NCERT Solutions for Class 9 English Moments Chapter 4 - In the Kingdom of Fools

Q1. What are the two strange things the guru and his disciple find in the Kingdom of Fools?
Ans: The guru and his disciple noticed two unusual things in the Kingdom of Fools:
First, people slept during the daytime and carried out their work and daily activities at night. This meant shops opened and streets were busy when most people would normally be sleeping.
Second, all items were sold at the same price-one duddu (one rupee), regardless of whether it was rice, bananas or other goods. There was no difference in price between cheap and expensive items.

Q2. Why does the disciple decide to stay in the Kingdom of Fools? Is it a good idea?
Ans: The disciple wanted to stay in the Kingdom of Fools because everything seemed cheap and he liked the idea of eating better food at a very low price.
However, this was not a good idea. The Guru had warned him that the people of the kingdom were foolish and unpredictable, so living there could be dangerous. Cheapness did not mean safety; unfair rules and strange customs made the place unsafe for anyone who wanted a fair or steady life.

Q3. Name all the people who are tried in the king's court, and give the reasons for their trial.
Ans: The people tried in the king's court were the merchant, the bricklayer, the dancing girl and the goldsmith. A thief died when the wall of the merchant's house fell, so each was blamed for that death. The merchant was blamed because the fallen wall belonged to him. The bricklayer was blamed for building the wall badly. The dancing girl was blamed for distracting the bricklayer while he worked. The goldsmith was blamed because he had asked the dancing girl to go to his house often, which, in the king's view, helped cause the distraction.

Q4. Who is the real culprit, according to the king? Why does he escape punishment?
Ans: The king declared that the merchant's dead father was to blame for building a weak wall, yet he also considered the living merchant guilty because he had inherited his father's property and faults. Despite this, the merchant was not punished because he was too thin to be tied to the stake used for execution. In other words, though the king blamed him, the practical difficulty of fitting the merchant to the stake led to his escape from punishment.

Q5. What are the Guru's words of wisdom? When does the disciple remember them?
Ans: The Guru had warned, "This is a city of fools. You never know what they might do next."
The disciple remembered these words when he was ordered to be executed even though he had committed no crime. He was chosen for execution simply because he was fat enough to fit on the stake, which showed how arbitrary and foolish the kingdom's rules were.

Q6. How does the guru manage to save his disciple's life?
Ans: The Guru arrived just in time and used a clever trick to save his disciple. He told the king that the stake was magical and that whoever died first would be reborn as the next king, while the one who died second would become the minister. The king, eager for such a strange reward, preferred to let them go rather than lose the chance of becoming king himself. In this way the Guru persuaded the king to spare them both and thus saved his disciple's life.