Summary
Chapter 9 : Madam Rides the Bus
This is an insightf ul story of an eight year old girl’s first bus journey into the world outside her village. The girl Valli, at a very young age, tries to be aware of the mystery of life and death. The outside world for her is affable and captiva ting but puzzling. She wants to understand everything by herself.
The talks of the village people about the town added fuel to the fire and she was determined to go to the town on her own withou t anybody’s help. She asked the bus conductor to take her to the town and paid her fare herself. She wanted to get through everything with her eyes. She saw the canal, palm tree, grass land, distant mountain and the blue sky.
She also saw great stretches of green fields as far as her eyes could see. She was enchanted when she saw a cow running with her raised tail on the road in front of the bus. While returning she noticed that the body of the same cow was crushed and was bleeding. She was shaken from within but was trying to understand the meaning of life and death in her own term s. She returned home in time and no one from her family could know anything about her brave jou rney.
Chapter 9 : Poem – The Tale of the Custard the Dragon
It is a fanciful dream about Belin da, who lives all alone in her house only with four pets’ viz. a little kitten named Ink, a grey coloured mouse name Blink, a little yellow coloured dog named mustard and a dragon named Custard. All the people of the house felt pride in themselves on their fearlessness at make believe games, and they look down upon poor Custard for his coyness.
But one day pirate arrive and only Custard who is the one who is shy, gives a proper vicious response. He gobbles up the pirate and shows that he is also brave and can face the difficulties if the needs be or in certain circumstances.
After the danger is past, everyone started boasting again about their courage, and Custard agreed that everyone else is also brave than he is. But everyone knows the fact as to who is brave and who is not.