Class 12 English Vistas Chapter 8 — Memories of Childhood (Zitkala-Sa & Bama)
Welcome to HSLC Guru’s complete study guide for Class 12 English Vistas Chapter 8 — “Memories of Childhood”, prepared as per the ASSEB (Assam State Board of Secondary Education) Higher Secondary Second Year syllabus. This chapter is unique because it brings together two autobiographical excerpts by women writers from very different but equally marginalised communities. Part I, “The Cutting of My Long Hair”, is taken from The School Days of an Indian Girl (1921) by Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnett, 1876-1938), a Native American Sioux writer, musician and political activist who attended White’s Manual Labor Institute and later Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Part II, “We Too Are Human Beings”, is an extract from Karukku (1992), the trail-blazing autobiography of Bama (born 1958), a Tamil Dalit Christian writer whose pen-name has become a symbol of Dalit-feminist self-assertion in modern Indian literature.
Both narratives are childhood memories, yet both are searing political documents. They show how an institutional system — colonial schooling in one case, the centuries-old caste order in the other — wounds the small body and the young conscience long before the child can name what is happening to her. Together they demand that the reader confront racism, untouchability, dignity, and the liberating power of education across two continents and two cultures.
About the Authors
Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938)
Zitkala-Sa, which means “Red Bird” in the Lakota language, was born Gertrude Simmons on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, USA. At the age of eight she was taken from her mother and sent to a Quaker missionary school in Indiana — a forced experience of cultural assimilation that shaped her life’s work. She later studied at Earlham College and the Boston Conservatory, became a violinist, taught at Carlisle Indian School, co-composed the first Native American opera (The Sun Dance Opera, 1913), and co-founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926. Through her writing she campaigned tirelessly for Native rights, citizenship, and the preservation of indigenous languages and traditions. The School Days of an Indian Girl, from which our extract is drawn, was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1900.
Bama (born 1958)
Bama is the pen-name of Bama Faustina Soosairaj, a Tamil Dalit Roman Catholic writer and teacher from Puthupatti village, Tamil Nadu. She wrote her first book Karukku (“palmyra leaves whose serrated edges resemble double-edged swords”) in 1992 after leaving the convent where she had served as a nun for seven years. Karukku won the Crossword Book Award in 2000 and is widely regarded as the first autobiography in Tamil by a Dalit woman. Her other major works include Sangati (Events, 1994) and Kusumbukkaran (a story collection). Bama’s writing fuses memoir, fiction and protest, and gives voice to the everyday humiliations and quiet resistance of Dalit Christian women in southern India.
Summary — Part I: The Cutting of My Long Hair (Zitkala-Sa)
The narrator recalls her very first day at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. The day is bitterly cold and snow lies thick on the ground. A loud bell suddenly clangs through the building and Native American children, dressed unfamiliarly in tight, immodest clothes, are herded into the dining hall. Zitkala-Sa is bewildered — she does not know that she must wait for a second bell before sitting, nor that she must wait for a third bell before lifting her knife and fork. Watching a paleface woman scrutinise the children, she feels her face burn with shame.
After breakfast a friend, Judewin, whispers a terrifying piece of news she has overheard: the authorities mean to cut their long hair. Zitkala-Sa is horrified. Among her Sioux people, only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy; short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards. She resolves to resist. While the other children are taken away, she silently slips upstairs, creeps into a dark room, and crawls under a bed in the farthest, darkest corner.
Below, she hears women calling her name and the sound of their feet running on the bare floors. The door is flung open. Hands drag her out from under the bed. Despite her kicks and screams she is carried downstairs, tied tightly to a chair, and her thick braids are sheared off with cold scissors. As she feels the blades close on her hair, she loses her spirit. She remembers her mother, her warm tepee, the gentle hands that had once braided that very hair. “Now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder,” she writes — moaning for her mother but with no one to comfort her, no one even to call her by her own name.
Summary — Part II: We Too Are Human Beings (Bama)
The narrator, a small girl of about ten in a Tamil village, is in the third class. School is some ten minutes from her home, but she usually takes half an hour or even an hour to reach it because there is so much to look at on the way — the performing monkey, the snake-charmer’s snake, the cyclist who has not got off his bike for three days, the spinning wheels at the Maariyaata temple festival, the pongal offerings cooked in front of the temple, the sweet stalls and the dried-fish stall, the gleaming public well, almonds being sold from a basket, the threshing floor, the irrigation channel — all the rich sights and smells of village life.
One day, returning home from school, she sees an elder of her own street walking towards a Naicker landlord. The old man is carrying a small packet — vadais (savoury fritters) tied up in its wrapper — and he holds the packet by its string, dangling it carefully so that he does not touch the food and the food does not touch his body. He bows almost double, places the packet before the Naicker who is seated and waiting, and then steps back. The Naicker opens the packet and begins to eat.
To Bama, who has not yet understood the rules of caste, the sight is comical. She runs home laughing and tells her elder brother, Annan. Her brother is not amused. Quietly and patiently he explains the harsh truth: the elder is not playing a joke. He is from their own community, an “untouchable”, and the upper-caste landlord refuses to take anything directly from his hands because his very touch is considered polluting. The food in the packet is, in fact, food that the Naicker has bought from the bazaar — yet the elder has had to fetch it like a slave because his caste forbids him to come close.
Bama is shocked and outraged. She wonders how human beings can be treated so cruelly merely because of the community into which they were born. She asks her brother why their people endure such humiliation. Annan answers with words that change her life: “Because we are born into this community, we are never given any honour or dignity or respect; we are stripped of all that. But if we study and make progress, we can throw away these indignities. So study with care, learn all you can. If you are always ahead in your lessons, people will come to you of their own accord and attach themselves to you.” From that day Bama studies hard, stands first in her class, and discovers that education is the one weapon that can free her — and her people — from caste oppression.
