NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 5 The World of Limitless Possibilities (interview with Dr. Deepa Malik) — Critical Reflection

Because the change she describes is not a repair of her old life but the emergence of a completely new one — which is exactly what happens in a metamorphosis.

Read the extract’s own verb: she does not say she would recover or manage; she says she would “transform it to a world of limitless possibilities.” The caterpillar comparison holds at three points:

• The two possible endings. A caterpillar either stays a crawling grub or becomes a butterfly. Dr. Malik states her position in exactly that shape — “I had two choices—squander my life in remorse or transform it”.
• The still, closed stage in between. The surgery and the wheelchair are the cocoon: from the outside nothing appears to be happening, while the whole design of the life is being rebuilt.
• The new capacity at the end. The butterfly can do something the caterpillar never could — fly. She emerged able to do something the swimmer she used to be had never done: represent India at the Paralympics and win a medal in shot-put.

Because she was already an athlete. She says plainly: “I love sports and had been a swimmer too, so I decided to switch to para-athletics.”

Notice the word switch — you can only switch between two things you already belong to. What she changed was the discipline, not the life. Three things carried over unchanged:

• the love of sport itself, so training did not feel like a punishment imposed after an illness;
• the habits of a trained swimmer — daily practice, upper-body strength, breath control, a tolerance for repetition;
• the competitive temperament, the willingness to be measured against others and to lose in public.

… because it was there that she won the silver medal in the shot-put — her first medal at the Paralympics — and the win broke through both her own long years of unrewarded effort and the public assumption that a woman in a wheelchair could not stand on a world podium.

Any of these completions would be accepted, since each is anchored in the extract:

• “… because she secured the silver medal in the shot-put event, her first Paralympic success.”
• “… because that medal was, in her own words, ‘a moment of personal victory and a step forward in changing perceptions’.”
• “… because it made her India’s first ever female Paralympics medallist, opening a door no Indian woman had gone through before.”

Answer: B. reflective.

Read the phrase in its sentence: “In hindsight, I feel it was a moment of personal victory and a step forward in changing perceptions.” The chapter itself glosses in hindsight in the matching exercise on page 147 as “the ability to understand something after it has happened”. She is standing after the event, looking back at it, and assigning it a meaning it did not obviously have at the time. Looking back and weighing up the meaning of the past is reflection.

One likely perception: that a person who uses a wheelchair cannot be a serious, competing athlete — that disability and elite sport do not belong in the same sentence.

Her silver in shot-put at Rio answered that directly: shot-put is a raw-power event, judged in centimetres against the best in the world, and she stood on the podium in it.

Other perceptions she names in the interview, any one of which is an acceptable answer:

• That she was less capable than she was. “People often underestimated my abilities.” (page 141)
• That the body sets the ceiling. She replies that “physical limitations don’t define one’s potential” (page 140).
• That women para-athletes are not front-rank competitors. She is India’s first woman Paralympics medallist in any sport — before her, there was no example to point to.
• That persons with disabilities need protection rather than competition. “individuals with disabilities can be as capable, if not more than their able-bodied counterparts.” (page 141)

Answer: (a) A and D — appreciative and optimistic.

Both labels come straight out of the extract’s own wording:

• Appreciative. She is valuing what sport can do: sports have the “extraordinary ability” to change attitudes, and the Paralympics “has given me a new lease of life”. Every strong word in the passage — extraordinary, strength, skill, and competitive spirit — is a word of praise.
• Optimistic. She speaks of change as something that does happen and will continue: stereotypes are challenged, notions are “broken down”, boundaries are pushed. There is no doubt anywhere in the passage that the change is possible.

Answer: stereotypes.

Work out the relationship in the first pair before filling the second. In this extract ability and potential are not opposites and not cause-and-effect — they are near-synonyms, two words for what a person can do. So the second pair must also be a pair of synonyms.

