Textbook Solutions: The Vanishing Lunchboxes | Buzzword Class 7: Book Solutions, Summaries & Worksheets PDF Download

(A) Answer these questions. 

1. 
Ans: The narrator describes his father's cooking as terrible. He mentions that his father took pride in his culinary work, but he could not cook. Meal-times became a nightmare for the narrator, and he had to gulp down charred chapattis with runny dal. He did not enjoy eating what his father cooked.

2. 
Ans: Class 5 B was in a furore because lunchboxes were vanishing regularly from students' bags. The disappearance of lunchboxes created a sense of concern and confusion among the students, leading them to believe there was a thief among them.

3. 
Ans: Jatin asked the narrator to keep watch in the class during the week as part of their plan to catch the lunchbox thief. The narrator hesitated but eventually agreed to take on the role of keeping watch.

4. 
Ans: The narrator's mother was upset when she learned about the cook's betrayal and turned yellow after tasting the dal that the father had cooked. However, she did not scream or shout at him. Instead, she calmly convinced the father to take a break from kitchen duties and focus on his office work. She became extra affectionate towards the narrator and cooked all his favorite dishes.

5. 
Ans: The narrator is now a freelance artist. He mentions that his wife is on a business trip to Cochin, and he just packed his ten-year-old son's lunchbox. Unlike his father, he has learned how to cook and wants to ensure that his son doesn't become a lunch thief.

(B) Read these lines from the text and answer the questions. 

1. This is bad, you know.
(a) 
Ans: Jatin said this to the class.

(b) 
Ans: The class echoed, "Very bad!" in response.

(c) 
Ans: Jatin decided that they needed to solve the mystery of the disappearing lunchboxes and suggested finding a solution without involving any adults.

2. My lunch box no longer made me go into a nervous fit.
(a)
Ans: The speaker said these words after the thefts stopped, and his mother returned home.

(b) 
Ans: The speaker said these words because, with his mother's return, the quality of food improved, and he no longer had to worry about the unpleasant meals his father cooked.

(c) 
Ans: Yes, his lunchbox made him feel miserable because of the poor quality of the food. To prevent it, he emptied the contents into the nearest garbage bin on the way to school.

(C) Summarise what the tiffin thief stole from the lunch boxes of the students and what he gave each of them in return.

1.
Ans: Summary: The lunch thief stole various items from the students' lunch boxes, such as spicy potatoes and chapattis, parathas filled with grated cauliflower, upma with chutney, and cheese sandwiches. In return, the thief left compensation, such as a bar of chocolate, toffees, and mint chocolates in the respective lunch boxes.

(D) Think and answer.

1. 
Ans: The tiffin thief may have filled the lunchboxes with tasty titbits as a form of compensation or apology for eating the students' food. It could be an attempt to make up for the inconvenience caused by the theft and to soften the impact of the stolen lunches.

2. 
Ans: The narrator didn't reveal that he was the tiffin thief in the beginning to maintain suspense and engage the reader in the mystery. The revelation adds a twist to the story, showing that the narrator was behind the lunchbox thefts all along. It also explains why the thefts stopped abruptly when the mother returned.

3. 
Ans: While the narrator's actions may have been driven by the unpleasant meals his father cooked, stealing food from his classmates was not the only option. He could have communicated his dissatisfaction with his father's cooking to his mother or sought alternative solutions. The stealing of food, while providing a humorous twist to the story, may not be considered an ethical or responsible course of action.