Life Skills Class 8 Famous Detectives

Home , Firaq Gorakhpuri, Mahadevi Varma, Makhanlal Chaturvedi

NAME ______DATE ______

"After a quiz in Mumbai, a little boy came up to me, not for my autograph, but to ask whether or not I like detective stories, apparently, one of the rounds of the quiz named ’Playing Detective’ seemed to have churned his memory and he told me that ‘Derrick’ the detective of a German TV serial resembled my dad. Imagine my surprise when I got home to watch the late night programme. There he was---the same look, the way of speaking and even his walk seemed to have an exact likeness. In the course of my reading, I discovered that the letter ‘H’ is common to many detectives and their creators—Hardy Boys, Holmes, Dashiell Hammett and Hercule Poirot to name

Given below are some facts about two world famous detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Separate them under two columns Sherlock and Poirot.

Sherlock Poirot

1 He was introduced to the world, in an adventure titled A study in Scarlet .______2. He is Belgians by birth ______3. He has a friend named Captain Hastings ______4. Its creator describes him as a thin wiry dark man, with a high nosed acute face penetrating grey eyes and angular shoulders.’ ______

5. He appeared in Agatha Christle’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles ______6. The actor who made this detective most popular on television is David Suchet. ______7. His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson. ______8. Dr. John H Watson is his close associate. ______9. As his career progressed he moved into Whitehaven Mansions, chosen for its symmetry and hired the terrifyingly efficient Miss Felicity Lemon as his Secretary. ______

10. ‘ The speckled Band’ , ‘ The Hound of the Baskervilles’ , ‘ The Blue Carbuncle’ are some of the cases solved by him. ______

11. He has an older brother names Mycroft ______

KNOW WITH … Upon his death, Hercule Poirot became the only fictional character ever to be honoured with an Obituary on the front page of The New York Times . © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 2 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 2 CLASS 8 PSEUDONYMS

NAME ______DATE ______

"I love reading whodunits and Ellery Queen is one of my favourites. Did you know Ellery queen is actually a non- de- plume of two people Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky? Looking at their names, I could see why they chose Ellery Queen."

Match the Pseudonyms with the real name of the writers.

Column A Column B

1. Mary Ann Evans a. Lewis Carroll 2. William Sydney Porter b. Mark Twain 3. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson c. Joseph Conrad 4. Eric Arthur Blair d. Oscar Wilde 5. Francoise Marie Arouet e. George Orwell 6. Fingal O’Flahertie Arouet f. Voltaire 7. Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski g. O Henry 8. Samuel Langhorne Clemens h. George Eliot

KNOW WITH … The author Hector Hugh Munro took the Pseudonym Saki from the last Stanza of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

NAME ______DATE ______

"India was the jewel in the crown of the British empire. No wonder, a lot of English and European authors have written on this fascinating land and its people. Learn more about a few of them here." Answer these questions

1. Which is the author of A Passage to India ?

2. Who alongwith Dominique Lapierre has written the book Freedom at Midnight?

3. Which novel by Yann Martel is about Piscine Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from

Pondichery?

4. Which English author was born in the tiny town of Motihari in the eastern state

of Bihar in 1903?

5. Who wrote the preface to the English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gi-

tanjali?

6. In which city was the famous author William Makepeace Thackeray born?

7. Which is the author of the work Man-eaters of Kumaon ?

8. Which India-born author is the youngest Nobel Prize winner in Literature?

9. Who is the author of the work The City of Joy ?

KNOW WITH … The author E M Forster had served as the private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas in 1921.

NAME ______DATE ______

“India has produced many authors who write in different language. My family and I have al- ways enjoyed reading R K Narayana’s books. Now I am going to collect all his novels, short stories, essays translations of Indian epics and travelogues and store them, much like a squirrel that collects acorns and keeps then safe to pass the winter months. And I know whenever I am feeling down or blue, all I have to do is pick up a R K Narayan story which will transport me to Malgudi and surround me with a breath of fresh air.”

Name the language that connects these Indian authors

1. Amrita Pritam, Balwant GArgi, Nanak Singh ______

2. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Mahashveta Devi, Asha Purna Devi ______

3. G Sankara Kurup, K G Sankara Pillai, M T Vasudevan Nair ______

4. Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, Ruskin Bond ______

5. Makhanlal Chaturvedi, Mahadevi Varma, Sumitra Nandan Pant______

6. Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Firaq Gorakhpuri ______

7. Subramanya Bharati, Bharathidasan, P V Akilandan ______

8. Dr. K V Puttappa, K S Karanth, D R Bendre ______

Kannada English Tamil Malayalam

Bengali Hindi Urdu Punjabi

KNOW WITH … A pioneer of modern Hindi and Urdu social fiction, Munshi Premchand’s real name was Dhanpat Rai. He wrote nearly 300 stories and novels. Among his best known novels are: Sevasadan, Rangmanch, Gaban, Nirmala and Godan. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 5 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 5 CLASS 8 INDIAN AUTHORS IN SANSKRIT

NAME ______DATE ______

“Sanskrit is the mother of many Indian languages, I never studies Sanskrit and looking at the great epics, I have missed a lot.”

Fill in the blanks with the names of authors

1. ______is also called Adikavi. He was advised by Narada to write the Ramayana. 2. ______is the grandson of sage Vasistha and son of Rishi Parashar. He is the author of the epic Mahabharata.

3. Kalidasa mentions the name of the poet ______with respect in the prelude to his first drama, the Malavikagnimitram . 4. ______is the composer of three Sanskrit works: Nagananda, Ratnavali and Priyadarshika.

5. ______is the author of Natyashastra .

6. ______has been regarded as a great sage and referred to as Go- nardiya, Phani, Adhipati and Shesraja

7. ______was a poet in the court of Raja Laxman Sen of Bengal who flourished in 12 th century AD who wrote the famous geeti Kavya- Geeta Govinda .

8. ______composed Rajatarangini which portrays the history of Kashmir.

9. ______Panchatantra deals with five secrets of good administration, kingship and worldly wisdom which have been related with the help of the animal fables. 10. ______wrote Bhashyas or Commentaries on the Brahma Sutras , the Upanishads and the Gita.

Bhasa Patanjali Kalidas Valmiki Harshavardhana

Ved Vyas Jaidev Kalhan Adi Shankaracharya Panini

KNOW WITH … Charles Wili\kins a British Scholar Translated Hitopadesha and the Bhagavadgita in English. His translation of the Bhagavadgita ( London 1785) was first Sanskrit book to be directly translated into a European Language. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 6 LIFE SKILLS SHEET 6 CLASS 8 HINDU MYTHOLOGY

NAME ______DATE ______

"I remember the time the television serials Ramayana and Mahabharata were being aired, long before you were born. The streets went empty at 10 am every Sun- day. Everyone would finish work before the programme started."

Here are a few questions in Hindu myth. Answer them.

1. Nandi is the Vahana of which god?

2. Who lifted the Govardhana Mountain to save his people from the wrafth of Indra?

3. In Hindu mythology, who is Swaha’s Husband?

4. What is the Vahana of goddess Lakshmi?

5. Apart from Brahma and Vishnu, who is the trinity of Hindu- ism?

6. In Hindu mythology, whose vahana is a buffalo?

7. The Gayatri mantra is devoted to which deity?

8. Whose finger did Dronacharya ask for as gurudakshina?

9. Which was the second of the four yugas in Hindu mythology?

10. According to Hindu mythology, who was the famous husband of Damayanti?

KNOW WITH … There is a very interesting story about why Kumbhakarna, Ravana’s brother, slept for six months. when kumbhakarna requested brahma for a boon, Saraswati, at the instance of the latter, lodged herself on the tongue of Kumbhakarna and made him ask for Nidravatva (sleep), something different from what he really desired to get – Nirdevatva ( Absence of Devas).

NAME ______DATE ______

"I have heard many people say ‘I am going to marketing’. All I wanted to ask them what do them to market? In India, we do not differentiate between the words marketing and shopping. So most of my friends were actually going to shop and not market goods."

