied) by the cultures we consume, just as we observe the people there.
(ii) we are objects of speculation (and even desire) and can seem as exotic to the people around us as they seem to us.

A4. I agree that travelling is an interesting teacher. When we travel, we meet people of different languages, food habits and customs, and we learn to respect differences and adjust to new situations. Travel also teaches us things no textbook can, such as managing money, planning a route and solving problems on our own. Most of all, it makes us ask new questions about the world and about ourselves, and so it broadens our mind.

A5.
(i) (b) Simple present tense — ‘I like to ask questions of the places I visit’ is in the simple present tense (‘like’, ‘visit’).
(ii) (c) I used to come back to my apartment in New York. (‘used to’ + base form shows a past habit.)

A6.
(i) reminiscence — memory
(ii) exhilaration — ecstasy

Doubtly AI · 29 Oct 2026 AI-verified · Nov 2026 Report
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