CBSE Class 12 Forms of Prose

Activity 1 : Given below are a few passages. Some of these are fictional. Mark these as A. Mark the non-fictional prose passages as B in the table given. Also justify your selection by providing clues and reasons.

Text -1

Rhamila remained inside the palanquin while I stepped into the goldsmith's house to collect my flute and few belongings. I was wrapped in a burqa which, though it enveloped me from head to foot was made of the finest Kashmiri wool. I held it up to avoid soiling it in the dust and garbage of the street, revealing the edge of my green and gold trousers. Murmurs of admiration swept through the crowd that, as before, had gathered round the palanquin. I chuckled softly to myself, thinking of the contrast between my exit from the house that morning and my return a few hours later, transformed beyond recognition.

I smiled even more broadly when, once inside, I threw open my burqa and displayed my new finery to the goldsmith's wife and family. 'Sati Nisa!' they cried, open mouthed. 'Sati Nisa! You look beautiful! What is the palace like? Tell us all, every detail', they clamoured.

'It is too large—too complicated—I could not take it all in', I said. But I told them all that had happened to me and also that I still did not know whether or not I would be enlisted on the staff of the princess-to-be: Arjumand. 'If I am,' I assured them, 'I shall return and pay my debts. I owe you a lot of money for rent.'

'Never mind about that', the goldsmith said. 'But I should be very pleased if you would recommend me and my artifacts to the Master of the Traders and be allowed to display my wares at the weekly bazaars held at the house of Asaf Khan and the palaces of the Prince and the Emperor.'

'Oh ho, you are ambitious!' his wife laughed. I admired the goldsmith's work and promised that I would do what I could for him. Four o' clock. We were back at the audience hall on the dot. Khamila had told me that Nur Jahan, unlike most people at courts, was extremely punctual. My heart was beating even more loudly than it had been in the morning. Now my fate would really be decided.

What would Arjumand think of me? What would I think of her? She sat beside her aunt on the dais, dressed in deep blue silk trousers, a paler blue gauze overskirt, a white and silver veil held in place by a silver and sapphire headband.

The first thing that attracted me was her warm and tender smile, like the suns' first rays when it dispels the morning mists over the river Jumna. She was endowed with unassuming beauty that does not provoke envy but sincere admiration. She appeared to the unaware of her charms. Chief among these were her dark brown eyes, large and lustrous, her delicate features, glossy black hair falling to her waist, and full red lips.

Her complexion was delicate apricot in colour, her chin pointed and firm, her right cheek dimpled, revealing the two sides of her character: on the one hand determination and a carefully concealed willfulness, on the other a love of laughter and the good things of life.

She was then nineteen years old, a year younger than me, but she looked even younger, as guileless as her aunt was cunning. She raised an arm to adjust an earring that had become caught in her veil. Her hands were small, her fingers short and strong, indicative of a generous and artistic nature.BATS flying around can be really scary. But bats hanging upside-down are even scarier. How and why do they hang upside-down?. This question has long puzzled scientists. Obviously, bats had to reduce their bone mass and thereby their body mass, as an adaptation for efficient flight. A usual explanation is that the upside-down posture of bats might be the result of natural selection to ease their launch into flight by simply dropping and gliding from their roosting sites such as caves and trees. Why do birds perch upright then?

In 1977, Howell and Pylka came up with explanation that the leg bones of bats are light and slender, which enhances their ability to fly. The femora (i.e. thigh bones) of bats are very delicately built making it difficult for them to withstand the compression stress borne by their body weight while in upright position. This makes bats unlikely to perch in a way that birds can. Is it convincing enough? Well, not yet.  Bats actually have specialized tendons that hold their toes in place, ensuring alocking mechanism in the hind legs that allows them to hang from their feet or even fro

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