NCERT Textbook: Pappachi’s Moth | Class 11 English Woven Words - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

 Page 1


56 Woven Words
Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy
F F F F F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context
ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost
Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,
2024-25
Page 2


56 Woven Words
Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy
F F F F F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context
ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost
Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 57
of limes and tender mangoes. Every night he beat her with
a brass flower vase. The beatings weren’t new. What was
new was only the frequency with which they took place.
One night Pappachi broke the bow of Mammachi’s violin
and threw it in the river.
Then Chacko came home for a summer vacation from
Oxford. He had grown to be a big man and was, in those
days, strong from rowing for Balliol. A week after he arrived
he found Pappachi beating Mammachi in the study. Chacko
strode into the room, caught Pappachi’s vase-hand and
twisted it around his back.
‘I never want this to happen again,’ he told his father,
‘Ever.’
For the rest of that day Pappachi sat in the verandah
and stared stonily out at the ornamental garden, ignoring
the plates of food that Kochu Maria brought him. Late at
night he went into his study and brought out his favourite
mahogany rocking chair. He put it down in the middle of
the driveway and smashed it into little bits with a plumber’s
monkey wrench. He left it there in the moonlight, a heap of
varnished wicker and splintered wood. He never touched
Mammachi again. But he never spoke to her either as long
as he lived. When he needed anything he used Kochu Maria
or Baby Kochamma as intermediaries.
In the evenings, when he knew visitors were expected,
he would sit on the verandah and sew buttons that weren’t
missing onto his shirts, to create the impression that
Mammachi neglected him. To some small degree he did
succeed in further corroding Ayemenem’s view of working
wives.
He bought the skyblue Plymouth from an old
Englishman in Munnar. He became a familiar sight in
Ayemenem, coasting importantly down the narrow road in
his wide car, looking outwardly elegant but sweating freely
inside his woollen suits. He wouldn’t allow Mammachi or
anyone else in the family to use it, or even to sit in it. The
Plymouth was Pappachi’s revenge.
Pappachi had been an Imperial Entomologist at the
Pusa Institute. After Independence, when the British left,
his designation was changed from Imperial Entomologist
2024-25
Page 3


56 Woven Words
Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy
F F F F F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context
ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost
Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 57
of limes and tender mangoes. Every night he beat her with
a brass flower vase. The beatings weren’t new. What was
new was only the frequency with which they took place.
One night Pappachi broke the bow of Mammachi’s violin
and threw it in the river.
Then Chacko came home for a summer vacation from
Oxford. He had grown to be a big man and was, in those
days, strong from rowing for Balliol. A week after he arrived
he found Pappachi beating Mammachi in the study. Chacko
strode into the room, caught Pappachi’s vase-hand and
twisted it around his back.
‘I never want this to happen again,’ he told his father,
‘Ever.’
For the rest of that day Pappachi sat in the verandah
and stared stonily out at the ornamental garden, ignoring
the plates of food that Kochu Maria brought him. Late at
night he went into his study and brought out his favourite
mahogany rocking chair. He put it down in the middle of
the driveway and smashed it into little bits with a plumber’s
monkey wrench. He left it there in the moonlight, a heap of
varnished wicker and splintered wood. He never touched
Mammachi again. But he never spoke to her either as long
as he lived. When he needed anything he used Kochu Maria
or Baby Kochamma as intermediaries.
In the evenings, when he knew visitors were expected,
he would sit on the verandah and sew buttons that weren’t
missing onto his shirts, to create the impression that
Mammachi neglected him. To some small degree he did
succeed in further corroding Ayemenem’s view of working
wives.
He bought the skyblue Plymouth from an old
Englishman in Munnar. He became a familiar sight in
Ayemenem, coasting importantly down the narrow road in
his wide car, looking outwardly elegant but sweating freely
inside his woollen suits. He wouldn’t allow Mammachi or
anyone else in the family to use it, or even to sit in it. The
Plymouth was Pappachi’s revenge.
Pappachi had been an Imperial Entomologist at the
Pusa Institute. After Independence, when the British left,
his designation was changed from Imperial Entomologist
2024-25
58 Woven Words
to Joint Director, Entomology. The year he retired, he had
risen to a rank equivalent to Director.
His life’s greatest setback was not having had the moth
that he had discovered named after him.
It fell into his drink one evening while he was sitting
in the verandah of a rest house after a long day in the
field. As he picked it out he noticed its unusually dense
dorsal tufts. He took a closer look. With growing excitement
he mounted it, measured it and the next morning placed it
in the sun for a few hours for the alcohol to evaporate.