সাৰাংশ (Assamese Summary)
প্ৰথম অংশ — মোৰ দীঘল চুলিৰ কৰ্তন (জিতকালা-চা)
“মোৰ দীঘল চুলিৰ কৰ্তন” আমেৰিকাৰ চিউক্স উপজাতিৰ লেখিকা জিতকালা-চাৰ আত্মজীৱনীৰ এক অংশ। আঠ বছৰ বয়সত মাকৰ পৰা আঁতৰাই তেওঁক কাৰ্লাইল ইণ্ডিয়ান বিদ্যালয়ত ভৰ্তি কৰোৱা হয়। প্ৰথম দিনাই শীতকালৰ সেই বিদ্যালয়ত ঘণ্টা মাৰি ক্ষুদ্ৰ ছাত্ৰ-ছাত্ৰীক ভোজন কোঠালৈ লৈ অনা হয়। আত্মীয়হীন, ভাষা নজনা ছোৱালীজনীয়ে কেতিয়া বহিব লাগে, কেতিয়া খাব লাগে — একো বুজি নাপায়। তেওঁৰ বান্ধৱী জুডেৱিনে আহি কয় যে কৰ্তৃপক্ষই তেওঁলোকৰ দীঘল চুলি কাটি দিব। চিউক্স পৰম্পৰাত মাত্ৰ যুদ্ধত পৰাজিত কাপুৰুষ আৰু শোকাহত লোকেহে চুলি চুটি কৰে; সেইবাবে এই খবৰ শুনি জিতকালা-চা ভয়ত কঁপি উঠে। তেওঁ লুকাবলৈ চেষ্টা কৰি ওপৰৰ এটা অন্ধকাৰ কোঠালৈ গৈ বিচনাৰ তলত সোমাই থাকে। কিন্তু চাকৰণীসকলে তেওঁক বিচাৰি উলিয়াই কোঠাৰ তলৰ মহলালৈ লৈ আনি, এখন চকীত শক্তকৈ বান্ধি দি ককৰ্তিয়াৰে দীঘল বেণী কাটি দিয়ে। সেই মুহূৰ্তত জিতকালা-চাৰ আত্মা যেন মৰি যায়; মাকৰ মৰম, ঘৰৰ উমাল, নিজৰ পৰিচয় — সকলো হেৰাই যোৱা যেন লাগে। ই কেৱল চুলি কটাৰ ঘটনা নহয়, ই উপনিৱেশিক বিদ্যালয়ই সাঁচতীয়া জনগোষ্ঠীৰ ল’ৰা-ছোৱালীৰ আত্মসন্মান কেনেদৰে ছিৰি পেলায় তাৰে এক জলন্ত প্ৰমাণ।
দ্বিতীয় অংশ — আমিও মানুহ (বামা)
তামিল দলিত খ্ৰীষ্টান লেখিকা বামাৰ আত্মজীৱনী “কাৰুক্কু”ৰ পৰা লোৱা এই অংশত লেখিকাই নিজৰ গাঁৱৰ এক বাল্যকালীন স্মৃতি বৰ্ণনা কৰিছে। তৃতীয় শ্ৰেণীৰ ছাত্ৰী বামাই বিদ্যালয়ৰ পৰা ঘৰলৈ ঘূৰি যাওঁতে বাটত নাইছাৰ্ক ৱালা, সাপ-খেলোৱা, চাইকেলৰ ক্ৰীড়া, মাৰিয়ম্মাই দেৱীৰ মন্দিৰৰ পংগল, মিঠাইৰ দোকান, আমণ্ড বিক্ৰেতা — সকলো চাই-শুনি বহু সময় খৰচ কৰে। এদিন তেওঁ দেখা পায় যে নিজৰ বস্তিৰ এজন বৃদ্ধই এজন উচ্চ জাতিৰ নাইকাৰ মালিকৰ ওচৰলৈ এটা ভাড়াইৰ পেকেট লৈ গৈ আছে — কিন্তু পেকেটটো হাতেৰে ধৰি নাই, ই এটা ছিগানিৰ পৰা ওলমাই ধৰি নিছে। বৃদ্ধজনে নিচু হৈ মালিকৰ আগত পেকেটটো ৰাখি দি দূৰলৈ আঁতৰি যায়। এই দৃশ্য দেখি বামাই হাঁহি উঠে আৰু ঘৰলৈ গৈ নিজৰ অগ্ৰজ আন্নানক কৈ দিয়ে। আন্নানে শান্ত স্বৰে বুজাই দিয়ে যে এইটো ঠাট্টাৰ কথা নহয় — তেওঁলোক “অস্পৃশ্য” বুলি গণ্য হোৱা বাবে উচ্চ জাতিৰ মানুহে তেওঁলোকৰ স্পৰ্শক ঘৃণা কৰে। এই কথা শুনি বামা ভয়ংকৰভাৱে ক্ষুব্ধ হয়। আন্নানে কয় — “কেৱল পঢ়া-শুনাৰ জৰিয়তেইহে এই অপমান ঘুচাব পাৰি; ভালকৈ মন দি পঢ়িবা।” সেই পৰামৰ্শ মন কৰি বামাই অধিক পৰিশ্ৰম কৰে আৰু ক্ৰমে শ্ৰেণীৰ প্ৰথম স্থান অধিকাৰ কৰে। শিক্ষাই দলিত নাৰীৰ মুক্তিৰ পথ — এইয়াই বামাৰ মূল বাণী।
Plot Summary at a Glance
| Aspect | Part I — Zitkala-Sa | Part II — Bama |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania, USA, late 19th century | A village in Tamil Nadu, post-Independence India |
| Narrator’s age | About 8 years | Class III pupil, about 10 years |
| Triggering incident | Bell summons children; threat of hair-cutting | Sees an elder carrying a vadai packet by its string |
| Crisis | Forcibly tied to chair, long hair shingled | Annan reveals the truth of untouchability |
| Reaction | Loss of spirit, alienation, anonymity | Outrage, awakening, resolve to study hard |
| Conflict | Native culture vs. forced colonial assimilation | Dalit dignity vs. caste prejudice |
| Resolution | The wound remains; protest is internal | Education is chosen as the path to liberation |
| Tone | Mournful, helpless, lyrical | Lively, observant, indignant, hopeful |
Character Sketches
Zitkala-Sa
Zitkala-Sa is a sensitive, observant, free-spirited Sioux child. She is rooted in her tribal traditions and proud of the cultural meaning of her long hair. Despite her youth she has the courage to defy authority — she is the only girl who tries to hide and resist. She is also helpless in the face of overwhelming institutional force; her tears, screams and pleas count for nothing. As a writer, she is dignified, restrained and quietly powerful, drawing the reader into her terror without ever falling into self-pity. Her grown-up voice is that of a community spokesperson: she stands for every Native child who was processed through the boarding-school system.
