4. Explanation of Paragraphs 1-5

Explanation:

 

The narrator begins by explaining to the readers that the text is going to deal with his wife's pet sloth bear. He recounts the day of the incident when he first met the pet bear. He creates an air of suspense as he says that he got the bear by accident. The story then moves on to open a flashback episode, that picturizes a sugarcane field in Mysore. Generally, fields and farmland are attacked by wild boars, pigs and elephants from the neighbouring jungles. Similarly, the narrator encounters a group of people driving away wild pigs that had come to attack and feed on the sugarcanes. Wild pigs or wild boars can be a huge threat to farmlands as they trample and destroy the plantations and crops. They adopted a mean technique to drive them away. Since they were also scared of being attacked by the wild pigs, they chose to shoot them down. While people use solar lights and fencing in the modern age, there was not much of an alternative to keep the wild pigs away for farmers in the pre-Independence days. It was a time when hunting was legal in India and many men took it as a sport. Some pigs were shot and some escaped by running. When everything was settled with the pigs, the narrator notices a black sloth bear emerging from the field, panting under the hot sun. The bear must have hidden hearing the commotion, and when it resurfaced, it happened to be noticed by the people.

 

 

The narrator makes it clear to his readers that he would never shoot a bear on purpose. But his companions do not share his compassion and therefore shoots the poor beast. The companions could have shot the bear out of fear of being attacked or even for the sake of sport and fun. But a series of incidents unfold after the shot. The bear falls down lying facing downwards and has a small patch of black fur on its back. They were surprised to find the black fur moving from the dead bear's body. It was the cub of the bear who had clung on to its mother's body tightly during the time of the shooting. The bear had in fact tried to rescue its cub from the shooting. A pathetic scene enfolds as the cub, not being aware of what had happened, runs around his dead mother's body without a clue. He makes a pitiful noise when he runs, showing that he could sense that something was wrong. He is in a state of confusion amidst the chaos.

 

 

The narrator runs behind the cub in a hopeless attempt to catch it. In spite of the fact that the cub had to experience a series of torture, he is subjected to more by driving him around the field. In the narrator's perspective, he is trying to protect the cub by capturing it and giving proper care. But he does not realize that the cub's place belongs in the wild. He somehow manages to capture him along with his companions. He drives him in and around the sugarcane field since the cub tries to escape. He holds it by the back of his neck along with his collar. The bear in spite of being a cub, does its best to snap out of his hands. His inborn nature is brought out when faced with a difficult situation. He tries to scratch the narrator's hands with his hooked claws to try and escape. He was put in a gunny-bag, and taken to his home back in Bangalore. The cub was gifted to his wife, who was delighted to have a bear for a pet. The process of taming the bear starts from this moment as a red ribbon is tied around his neck and he is christened with a name 'Bruno'.

 

 

Meanings of difficult words: