The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Hello everyone,

This blog is in response to the task assigned by professor Dilip Barad sir as part of a thinking activity. The task is about the Novel - The ministry of utmost happiness written by Arundhati Roy.In this blog-task we have to read the stories from the novel and there are some questions related to stories and we have to give answers to that. Another task is that there is one amazing AI -chatGPT open where we get answers to whatever questions so with the help of this technology we have to write our answers to the questions.

1) Read -  The Reader’s Digest Book of English Grammar and Comprehension

for Very Young Children

By S. Tilottama - Give answers to the questions asked regarding any three stories. Questions are given at the end of each story.

1)NEWS

Kashmir Guideline News Service

Dozens of Cattle Cross Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri

At least 33 cattle including 29 buffaloes have crossed over to Pakistan side in Nowshera

sector of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to KGNS, the cattle crossed the LoC in Kalsian sub-sector. ‘The cattle which

belong to Ram Saroop, Ashok Kumar, Charan Das, Ved Prakash and others were grazing

near LoC when they crossed over to other side,’ locals told KGNS.

Questions:-

Q 1: Why did the cattle cross the LoC?

Answer

(b) For sneak-in ops

2)THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

Manohar Mattoo was a Kashmiri Pandit who stayed on in the Valley even after all the other Hindus had gone. He was secretly tired of and deeply hurt by the barbs from his Muslim friends who said that all Hindus in Kashmir were actually, in one way or another, agents of the Indian Occupation Forces. Manohar had participated in all the anti-India protests, and had shouted Azadi! louder than everybody else. But nothing seemed to help. At one point he had even contemplated taking up arms and joining the Hizb, but eventually he decided against it. One day an old school friend of his, Aziz Mohammed, an intelligence officer, visited him at home to tell him that he was worried for him. He said that he had seen his (Mattoo’s) surveillance file. It suggested that he be put under watch because he displayed

‘anti-national tendencies’. When he heard the news Mattoo beamed and felt his chest swell with pride.‘You have given me the Nobel Prize!’ he told his friend.

He took Aziz Mohammed out to Café Arabica and bought him coffee and pastries worth Rs 500.

A year later he (Mattoo) was shot by an unknown gunman for being a kafir.

Q 1: Why was Mattoo shot?

Answer

(d) None of the above

Q 2: Who could the unknown gunman have been?

Answer

(a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed

3) THE BRAVEHEART

Mehmood was a tailor in Budgam. His greatest desire was to have himself photographed posing with guns. Finally a school friend of his who had joined a militant group took him to their hideout and made his dream come true. Mehmood returned to Srinagar with the negatives and took them to Taj Photo Studio to have prints made. He negotiated a 25-paisa discount for each print. When he went to pick up his prints the Border Security Force laid a  cordon around Taj Photo Studio and caught him red-handed with the prints. He was taken to a camp and tortured for many days. He did not give away any information. He was sentenced to ten years in jail. The militant commander who facilitated the photography session was arrested a few months later. Two AK-47s and several rounds of ammunition were recovered from him. He was released after two months.

Q 1: Was it worth it?

No , because there he didn’t do anything though he had to suffer a lot and 10 years of his life got wasted just because of one photograph.  

2) Write about any one theme or character of the novel with the help of Chat OpenAI GPT. Ask to Chat GPT and put a screenshot as well as copy-paste the answer generated by this response generator.

Anjum is a character in the Ministry of Utmost Happiness." She is a hijra, Arundhati Roy's novel "The South Asian term for a person who identifies as a member of a third gender, and is one of the main characters in the novel. Anjum is a complex and multi-faceted character who struggles with societal discrimination and rejection, but also finds a sense of community and belonging among other hijras. She also has a strong sense of compassion and empathy, and her story is interwoven with the broader themes of the novel such as love, loss, and the search for identity and acceptance.

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