Then he caught the first train back to Delhi. To taxonomic
attention and, he  hoped, fame. After six unbearable months
of anxiety, to Pappachi’s intense disappointment, he was
told that his moth had finally been identified as a slightly
unusual race of a well-known species that belonged to the
tropical family, Lymantriidae.
The real blow came twelve years later, when, as a
consequence of a radical taxonomic reshuffle, lepidopterists
decided that Pappachi’s moth was in fact a separate species
and genus hitherto unknown to science. By then, of course,
Pappachi had retired and moved to Ayemenem. It was too
late for him to assert his claim to the discovery. His moth
was named after the Acting Director of the Department of
Entomology, a junior officer whom Pappachi had always
disliked.
In the years to come, even though he had been ill-
humoured long before he discovered the moth, Pappachi’s
Moth was held responsible for his black moods and sudden
bouts of temper. Its pernicious ghost—grey, furry and with
unusually dense dorsal tufts—haunted every house that
he ever lived in. It tormented him and his children and his
children’s children.
Until the day he died, even in the stifling Ayemenem
heat, every single day, Pappachi wore a well-pressed three-
piece suit and his gold pocket watch. On his dressing table,
next to his cologne and silver hair brush, he kept a picture
of himself as a young man, with his hair slicked down,
taken in a photographer’s studio in Vienna where he had
done the six-month diploma course that had qualified him
to apply for the post of Imperial Entomologist. It was during
2024-25
Page 4


56 Woven Words
Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy
F F F F F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context
ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost
Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 57
of limes and tender mangoes. Every night he beat her with
a brass flower vase. The beatings weren’t new. What was
new was only the frequency with which they took place.
One night Pappachi broke the bow of Mammachi’s violin
and threw it in the river.
Then Chacko came home for a summer vacation from
Oxford. He had grown to be a big man and was, in those
days, strong from rowing for Balliol. A week after he arrived
he found Pappachi beating Mammachi in the study. Chacko
strode into the room, caught Pappachi’s vase-hand and
twisted it around his back.
‘I never want this to happen again,’ he told his father,
‘Ever.’
For the rest of that day Pappachi sat in the verandah
and stared stonily out at the ornamental garden, ignoring
the plates of food that Kochu Maria brought him. Late at
night he went into his study and brought out his favourite
mahogany rocking chair. He put it down in the middle of
the driveway and smashed it into little bits with a plumber’s
monkey wrench. He left it there in the moonlight, a heap of
varnished wicker and splintered wood. He never touched
Mammachi again. But he never spoke to her either as long
as he lived. When he needed anything he used Kochu Maria
or Baby Kochamma as intermediaries.
In the evenings, when he knew visitors were expected,
he would sit on the verandah and sew buttons that weren’t
missing onto his shirts, to create the impression that
Mammachi neglected him. To some small degree he did
succeed in further corroding Ayemenem’s view of working
wives.
He bought the skyblue Plymouth from an old
Englishman in Munnar. He became a familiar sight in
Ayemenem, coasting importantly down the narrow road in
his wide car, looking outwardly elegant but sweating freely
inside his woollen suits. He wouldn’t allow Mammachi or
anyone else in the family to use it, or even to sit in it. The
Plymouth was Pappachi’s revenge.
Pappachi had been an Imperial Entomologist at the
Pusa Institute. After Independence, when the British left,
his designation was changed from Imperial Entomologist
2024-25
58 Woven Words
to Joint Director, Entomology. The year he retired, he had
risen to a rank equivalent to Director.
His life’s greatest setback was not having had the moth
that he had discovered named after him.
It fell into his drink one evening while he was sitting
in the verandah of a rest house after a long day in the
field. As he picked it out he noticed its unusually dense
dorsal tufts. He took a closer look. With growing excitement
he mounted it, measured it and the next morning placed it
in the sun for a few hours for the alcohol to evaporate.
Then he caught the first train back to Delhi. To taxonomic
attention and, he  hoped, fame. After six unbearable months
of anxiety, to Pappachi’s intense disappointment, he was
told that his moth had finally been identified as a slightly
unusual race of a well-known species that belonged to the
tropical family, Lymantriidae.
The real blow came twelve years later, when, as a
consequence of a radical taxonomic reshuffle, lepidopterists
decided that Pappachi’s moth was in fact a separate species
and genus hitherto unknown to science. By then, of course,
Pappachi had retired and moved to Ayemenem. It was too
late for him to assert his claim to the discovery. His moth
was named after the Acting Director of the Department of
Entomology, a junior officer whom Pappachi had always
disliked.
