Chapter 5
The Barber's Trade Union
Mulk Raj Anand
A. Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. What was the age difference between Chandu and the narrator ?
Answer :- It was a difference of six months. Chandu was senior to the narrator.
Question 2. Why did the narrator consider chandu the embodiment of perfection for him ?
Answer :- Because he could make any fly kites of complicated designs and balance which the narrator could not do.
Question 3. Why was chandu not good at doing sums at school ?
Answer :- He was not good at doing sums because he did not do any home work given by the teachers and went to learn on the work as barber.
Question 4. Why did the narrator’s mother constantly dissuade him to play with chandu ?
Answer :- She dissuaded him by saying that chandu was a low caste barber’s son and he had to keep up the status of his caste and class.
Question 5. What does the narrator tell us about chandu’s dress.
Answer :- Chandu ware a pair of khakhi shirts, black velvet, waist coat with many buttons and a round felt cap.
Question 6. What did chandu tell the narrator about Helen khan’s appearance ?
Answer :- He was a young man who dressed in starched shirt, an invory collar and bow tie, black coat and striped trousers and a wonderful rubber over coat and shoes.
Question 7. Why did Bijay chand, the landload turn chandu out of his house ?
Answer :- He told him to get out of his house as he was defiling his house with a leather bag of cow hide, and a coat of some animal’s narrow. He should wear the dress befitting his profession.
Question 8. why did the sahukar thin about chandu’s wearing clothes like doctor ?
Answer :- He abused him in the foulest language. He told him to come back in his own. Clothes and not wear the defiled clothes of the hospital people.
Question 9. Why had the landlord summoned Pandit Parmanand ?
Answer :- He had been called by the landlord to discuss the unholy emergency in which chandu had landed by wearning English clothes and a doctor dress.
Question 10. What type of woman was chandu’s mother.
Answer :- She was an ill tempered woman from low caste and she know the reality about upper caste people.
Question 11. How did chandu mother treat the narrator ?
Answer :- She was very kind to the narrator though she spoke to him in a joking manner.
Question 12. Why did Chandu decide to go on strike.
Answer :- He decided to go on strike to teach upper caste people a lesson as they had been abusing him.
Question 13. Why did chandu decide to buy a bicycle ?
Answer :- He decided to buy a bicycle in order to go to down to shave people and give them a hair cut to earn money.
Question 14. Why had the men gathered in the sahukar ?
Answer :- They had gathered in the sahukar’s shop to talk about rediculas deeds of chandu.
Question 15. How did the sahukar look without being trimmed by the barber ?
Answer :- Sahukar looked dirty with his long jawed face had the scum of his unshaved beard. He looked like.
Question 16. What jokes became popular in every home and why ?
Answer :- The jokes about the unkepts beards of the elders of village because current news in every home.
Question 17. What was the reason of the rumour that the landlord’s wife had threatened to run away with someone else ?
Answer :- She threatened to do so being twenty years younger than her husband, she had tolerated him as long as kept in trim. But now his unclean beard was disgusting to her.
Question 18. Why did the village elders threaten Chandu ?
Answer :- They threatened chandu as he had decided not to visit the village elders for cutting and shaving.
Question 19. Name the union that gave birth to many other active trade unions in the town ?
Answer :- The name of the union was ‘Rajkot District Barber Brothers hair dressing and shauing saloon.
B. Long Answers Type Questions
Question 1. Give a brief character sketch of chandu.
Answer :- Chandu is a low caste barber boy. He is a close friend of the narrator. He is fond of little odd works. He catches wasps, squeezes their poison and makes them fly with tied legs. He is expert in making kites of various designs. In spite of these talents, he is weak in learning. His father dies of plague. He supports his mother by doing his father’s profession as a barber. He goes for showing and hair cutting at the houses of village elders. As he belongs to a low caste the people of the high caste insult him and swear at him. On day he goes dressed up as a doctor to the village elders. Their behaviours makes him rebellious. He decides to teach them a lesson. He goes on strike and stops visting people’s homes. He opens his own shop and the people have to go there to get themselves shaven. His efforts result in the formation of many other trade unions. He was called one of the markers of modern india by the narrator.
Question 2. Give a brief character sketch of chandu’s mother.
Answer :- Chandu’s mother was an ill tempered woman because of her straight forward manner of speech. she was a widow whose husband died of plague. she was over sixty years old. she could read the nature of the upper caste people. But she was very kind to the narrator she told the narrator that if his mother saw him in her hut, she would stratch her evil eyes on his lovely face. she had suffered humiliations of the people upper classes. she was happy when chandu started earning money by shauing people in the town. we can only pity chandu mother’s because she did not have a good quality of life. when chandu does good business in towm her way of talking to the village elders undergoes a change.