Bama
Bama is curious, mischievous, sharp-eyed and full of life. The opening pages of the extract are a celebration of childhood wonder — every roadside vendor, monkey, and snake-charmer enchants her. She is innocent enough not to grasp at first what caste means, but she is also intelligent and morally alert: as soon as her brother explains, indignation flares up in her. She is teachable, brave, and ambitious. Above all she has agency: instead of accepting humiliation, she takes Annan’s advice and turns the abstract enemy of caste into a problem she can fight by working harder than anyone else in her class.
Annan (Bama’s elder brother)
Annan is a quiet but pivotal figure in the second extract. He is mature, thoughtful and politically aware — he has studied at a university and has himself experienced caste discrimination on campus when he was asked his name and street. Instead of crushing his sister with despair, he equips her with understanding and a plan of action. His advice — “study with care, learn all you can” — is the moral pivot of the whole extract. He represents the Dalit conscience that converts personal pain into a programme of self-improvement and social change.
Themes
- Marginalisation and the Body of the Child: Both extracts show how oppression first attacks the body — Zitkala-Sa’s hair, the elder’s hand that may not touch the food. Childhood is the testing ground of every social system.
- Racial Oppression and Forced Assimilation: The Carlisle school is part of a U.S. policy summarised in the slogan “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Cutting long hair is symbolic erasure of identity.
- Caste Discrimination and Untouchability: Bama shows that untouchability survives long after Article 17 of the Indian Constitution has banned it. Even buying a sweet involves an elaborate choreography of distance.
- Dignity and Self-Respect: Both narrators insist that they too are human beings. The very titles of the chapter and of Bama’s book (Karukku — palmyra leaves like double-edged swords) declare this dignity.
- Education as Liberation: Annan’s prescription — study, excel, and people will come to you — is the most quoted line of the chapter and a direct echo of B. R. Ambedkar’s call: “Educate, agitate, organise.”
- Memory and Witness: Both pieces are written years after the events. The adult writer becomes a witness on behalf of millions of children who had no voice.
- Women’s Voices from the Margins: Native American and Dalit women have historically been doubly silenced — by the dominant culture and by patriarchy within their own communities. By writing, Zitkala-Sa and Bama refuse that silence.
- Innocence Lost: Both extracts pivot on a moment when the child suddenly understands the cruelty of the adult world.
- Resistance: Even when resistance fails (Zitkala-Sa is dragged out from under the bed) it is morally significant. Bama’s resistance succeeds in the long run through study.
Understanding the Text (NCERT Textbook Questions)
1. The two accounts that you read above are based in two distant cultures. What is the commonality of theme found in both of them?
Answer: Although Zitkala-Sa belongs to the Native American Sioux community in late 19th-century USA and Bama belongs to a Tamil Dalit Christian family in 20th-century India, the two memoirs share a powerful common theme — the marginalisation, humiliation and oppression of communities considered “inferior” by a dominant social order. In both, a young, sensitive girl child becomes aware of this oppression for the first time. Zitkala-Sa is forced to surrender her cultural identity through the cutting of her long hair; Bama witnesses the humiliating ritual of untouchability practised on an elder of her community. Both writers respond with a deep sense of injustice and both convert their pain into protest through writing. They affirm that education, dignity and self-respect can resist any system of oppression — be it racism or casteism — and they insist that those who are pushed to the margins are, in Bama’s phrase, “human beings too.”
2. It may take a long time for oppression to be resisted, but the seeds of rebellion are sowed early in life. Do you agree that injustices in society are unconsciously noted and rebelled against even at an early age?
Answer: Yes, both extracts strongly support this view. Zitkala-Sa is only eight years old, yet she instinctively rebels against the indignity of having her hair forcibly shorn. She does not know words like “colonialism” or “assimilation”, but she knows in her bones that what is being done to her is wrong, and so she hides under a bed and resists. Bama is even younger when she sees the elder of her street carrying a packet by a string for a Naicker, and her first reaction — laughter — soon turns into deep moral outrage when her brother explains. Children do notice cruelty, mockery and exclusion long before they have a vocabulary for them. The seeds of rebellion sown in those childhood moments often grow into the adult writer’s resolve to expose injustice. Zitkala-Sa became a lifelong activist for Native American rights; Bama became a leading voice of Dalit-feminist literature. Their childhood pain became an entire life of resistance — proof that the seeds of change really are planted very early.
3. Bama’s experience is that of a victim of the caste system. Do you think that the caste system still exists in India? Discuss.