In the years to come, even though he had been ill-
humoured long before he discovered the moth, Pappachi’s
Moth was held responsible for his black moods and sudden
bouts of temper. Its pernicious ghost—grey, furry and with
unusually dense dorsal tufts—haunted every house that
he ever lived in. It tormented him and his children and his
children’s children.
Until the day he died, even in the stifling Ayemenem
heat, every single day, Pappachi wore a well-pressed three-
piece suit and his gold pocket watch. On his dressing table,
next to his cologne and silver hair brush, he kept a picture
of himself as a young man, with his hair slicked down,
taken in a photographer’s studio in Vienna where he had
done the six-month diploma course that had qualified him
to apply for the post of Imperial Entomologist. It was during
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 59
those few months they spent in Vienna that Mammachi
took her first lessons on the violin. The lessons were
abruptly discontinued when Mammachi’s teacher, Launsky-
Tieffenthal, made the mistake of telling Pappachi that his
wife was exceptionally talented and, in his opinion,
potentially concert class.
Mammachi pasted, in the family photograph album,
the clipping from the Indian Express that reported
Pappachi’s death. It said:
Noted entomologist, Shri Benaan John Ipe, son of late Rev.E.
John Ipe of Ayemenem (popularly known as Punnyan
Kunju), suffered a massive heart attack and passed away
at the Kottayam General Hospital last night. He developed
chest pains around 1.05 a.m. and was rushed to hospital.
The end came at 2.45 a.m. Shri Ipe had been keeping
indifferent health since last six months. He is survived by
his wife Soshamma and two children.
At Pappachi’s funeral, Mammachi cried and her contact
lenses slid around in her eyes. Ammu told the twins that
Mammachi was crying more because she was used to him
than because she loved him. She was used to having him
slouching around the pickle factory, and was used to being
beaten from time to time. Ammu said that human beings
were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of
things they could get used to. You only had to look around
you, Ammu said, to see that beatings with brass vases
were the least of them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arundhati Roy, (born 1961) an architect by
training, is a novelist and screen writer. Her
first novel, The God of Small Things, from which
this extract has been selected, is the winner
of the 1997 Booker Prize, a prestigious literary
award. She now lives in New Delhi and is an activist.
2024-25
Page 5


56 Woven Words
Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy
F F F F F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context
ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost
Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 57
of limes and tender mangoes. Every night he beat her with
a brass flower vase. The beatings weren’t new. What was
new was only the frequency with which they took place.
One night Pappachi broke the bow of Mammachi’s violin
and threw it in the river.
Then Chacko came home for a summer vacation from
Oxford. He had grown to be a big man and was, in those
days, strong from rowing for Balliol. A week after he arrived
he found Pappachi beating Mammachi in the study. Chacko
strode into the room, caught Pappachi’s vase-hand and
twisted it around his back.
‘I never want this to happen again,’ he told his father,
‘Ever.’
For the rest of that day Pappachi sat in the verandah
and stared stonily out at the ornamental garden, ignoring
the plates of food that Kochu Maria brought him. Late at
night he went into his study and brought out his favourite
mahogany rocking chair. He put it down in the middle of
the driveway and smashed it into little bits with a plumber’s
monkey wrench. He left it there in the moonlight, a heap of
varnished wicker and splintered wood. He never touched
Mammachi again. But he never spoke to her either as long
as he lived. When he needed anything he used Kochu Maria
or Baby Kochamma as intermediaries.
In the evenings, when he knew visitors were expected,
he would sit on the verandah and sew buttons that weren’t
missing onto his shirts, to create the impression that
Mammachi neglected him. To some small degree he did
succeed in further corroding Ayemenem’s view of working
wives.
He bought the skyblue Plymouth from an old
Englishman in Munnar. He became a familiar sight in
Ayemenem, coasting importantly down the narrow road in
his wide car, looking outwardly elegant but sweating freely
inside his woollen suits. He wouldn’t allow Mammachi or
anyone else in the family to use it, or even to sit in it. The
Plymouth was Pappachi’s revenge.
Pappachi had been an Imperial Entomologist at the
Pusa Institute. After Independence, when the British left,
his designation was changed from Imperial Entomologist
2024-25
58 Woven Words
to Joint Director, Entomology. The year he retired, he had
risen to a rank equivalent to Director.
