Class 11 English (hornbill) summary : chapter-7 The Adventure with words-meanings

NCERT Solutions for class 11 English (hornbill) summary : chapter-7 The Adventure With words-meanings

The writer

– Jayant Narlikar

Easy Summary

Professor Gaitonde was travelling from Pune to Bombay via the Jijamata Express , a train which was faster than the Deccan Queen. As he was crossing towns and villages , he met a man named ‘Khan Sahib’ who talked about his business and chatted about several things.

They got off at Victoria Terminus station which was neat and clean. It had British officers , Parsees and Anglo-Indian staff all around. He was confused as to how the East India Company was ruling the country as according to his facts, they had fled away after the events of 1857.

class 11 english hornbill chapter- 7 the adventure questions and answers

He went to Hornby road and noticed that the shops were different. He entered the Forbes building and inquired about Mr Vinay Gaitonde but as checked by the receptionist , no such man had ever worked there. He went to the Town Hall and sat in the reading room. He took five books related to history and decided to go through them one by one and check how the facts had changed.

He started investigating from the period of Asoka to the third battle of Panipat According to the fifth volume ‘Bhausahebanchi Bakhar’, he found out that Marathas had won the Battle of Panipat and spread their influence all over India after that.

He was confused as it was different from what he knew so far. After the victory , India was moved to the path of democracy. There were no longer any kings ruling and democratic parties had been set up. The professor started liking India as he kept reading further about it. It was different from the one he believed he saw. This country knew how to stand on its feet and it was no longer slave under the white man.

As he was going through the book , the librarian told him to finish since they were closing the library. It was eight o clock. He asked about carrying the books with him as he would return the next morning and slipped the Bakhar book into his left pocket. He checked into a guest house and had his dinner. He decided to walk towards Azad Maidan. He noticed a large crowd of people going towards a pandal. A lecture was going on but he noticed something unusual. The presidential chair was empty. The speaker was talking and the crowd was continuously moving inside and outside.

He could not control himself and moved towards the stage and sat on the chair. The crowd was taken aback and started asking him to get up and move away. He tried to talk to them but they started throwing several objects at him such as tomatoes , eggs and etc. Soon the crowd moved towards him to push him away and he was nowhere to be seen.

Next , he woke up in a hospital bed and saw Rajendra in front of him. He narrated the whole sequence of events that took place and Rajendra listened to him amazed. The professor was confused as to where he was and if he had been in a coma for the past two days. What was the experience he just had , was it real or not.

Rajendra explained to him that it happened because of two theories – Catastrophe theory and lack of determinism in Quantum theory. Catastrophe theory states that a small change in any situation can result in a shift in behaviour. In reality , the Marathas lost their leader-Bhausaheb and Vishwarao and hence they lost the battle. But the Professor saw that the bullet missed and Vishwarao was not dead.

Professor then showed him the torn page of the Bakhar book that he had in his pocket. Rajendra read it carefully and told him that realities can be different for different people. What he thought had happened is a catastrophic experience. Rajendra told him that in the case of electrons , one cannot predict which path the electron takes at a point of time. He told him that it is the lack of determinism in Quantum theory and explained to him what it meant. In one world , the electron may be found here and in another, it may be found in another place but in the third world. It may be at different locations. Once the observer knows about the correct placing of the electrons in every world , it might happen that an alternative world exists at the same time.

Hence- the professor was in two different worlds at the present time. He had real-life experience in an alternative reality and he came back from another world. Both the worlds had different histories and different sets of events. The professor wanted to know why he was the one to make the transition. Rajendra told him that at the time of the collision with the truck , the professor was thinking about the catastrophe theory and its role in the war. He was also thinking about the Battle of Panipat at that moment , so the neurons in his brain acted as a trigger and made the transition.

The professor was in that alternative world for the last two days.

Word Meanings

Page no- 43 to 47

1. Blow by blow account – detailed description of some.

2. Relegated to – assigned to a lower rank.

3. Dismay – shock.

4. Political acumen – political smartness.

5. Valour – great courage in battle.

6. De facto – existing in fact with or without any lawful authority.

7. Astute – smartness; quick-witted.

8. Seldom – not often.

9. Doctored accounts – manipulated accounts related to history.

10. Melee – a confused fight.

11. Shoved – to push someone roughly.

12. Frugal – less costly and simple.

13. Stroll – to wander.

14. Throng – a large pack of crowd.

15. Gave vent to – to express one’s feelings.

16. Hostile – unfriendly.

17. Valiantly – bravely.

18. Sacrilege – disrespect.

19. Swarmed – movie somewhere in a large number.

20. Dumbfounded – amazed.

21. Catastrophe theory – it is a branch of mathematics concerned with systems displaying discontinuous changes.

22. Smugly – to show excess satisfaction.

23. Amok – to behave uncontrollably.

24. Triumphantly – to win a battle.

25. Inadvertently – unintentionally.

26. Disparity – difference.

27. Armour – shell.

28. Rout – a defeat.

29. Impetus – the force with which the body moves.

30. Manifestation – the action of showing something ; demonstration.

31. Startling – surprising.

32. Assertion – a confident statement of a fact.

33. Determinism – a doctrine that all the events are caused by the external will.

34. Quantum theory – a theory of matter and energy based on quantum mechanics.

35. Ignoramus – an ignorant person.

36.Marshall – to gather something.

37. Precise – error-free ; correct

38. Trajectory – the path followed by a projectile flying.

39. Viable – practical.

40. Bifurcation – division.

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