Answer: Constitutionally, caste-based untouchability has been abolished by Article 17 of the Indian Constitution and by the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. However, the lived reality is more complicated. While the worst public forms of untouchability (separate wells, denial of temple entry, separate eating utensils in tea-stalls) have weakened in cities and educated middle-class society, they continue in many rural and semi-urban areas. Crimes against Dalits, denial of land rights, social boycott, caste-based humiliation in schools and hostels, and caste considerations in marriage are still widespread. At the same time, education, urbanisation, reservations, the Dalit-Bahujan political movement, and the writings of authors like Bama, Omprakash Valmiki and Yashica Dutt have empowered thousands of Dalits to speak up and demand equality. The caste system is therefore weakening but has not disappeared; the work that Bama began with her writing is far from complete.
4. What kind of shows or programmes does Bama think her elders would have enjoyed?
Answer: Bama believes her elders would have enjoyed the same kinds of small, lively street entertainments that she herself loved as a child — the performing monkey, the snake-charmer charming his snake, the cyclist who kept on cycling for three days, the spinning wheels at the temple festival, the puppet shows and “no magic, no miracle” stunt shows, the storyteller’s recitals, the political street-corner meetings and so on. These were the cheap, public, communal forms of entertainment available in a Tamil village. They held people up on their way home and made an ordinary walk feel like a festival.
5. The killing of snakes was a common occurrence in the village. Why? (a related discussion question)
Answer: Bama’s village was surrounded by paddy fields, threshing floors and irrigation channels where snakes were a common danger. People killed snakes to protect themselves, their children and their livestock. The snake-charmer’s show, however, was a different matter — a piece of folk entertainment in which the snake was made to dance to the pungi rather than killed.
Talking about the Text
1. Identity and Hair — Why is hair such a powerful symbol of identity for Zitkala-Sa?
Answer: For the Sioux, long hair was a marker of pride, courage and adulthood. Cutting it was reserved for cowards, for warriors who had been disgraced in battle, and for mourners. By forcibly shingling Zitkala-Sa’s hair, the school did not merely change her appearance; it ritually stripped her of cultural identity and symbolically converted her into one of the “civilised”. The horror she feels is therefore much larger than the loss of hair — it is the destruction of a whole self.
2. Education — How does Bama’s understanding of education differ from a purely career-focused view?
Answer: For Bama, education is not just a route to a job; it is a route to dignity. Annan tells her that learning will draw people to her of their own accord, that it will free her community from indignity. Education becomes a moral and political instrument — the same vision that B. R. Ambedkar gave when he said “Educate, agitate, organise.” It is education as liberation, not education as employment alone.
3. The role of women writers — How do Zitkala-Sa and Bama enrich literature?
Answer: Both writers add voices that mainstream literature traditionally suppressed. Zitkala-Sa was one of the earliest Native American women to write in English about her own boarding-school experience, and she did so without abandoning her Sioux name. Bama was the first Dalit woman to write a full-length autobiography in Tamil. Together they have widened the boundaries of “literature” to include the experiences of indigenous and Dalit women, and they have shown that those experiences can be written about with grace, dignity and quiet power rather than mere protest.
Working with Words
1. Notice the way in which the following sentences are spoken (Locate the words/phrases that show the speaker’s attitude).
- “Now, what do you think of that?” — incredulous, indignant tone (Annan).
- “How could they believe that it was disgusting if one of us so much as touched the food?” — outraged disbelief (Bama).
- “In the act of tossing it to me, he tossed it as if it were something that might burn me!” — scornful, hurt, mocking the upper-caste’s fastidiousness.
2. Find the synonyms of the following words from the lessons:
| Word | Synonym from text |
|---|---|
| Loud noise | “crash” / “clatter” of bell |
| Embarrassed | “my face hot with shame” |
| Strange / unfamiliar | “queer” / “immodestly dressed” |
| Cut hair | “shingled” / “shorn” |
| Insults | “indignities” |
| Astonished | “thunderstruck” |
| Bow / lean forward | “cringing” |
3. Use the following idioms in sentences of your own:
- To be in the doldrums — After her hair was cut, Zitkala-Sa was in the doldrums for many days.
- To take after — Bama takes after her brother in her love for books.
- To stand on one’s own feet — Annan tells Bama that education will help her stand on her own feet.
- To turn a deaf ear — The school authorities turned a deaf ear to the children’s pleas.
- To break the ice — Judewin’s whisper broke the ice and brought the two girls together.
Additional Short-Answer Questions (2-3 marks)
1. Why was the first day at the land of apples bitter cold for Zitkala-Sa?
Answer: The “land of apples” is Zitkala-Sa’s name for Pennsylvania. The day was bitterly cold not only because snow lay on the ground but also because she was a small child away from her mother for the first time, dressed in tight, unfamiliar clothes, surrounded by people who spoke a language she did not understand. The physical cold reflected her emotional desolation.
2. What does Zitkala-Sa say about the dining-room ritual of the bells?
Answer: Three bells were rung in the dining hall — the first to enter and stand behind the chair, the second to sit down, and the third to begin eating. Zitkala-Sa, not knowing the rule, sat down and lifted her cutlery at the wrong moment, drawing the eyes of a paleface inspector and burning her face with shame.
3. Who was Judewin and what did she tell Zitkala-Sa?
Answer: Judewin was a friend at the school who knew a few words of English. She whispered to Zitkala-Sa the alarming news she had just overheard — that the authorities meant to cut their long hair. Judewin advised submission (“we have to submit, because they are strong”) but Zitkala-Sa instead resolved to resist.
4. Why did Zitkala-Sa not want her hair to be cut?
Answer: Among her Sioux people, only mourners wore short hair, only cowards had shingled hair, and only captured warriors had their hair cut by the enemy. Long hair was a sign of pride, courage and identity. To have it cut against her will was to be branded a coward and a captive — an unbearable indignity.
5. How did Zitkala-Sa try to escape the cutting of her hair?
Answer: She slipped away unnoticed, climbed the stairs and crept into a large dark room. There she crawled under a bed in the farthest corner and crouched against the wall, hoping she would not be discovered.