His life’s greatest setback was not having had the moth
that he had discovered named after him.
It fell into his drink one evening while he was sitting
in the verandah of a rest house after a long day in the
field. As he picked it out he noticed its unusually dense
dorsal tufts. He took a closer look. With growing excitement
he mounted it, measured it and the next morning placed it
in the sun for a few hours for the alcohol to evaporate.
Then he caught the first train back to Delhi. To taxonomic
attention and, he  hoped, fame. After six unbearable months
of anxiety, to Pappachi’s intense disappointment, he was
told that his moth had finally been identified as a slightly
unusual race of a well-known species that belonged to the
tropical family, Lymantriidae.
The real blow came twelve years later, when, as a
consequence of a radical taxonomic reshuffle, lepidopterists
decided that Pappachi’s moth was in fact a separate species
and genus hitherto unknown to science. By then, of course,
Pappachi had retired and moved to Ayemenem. It was too
late for him to assert his claim to the discovery. His moth
was named after the Acting Director of the Department of
Entomology, a junior officer whom Pappachi had always
disliked.
In the years to come, even though he had been ill-
humoured long before he discovered the moth, Pappachi’s
Moth was held responsible for his black moods and sudden
bouts of temper. Its pernicious ghost—grey, furry and with
unusually dense dorsal tufts—haunted every house that
he ever lived in. It tormented him and his children and his
children’s children.
Until the day he died, even in the stifling Ayemenem
heat, every single day, Pappachi wore a well-pressed three-
piece suit and his gold pocket watch. On his dressing table,
next to his cologne and silver hair brush, he kept a picture
of himself as a young man, with his hair slicked down,
taken in a photographer’s studio in Vienna where he had
done the six-month diploma course that had qualified him
to apply for the post of Imperial Entomologist. It was during
2024-25
Pappachi’s Moth 59
those few months they spent in Vienna that Mammachi
took her first lessons on the violin. The lessons were
abruptly discontinued when Mammachi’s teacher, Launsky-
Tieffenthal, made the mistake of telling Pappachi that his
wife was exceptionally talented and, in his opinion,
potentially concert class.
Mammachi pasted, in the family photograph album,
the clipping from the Indian Express that reported
Pappachi’s death. It said:
Noted entomologist, Shri Benaan John Ipe, son of late Rev.E.
John Ipe of Ayemenem (popularly known as Punnyan
Kunju), suffered a massive heart attack and passed away
at the Kottayam General Hospital last night. He developed
chest pains around 1.05 a.m. and was rushed to hospital.
The end came at 2.45 a.m. Shri Ipe had been keeping
indifferent health since last six months. He is survived by
his wife Soshamma and two children.
At Pappachi’s funeral, Mammachi cried and her contact
lenses slid around in her eyes. Ammu told the twins that
Mammachi was crying more because she was used to him
than because she loved him. She was used to having him
slouching around the pickle factory, and was used to being
beaten from time to time. Ammu said that human beings
were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of
things they could get used to. You only had to look around
you, Ammu said, to see that beatings with brass vases
were the least of them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arundhati Roy, (born 1961) an architect by
training, is a novelist and screen writer. Her
first novel, The God of Small Things, from which
this extract has been selected, is the winner
of the 1997 Booker Prize, a prestigious literary
award. She now lives in New Delhi and is an activist.
2024-25
60 Woven Words
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
1. Comment on the relationship shared by Mammachi and
Pappachi.
2. How does Mammachi stand out as an independent and resilient
woman in the text?
3. Why does John Ipe consider retirement to be a dishonour?
4. What was the underlying reason for John Ipe’s disgust with the
world?
TALKING ABOUT THE TEXT
Discuss in pairs
1. Chacko’s firmness in dealing with the irrational behaviour of
his father.
2. The contrast between the outward elegance of a person and his
private behaviour.
3. Approval from the outside world and approval within the family.
APPRECIATION
1. How does the author succeed in raising crucial social issues
not through open criticism but through subtle suggestion?
2. Within a few pages the author has packed the important events
in the lives of John Ipe and his wife. Discuss how conciseness
and economy of expression can achieve effective portrayal of
entire lives.
3.    Identify instances of ironical comment in the story.
LANGUAGE WORK
1. Entomologist and lepidopterist are mentioned in the text and
you must have guessed the meanings of these words or found
them out from the dictionary.
Now match the kinds of scientists given below with the work
they do:
                        A                                            B
ornithologist study of the skin
gerontologist                       study of cells
2024-25