While writing any piece in simple and clear English, you should follow certain rules. Some suggestions to help you are:

1. Planning before writing helps a lot. It allows you to chalk out as to how to begin any piece. You also have time to think about what you are trying to express. 2. Arrange the facts your piece in such a way that people can get the meaning of your piece just by one quick reading. 3. Use tables and charts to make your message interesting instead of plain writing. These can be easily understood by the readers 4. Use simple English words instead of unfamiliar difficult words 5. Avoid using unnecessary words. Use only those words which are must for your writing. ex use ‘note’ instead of make a note of’ 6. Do not write lengthy sentences. keep the average length od a sentence within 15-20 words 7. Use active voice and avoid passive voice. Passive voice makes a sentence unnecessar- ily confusing. Ex Write ‘shah jahan built the Agra Fort’ instead of The Agra Fort built by Shah Jahan’. 8. Use simple forms of verbs while using verbs in a sentence. for ex: write’I have seen Orhan Pamuk’s book’ instead of I have had a sight of Orhan Pamuk’s latest book’. 9. Avoid using the negative words when you can do so Ex Write ‘attempt one question only instead of ‘Do not attempt more than one question.’ 10. after finishing, check whether you have put your punctuation marks correctly or not 11. Lastly, read the piece yourself and see whether you are able to understand it. you must be clear with your writing and then only can you expect others to understand the same.

NAME ______DATE ______

Many French phrases are used while writing in English. Read about some of them. French Literal meaning Notes

adieu until God used like “farewell” when you don’t expect to see the person again until God ( when you die and go to Heaven)

au fait conversant, informed au fait I used in British English to mean “ familiar” or “Conversant”: she’s not really au fait with my ideas

au pair at par a person who works for a family (cleaning and /or teaching the children) in exchange for room and board

bete noire black beast similar to a pet peeve something that is particularly distasteful or difficult and to be avoided

bon voyage good trip English has “Have a good trip” but Bon voyage is more elegant.

brunette small, dark-haired female the French word brun, dark-haired, is what English really mean by “brunette. the- ette suffix indicates that the subject is small and female

chic stylish chic sounds more chic than “stylish”

critique critical, judgment critique is an adjective and noun in French, but a noun and verb in English; it refers to a critical review of something or the act of performing such a review

cuisine kitchen, food style in English, cuisine refer only to a particular type of food/cooking, such as French cuisine, southern cuisine

debutante beginner in French, debutante is the feminine form of debutant- beginner (noun) or beginning (adj). In both languages, it also refers to a young girl marking her formal debut into society. Interestingly, this usage is not original in French; it was adopted back from English

double entendre double hearing a word play or pun. for example, you’re looking at a field of sheep and you say “how are you (ewe)?”

en bloc in a block in a group, all together

en masse in mass in a group, all together

NAME ______DATE ______en route on route On the way fait accompli done deed fait accompli seems more fatalistic to me than done deed, which is so factual. faux false, fake I once saw an ad for “ genuine faux pearls.” No worries that those pearls might be real, I guess-you were guaranteed fake ones. faux pas false step, trip something that should not be done, a fool ish mistake. finale final in French, this can refer to either the final in sport (e.g., quarter-final, semifinal) or the finale of a play. In English, it can only mean the latter gauche left, awkward tactless, lacking social grace genre type used mostly in art and film- “I really like this genre..” joie de vivre joy of living the quality in people who live life to the fullest laissez-faire let it be a policy of non-interference. Note the ex pression in French is laissez-faire.

Matinee morning In English refers to the day’s first showing of a movie or play. Can also refer to a mid day romp with one’s lover.

Nom de plume pen name This French phrase was coined by English speakers in imitation of nom de guerre par excellence by excellence quintessential, pre-eminent, the best of the best

NAME ______DATE ______

protégé protected someone whose training is sponsored by an influential person raison deter reason for being purpose, justification for existing rendez-vous go to in French this refer to a date or an ap pointment ( literally it is the verb se ren dre – to go – in the imperative); in Engl ish we can use it as a noun or a verb ( let’s rendez-vous at 8 pm) repartee quick, accurate response the French repartee gives us the English “repartee” with the same meaning of a swift, witty, and “right on” retort.

RSVP respond please this abbreviation stands for Repondez, s’il vous plait, which means that “please RSVP” is redundant. souvenir memory, keepsake A memento tete-a-tete head to head A private talk or visit with another per son vis-à-vis (de) face to face in French, when vis-à-vis precedes a noun and means facing, next to, or to wards, it must be followed by the prepo sition de. In English it means “compared to” or “in relation with” ; vis-a vis this decision => vis-à-vis de cette decision

KNOW WITH … In 1999, French was the 11 th most common first language in the world, with 77 million first language speakers and another 51 million second language speaker, according to the Ethnologue Report. © copyright Pearson Education www.pearsoned.co.in 11