6. How was she finally caught?
Answer: Women searched the building calling her name. The door was thrown open and the room was lit. Despite her struggles she was dragged out from under the bed, carried downstairs, tied to a chair, and her thick braids were cut off with cold scissors.
7. Why does Zitkala-Sa say “I lost my spirit”?
Answer: The cutting of her hair stripped her of cultural identity and self-worth. She felt reduced to “one of many little animals driven by a herder”, with no one to comfort her and no one even to call her by her own name. The phrase captures not only the loss of pride but the deeper destruction of selfhood.
8. What is the significance of the title “The Cutting of My Long Hair”?
Answer: The title is literal and symbolic. Literally, it describes the forcible shingling of an eight-year-old’s braids on her first day at boarding school. Symbolically, it stands for the larger violence of forced cultural assimilation — the cutting away of language, name, religion, dress and dignity that the U.S. government inflicted on generations of Native American children.
9. Why does Bama take so long to walk home from school?
Answer: Although the distance was just ten minutes, Bama dawdled because the road was lined with fascinating sights — the performing monkey, the snake-charmer’s snake, the cyclist who pedalled non-stop for three days, the temple festival, the threshing floor, the sweet stalls and many more. She loved to stop and watch each of them, often taking half an hour or even an hour to reach home.
10. Describe the incident that opened Bama’s eyes to caste.
Answer: One day Bama saw an elder of her street carrying a small packet of vadais by a string, holding it carefully so it did not touch his body. He bowed before a Naicker landlord, placed the packet in front of him and stepped back. The Naicker then opened it and ate the food. The strange way the elder carried the packet first amused Bama, but her brother soon told her it was a sign of untouchability — the upper caste believed his very touch would pollute the food.
11. What was Annan’s advice to Bama?
Answer: Annan told Bama that their community was denied honour and dignity merely because of their birth, but that education was the only way out. He urged her to “study with care, learn all you can”; if she always stood ahead in her lessons, people would come to her of their own accord and respect her.
12. How did Bama act on Annan’s advice?
Answer: Inspired by her brother, Bama began to study very hard. She worked diligently and consistently and ultimately stood first in her class. Education, just as Annan had promised, brought her recognition and people did indeed begin to seek her friendship.
13. Why did the elder hold the packet by its string?
Answer: Because he was considered “untouchable”, the upper-caste Naicker believed that any direct contact between the food and the elder’s body would pollute it. Holding the packet by the string allowed the elder to carry it without ever touching it, preserving the Naicker’s notion of caste-purity at the cost of the elder’s dignity.
14. Why was Bama angry rather than amused after Annan’s explanation?
Answer: Once she understood that the comic-looking gesture was actually a humiliation forced on her own community, her amusement turned to fury. She felt provoked and angry that human beings could be treated as polluting merely because of the caste into which they were born — and she wanted to touch the wretched vadais herself in protest.
15. What is the significance of the title “We Too Are Human Beings”?
Answer: The title is the heart-cry of the entire Dalit movement. It rejects the idea that any community is “polluting” or “lower” by birth and asserts that Dalits share the same humanity, dignity and rights as everyone else. The line is also a quiet challenge to the reader: it forces us to examine whether we, in our own conduct, treat every person as fully human.
Long-Answer Questions (5-8 marks)
Q1. “The two accounts in ‘Memories of Childhood’ are based in two distant cultures, yet they tell the same story.” Discuss with reference to both extracts.
Answer: Zitkala-Sa wrote in late nineteenth-century United States, Bama in late twentieth-century Tamil Nadu. Their cultures, languages, religions and political systems are utterly different. Yet at the deepest level both narratives tell one story — the story of how a dominant social order tries to crush the dignity of a child from a marginalised community, and how that child carries the wound into adulthood and turns it into protest. Zitkala-Sa, a Sioux Indian eight-year-old, has her long hair forcibly shingled on her first day at a missionary boarding school, even though in her culture only cowards, mourners and captured warriors had short hair. Her cultural identity is symbolically severed in a single brutal act. Bama, a Dalit child of about ten, watches an elder of her own street carrying a packet of vadais by a string because his “untouchable” hands must not pollute an upper-caste landlord’s food. Her innocence is symbolically severed in a single brutal moment of insight. In both, the body of the child is the site of oppression. In both, the family is helpless against the larger system — Zitkala-Sa cannot reach her mother; Bama’s elders endure the rituals of caste day after day. And in both, education and writing eventually become the means of resistance. Different costumes, different gods, different oceans — but the same story of human dignity demanding to be respected.
Q2. Compare and contrast Zitkala-Sa and Bama as child narrators.
Answer: Both narrators are intelligent, sensitive girl children who become aware of injustice early in life, but their personalities and circumstances differ. Zitkala-Sa is younger (eight) and more isolated — she has been physically removed from her mother and placed in a boarding school far from home. Her tone is mournful, lyrical and inward; her resistance is solitary (she hides under a bed) and ultimately unsuccessful. The reader feels her terror and helplessness. Bama, on the other hand, is older (about ten), still rooted in her village, surrounded by family and the lively bustle of street life. Her tone is observant, mischievous and quickly indignant; her resistance is mediated through her brother’s wisdom and channelled into long-term study. The reader feels her zest for life and her growing political awareness. Where Zitkala-Sa records a wound, Bama records a turning-point. Yet both child voices are absolutely truthful, and both adult writers refuse self-pity. Both are reminders that children do feel the weight of social oppression and that their feelings deserve to be heard.
Q3. Explain how the cutting of Zitkala-Sa’s hair is a symbol of the larger erasure of Native American identity.
Answer: The Carlisle Indian School and other government boarding schools in the United States were founded on the policy summarised by their founder Richard Henry Pratt as “Kill the Indian, save the man.” Children were forcibly taken from reservations, given English names, forbidden to speak their own languages, dressed in Western clothes, taught Christian prayers and disciplined into white middle-class manners. Cutting their long hair was the first ritual of this assimilation. For the Sioux, long hair was a sign of pride, valour and tribal belonging; only cowards, mourners and captured warriors wore short hair. By shingling the children’s braids, the school not only changed their appearance but symbolically converted them into “civilised” subjects of the U.S. nation, severing them from their ancestors. Zitkala-Sa’s individual trauma — being tied to a chair and shorn while she screamed — therefore stands for the collective trauma of an entire generation. Her later activism for Native rights and citizenship can be read as the long-term answer of a child who refused to forget.
Q4. “Education is the only weapon to fight oppression.” Discuss with reference to Bama’s extract.
Answer: The dramatic centre of “We Too Are Human Beings” is Annan’s quiet sentence: “If we study and make progress, we can throw away these indignities.” Bama presents education not as a route to a salaried job but as the most effective long-term weapon against caste oppression. Annan reasons that as long as the Dalit community is uneducated, it will continue to be denied honour, respect and even basic human dignity; but that learning will turn the social order on its head, because excellence cannot be ignored. Bama tests this idea in her own life. She works hard, stands first in her class, and discovers that classmates and others gradually treat her with respect of their own accord. Her later career as a teacher, nun and writer is itself a continuation of that childhood discovery. The same conviction had been articulated decades earlier by B. R. Ambedkar in his slogan “Educate, agitate, organise” — first educate yourself, because only an educated mind can recognise oppression, refuse it, and lead others to refuse it too. Bama’s extract is therefore not just a memoir of humiliation; it is a small manifesto of liberation through learning.
Q5. Sketch the character of Annan and bring out his importance in the extract.
Answer: Annan, Bama’s elder brother, appears only briefly but he is the moral pivot of the second extract. He is calm, mature and educated — a university student who has himself faced caste prejudice on campus when peers asked his name and street to identify his community. Faced with his sister’s confused laughter, he does not scold her or weep with her; instead he sits her down and explains the truth of untouchability in simple, accurate words. Then, instead of leaving her with helplessness, he gives her a programme of action: study hard, excel in your lessons, and people will come to you of their own accord. He is therefore both teacher and mentor — the family elder who converts a moment of humiliation into a moment of motivation. Without Annan, Bama’s anger might have soured into bitterness; with him, it becomes ambition, scholarship and eventually literature. He represents the educated Dalit conscience that refuses both submission and despair.
Q6. How does Bama bring the village alive in the opening pages of the extract? What purpose does this description serve?
Answer: Bama opens with a delightful catalogue of street-corner wonders that hold up her ten-minute walk home — the performing monkey, the snake-charmer charming his snake, the cyclist who has not got off his bike for three days, the spinning wheels at the Maariyaata temple festival, the pongal offerings, the puppet show, the storyteller, the political speeches, the sweet stalls and dried-fish stalls, the public well, the almonds in their basket, the threshing floor, the irrigation channel. The description does three things at once. First, it establishes the narrator as a curious, observant, life-loving child — so the contrast with the later moment of disgust is sharper. Second, it presents the village not as a backward space but as a vibrant, communal, festive world — a corrective to the urban tendency to dismiss rural India. Third, by lulling the reader into the sweetness of childhood, it sets up the emotional shock of the vadai-packet scene that follows. The technique is the same one Zitkala-Sa uses in describing her tepee at home — establish what is loved, then show what is taken away.
Q7. What does the chapter title “Memories of Childhood” tell us about the role of memory in the two extracts?
Answer: Both extracts are written by adult authors looking back at events that took place when they were small girls. The chapter title reminds us that memory is not a passive record but an active form of witness. Zitkala-Sa, the activist, returns in adulthood to the day her braids were cut because that one day stands for the experience of thousands of Native children. Bama, the writer-teacher, returns to the day she saw the vadai packet because that one day stands for the daily humiliation of millions of Dalits. By writing their memories down, both authors save those moments from being forgotten, give voice to children who could not speak in print, and force the reader to share their childhood awakening. Memory in their hands is therefore a political act — a way of insisting that history must include the small girl crouched under a bed and the small girl staring at a packet on a string.
Q8. Compare the two systems of oppression presented in the chapter — the racial colonialism that Zitkala-Sa faces and the caste discrimination that Bama faces.
Answer: Both racial colonialism and caste discrimination are systems that classify human beings as superior or inferior by birth, but they operate through different mechanisms. The racial colonialism that Zitkala-Sa experiences is institutional and external — it has been brought to her people from outside (by European settlers and the U.S. government), it is enforced by federal policy, it works through schools, churches and military force, and its goal is to erase her culture so that she can be absorbed into the dominant society. Caste discrimination, by contrast, is internal to Indian society, ancient, sustained by religion and custom, and its goal is to preserve hierarchy by keeping the lower castes permanently apart. Where the colonial school cuts Zitkala-Sa’s hair to make her the same as the white children, the Naicker landlord refuses Bama’s elder even physical contact in order to keep him different. Yet the human consequence is the same: a child loses her sense of dignity. And the moral response is the same: both writers say, in essence, that the system is wrong, that education and self-respect are the answer, and that “we too are human beings.”
Q9. Why are women writers from marginalised communities important to literature? Answer with reference to the chapter.
Answer: For most of literary history, the experiences of indigenous, tribal and Dalit women have been told (if at all) by men or by outsiders. Women writers from marginalised communities — like Zitkala-Sa among Native Americans and Bama among Tamil Dalits — overturn that pattern. They write from the inside, in their own voice, with their own pen-names. They put on the page experiences that mainstream literature simply does not have the words for: a Sioux child’s fear of having her hair cut, a Dalit child’s confusion at seeing food held by a string. They also widen the very definition of literature, showing that memoir, protest and poetry can stand together. Most important, they offer young readers from those communities a model — proof that they too can write and be read. Without writers like Zitkala-Sa and Bama, “Indian literature” would be incomplete; with them, it begins to become honest.
