The Blue Bead Question and Answer Q 1. What was the food of the big crocodile ?
Ans. The big crocodile fed mostly on fish, but also on deer and monkeys that came to dronk, perhaps a duck or two but sometimes here at the ford he fed on a pi-dog full of parasites or a skeleton cow and sometimes he went down to the burning ghats and found the half - burned bodies of Indians cast into the stream.
Q2 Describe Sibia's appearance when she came out of a mud house.
Ans. Out of a mud house the same colour as the ground came a little girl, barefoot, a thin starveling child dressed in an earth- coloured rag. She had torn the rag in two to make skirt and sari. Sibia was eating the last of her meal, chapatti wrapped round a smear of green chili and rancid butter; and she divided this also, to make it seem more, and bit it, showing straight white teeth. With her ebony hair and great eyes, and her skin of oiled brown cream, she was a happy immature child - woman twelve years old.
Q3 Who were Gujars? When did they move to a different place ?
Ans. The Gujars were nomadic graziers.
The Gujars would live for a time until their animals had perhaps finished all the easy grazing within reach, or they were not able to sell enough of their white butter and white milk in the district, or there was no one to buy the young male buffaloes for tiger- bait. Or perhaps a cattle - killing tiger was making a nuisance of himself. Then they'd move on.