Q10. Imagine you are Bama. Write a diary entry of about 120 words for the day on which you saw the elder carrying the vadai packet by its string and your brother explained the reason.
Answer: 14th August, 9:30 p.m. — Today something happened on my way home from school that I will never forget. I saw the old man from our street walking towards the Naicker’s house, carrying a little packet. He held it from a string, dangling at his side, as if it might burn him. He bent low and placed it before the Naicker without ever touching him. I laughed so much I almost dropped my books! But when I told Annan he didn’t smile. He explained that the old man is one of “us” and the Naicker thinks we are too low to be touched. Even now my chest is hot with anger. Annan says I must study harder than anyone else. I will. I will be first in class. We are human beings too.
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
1. “Memories of Childhood” is taken from the works of which two writers?
(a) Anita Desai and Mahasweta Devi
(b) Zitkala-Sa and Bama
(c) Maya Angelou and Bama
(d) Toni Morrison and Mahasweta Devi
Answer: (b) Zitkala-Sa and Bama
2. Zitkala-Sa belonged to which Native American community?
(a) Cherokee (b) Apache (c) Sioux (d) Navajo
Answer: (c) Sioux
3. The pen-name “Zitkala-Sa” means:
(a) Sun Bird (b) Red Bird (c) Free Spirit (d) Brave Woman
Answer: (b) Red Bird
4. Where did the events of Part I take place?
(a) New York (b) Pennsylvania (c) Texas (d) Boston
Answer: (b) Pennsylvania
5. What did Zitkala-Sa call Pennsylvania?
(a) The land of snow (b) The land of cold (c) The land of apples (d) The land of bells
Answer: (c) The land of apples
6. How many bells were rung in the dining-hall ritual?
(a) One (b) Two (c) Three (d) Four
Answer: (c) Three
7. Who told Zitkala-Sa that her hair would be cut?
(a) Margaret (b) Judewin (c) Mother (d) The teacher
Answer: (b) Judewin
8. According to Sioux belief, who wore short / shingled hair?
(a) Heroes and chiefs
(b) Mourners, cowards, and captured warriors
(c) Children only
(d) Married women
Answer: (b) Mourners, cowards, and captured warriors
9. Where did Zitkala-Sa hide?
(a) In a cupboard (b) Behind a curtain (c) Under a bed (d) On the roof
Answer: (c) Under a bed
10. What did the women do when they finally found her?
(a) Sent her home
(b) Tied her to a chair and cut her hair
(c) Gave her food
(d) Comforted her
Answer: (b) Tied her to a chair and cut her hair
11. After her hair was cut, Zitkala-Sa felt like:
(a) A little princess
(b) One of many little animals driven by a herder
(c) A grown-up woman
(d) A hero
Answer: (b) One of many little animals driven by a herder
12. Bama is the pen-name of:
(a) Mahasweta Devi
(b) Bama Faustina Soosairaj
(c) Sivakami
(d) Salma
Answer: (b) Bama Faustina Soosairaj
13. The Tamil autobiography from which Part II is taken is called:
(a) Sangati (b) Karukku (c) Kusumbukkaran (d) Vanmam
Answer: (b) Karukku
14. Bama studied in which class when she saw the elder with the vadai packet?
(a) Class I (b) Class II (c) Class III (d) Class IV
Answer: (c) Class III
15. The walk from school to home should have taken:
(a) 10 minutes (b) 30 minutes (c) 1 hour (d) 2 hours
Answer: (a) 10 minutes
16. The cyclist whom Bama watched had been cycling for:
(a) A few hours (b) One day (c) Three days (d) A week
Answer: (c) Three days
17. The elder of Bama’s street was carrying:
(a) A packet of sweets
(b) A packet of vadais (savoury fritters)
(c) A bag of rice
(d) A jug of milk
Answer: (b) A packet of vadais (savoury fritters)
18. He was carrying the packet by:
(a) Both hands
(b) Its string
(c) Inside a basket
(d) On his head
Answer: (b) Its string
19. To whom was he taking the packet?
(a) The temple priest
(b) The Naicker landlord
(c) His own son
(d) The school teacher
Answer: (b) The Naicker landlord
20. Why did the elder hold the packet only by its string?
(a) To keep his hands free
(b) Because his touch would supposedly pollute the food
(c) Because the packet was hot
(d) For fun
Answer: (b) Because his touch would supposedly pollute the food
21. To whom did Bama tell the incident?
(a) Her mother (b) Her teacher (c) Her elder brother Annan (d) Her grandmother
Answer: (c) Her elder brother Annan
22. What was Annan’s advice to Bama?
(a) Run away from the village
(b) Study with care and learn all you can
(c) Fight back physically
(d) Forget the incident
Answer: (b) Study with care and learn all you can
23. The result of Bama acting on Annan’s advice was:
(a) She left school
(b) She stood first in her class
(c) She moved to the city
(d) She joined the army
Answer: (b) She stood first in her class
24. Both extracts deal with the problem of:
(a) Poverty (b) Marginalisation and oppression (c) War (d) Religion
Answer: (b) Marginalisation and oppression
25. The chapter “Memories of Childhood” appears in which textbook?
(a) Flamingo (b) Vistas (c) Hornbill (d) Snapshots
Answer: (b) Vistas
Extract-Based / Reference-to-Context Questions
Extract 1: “I was in the midst of pyramids of mysterious things, when soft-shoed feet came stepping along the rows of clattering tin pans. … My face hot with shame, my eyes brimming with tears, I rose with the others.”
(i) Who is the narrator and where is she?
Answer: The narrator is Zitkala-Sa, a young Sioux girl, on her first day at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.
(ii) Why is her face hot with shame?
Answer: She had begun to eat without waiting for the second and third bells, and the paleface inspector’s eyes were on her. The unfamiliar customs and the inspector’s gaze made her feel deeply embarrassed.
(iii) What does the extract reveal about boarding-school life?
Answer: Boarding-school life is regimented, governed by bells and rules unfamiliar to Native children, and supervised by white inspectors. The atmosphere is intimidating rather than welcoming.
(iv) Pick a phrase that conveys the narrator’s emotional state.
Answer: “My face hot with shame, my eyes brimming with tears” — captures shame and helplessness.
Extract 2: “Our mother had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards!”
(i) What is the cultural significance of long hair for the narrator?
Answer: Long hair is a sign of pride, courage and identity in Sioux culture. Short or shingled hair is reserved for cowards, mourners and captured warriors. To have it cut is to be branded with disgrace.
(ii) Why does this make the school’s plan especially terrifying?
Answer: The cutting of her hair would not merely change her appearance but would symbolically mark her as a coward and a captive — a profound humiliation for a Sioux child.
(iii) What does this passage tell us about the clash between the school and her culture?
Answer: The school sees hair-cutting as a routine hygiene step in “civilising” the children, while for the children themselves it is an act of cultural violence. The clash of meanings is at the heart of Zitkala-Sa’s distress.
(iv) Identify the literary device in “shingled by the enemy”.
Answer: The phrase is metonymic — “the enemy” stands for everyone who would humiliate a captured warrior; it foreshadows that the school authorities are now the new “enemy” in Zitkala-Sa’s eyes.
Extract 3: “Now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder. … And then I lost my spirit.”
(i) When does the narrator feel this?
Answer: Immediately after her thick braids have been shingled while she is tied to a chair.
(ii) What does the metaphor of “little animals driven by a herder” suggest?
Answer: It suggests dehumanisation — the children have been reduced from individual human beings with names and cultures to a uniform herd to be controlled. It also suggests the loss of personal agency.
(iii) What does “I lost my spirit” mean here?
Answer: She lost not only her hair but her sense of self, her cultural pride and her hope. Spirit here means dignity, identity and inner strength — all of which the school had stripped from her.
(iv) What is the tone of these lines?
Answer: The tone is mournful, defeated and elegiac, reflecting the narrator’s deep sense of loss.
Extract 4: “He came along, holding out the packet by its string, without touching it. I stood there thinking to myself, what was the meaning of all this?”
(i) Who is “he”?
Answer: He is an elder from Bama’s own street — a Dalit — running an errand for an upper-caste Naicker landlord.
(ii) Why is he holding the packet by its string?
Answer: Because the upper-caste Naicker considers his touch polluting. The string allows him to deliver the food without making physical contact.
(iii) What does Bama’s reaction tell us about her at this stage?
Answer: She is innocent and curious — she does not yet understand untouchability and finds the gesture comical and puzzling.
(iv) How does this incident change her later?
Answer: When her brother explains the truth, her amusement turns to deep anger and she resolves to fight caste oppression through education.
Extract 5: “Because we are born into this community, we are never given any honour or dignity or respect; we are stripped of all that. But if we study and make progress, we can throw away these indignities.”
(i) Who is the speaker and to whom is he speaking?
Answer: The speaker is Annan, Bama’s elder brother, speaking to her after she has reported the incident with the vadai packet.
(ii) What does he identify as the cause of their humiliation?
Answer: Their birth into the Dalit community in a caste-based social order; he points out that the indignity is imposed merely by the accident of birth.
(iii) What remedy does he prescribe?
Answer: Education. He urges Bama to study with care and to learn all she can; if she stands ahead in her lessons, people will respect her of their own accord.
(iv) How does this passage echo a famous Indian thinker?
Answer: The line echoes B. R. Ambedkar’s call to “Educate, agitate, organise” — education as the first weapon in the struggle against caste oppression.
Vocabulary & Glossary
| Word / Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Paleface | A white person; the Sioux word for European-Americans |
| Tepee | A traditional cone-shaped Native American tent |
| Shingled | Cut short — especially hair |
| Mourners | People grieving for the dead |
| Cowards | People lacking courage |
| Indignities | Insults; humiliations |
| Naicker | An upper-caste landlord in Tamil Nadu |
| Vadai | A South Indian savoury fritter made of dal |
| Threshing floor | A flat area on which grain is beaten out from harvested crops |
| Maariyaata | A village goddess of Tamil Nadu |
| Pongal | A sweet rice dish offered at Tamil festivals |
| Annan | Tamil for “elder brother” |
| Untouchable | A pejorative term for people of the Dalit communities, considered ritually polluting under the caste system |
| Karukku | Tamil for the serrated leaves of the palmyra tree, used as a metaphor for double-edged truth |
Conclusion
“Memories of Childhood” is one of the most politically charged chapters in the Class 12 English Vistas textbook. Across two continents and a century of distance, Zitkala-Sa and Bama remind us that the dignity of a child is the dignity of a civilisation. When that dignity is stripped — by scissors at a missionary school, or by a string tied around a packet of vadais — something larger than a single body is wounded. Yet both writers refuse to be defined by the wound. Zitkala-Sa goes on to become a violinist, an opera composer and a civil-rights leader; Bama becomes a teacher and an award-winning novelist. Their lives are themselves the answer to the cruelty they describe. For ASSEB Class 12 students preparing for the Higher Secondary final examination, this chapter is not only a study text but an invitation: to look around, to recognise injustice in our own classrooms and streets, and to remember that those who study with care, as Annan said, can throw away the indignities of any age.