The extract offers exactly one word that means the same as preconceived notions — “sports… have the extraordinary ability to challenge stereotypes”. The book itself glosses preconceived notions on page 141 as “opinions about something even before knowing the truth”, and a stereotype is precisely a fixed opinion held about a whole group before meeting anyone in it.

True.

The extract makes both halves of the statement explicitly, in that order:

• Showcases abilities — “When people witness the strength, skill, and competitive spirit of para-athletes…”. To witness something, it must first be displayed; the Games are the display.
• Questions stereotypes — “…sports, especially Paralympics, have the extraordinary ability to challenge stereotypes and change attitudes towards disability”, and the same sentence completes the chain: “it breaks down preconceived notions.”

It tells us that she treats every level she reaches as a starting line rather than a finish — she is self-testing and ambitious, and refuses to accept a fixed ceiling on what she can do.

Look at the verb. A boundary is a line drawn by somebody. To push it is not to break the rules but to move the line steadily outward by working against it. Two kinds of boundary are being pushed at once:

• Physical ones — the doctors’ verdict was a boundary drawn around her body: a wheelchair, ‘for the rest of my life’. Shot-put, swimming and later motorsport were each an argument with that line.
• Social ones — the ‘firsts’ she lists exist only because a boundary had never been crossed before. Being the first Indian woman to win a Paralympic medal means the boundary was where the record was.

“a new lease of life” — from the line “Paralympics has given me a new lease of life and helped me push boundaries.”

The chapter’s own matching exercise on page 147 glosses the phrase as “an occasion when you become more energetic and active than earlier”. A lease is a fixed period granted to you; a new lease means the period she thought had ended has been granted again — the life is not merely continued but re-issued on new terms.

They challenge them by replacing an assumption with a record. Society’s view of a woman paralysed waist down was one of care and dependence; her list of results makes that view impossible to hold, because each result is a public, measured fact rather than an argument.

• Against the belief that disability rules out elite sport: she won the silver medal in shot-put at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Shot-put rewards raw explosive power and is decided in centimetres — the least sentimental event on the field.
• Against the belief that women para-athletes are marginal: she is the “first ever Indian female para-athlete to win an Asian Games medal in athletics” and “India’s first ever female Paralympics medallist across any sport”. A ‘first’ does not merely add a name to a list; it proves the category was empty for no good reason.
• Against the belief that such achievement is a private consolation: the state answered with the Khel Ratna, Arjuna and Padma Shri, the same honours given to any other athlete. Her recognition by the International Paralympic Committee among the 10 most inspirational women para-athletes globally placed her in a world frame, not a charitable one.
• Against the belief that she needed protection rather than a chance: she names the real obstacle herself — “One of the significant challenges for me was societal perceptions. People often underestimated my abilities.” Note where she puts the difficulty: not in her spine, in other people’s heads.

The long-term impact is that inclusion stops being a special favour and becomes an ordinary habit — because the people who will design, staff and run the country in twenty years will have grown up without the prejudice in the first place. That is precisely why Dr. Malik targets this group: “I believe youth is the voice of tomorrow. So, we organise disability sports awareness and advocacy sessions at various schools and colleges.”

• Prejudice is prevented, not corrected. Preconceived notions are cheap to prevent at fifteen and expensive to remove at forty. A student who has played beside a para-athlete never acquires the notion that has to be broken down later.
• Language and manners change. Young people who discuss disability openly learn to say ‘para-athlete’ and ‘person with a disability’, to ask before helping, and to drop the tone of pity — small habits that decide whether a classmate feels included.
• Design improves at the source. Tomorrow’s architects, engineers, teachers and administrators are in these classrooms. Ramps, lifts, accessible toilets, subtitles and examination accommodations get built in at the planning stage instead of being added after a complaint.
• The talent pool widens. Awareness in schools reaches the child who is a potential para-athlete but has never seen anyone like herself compete. Sheetal Devi’s own story began with someone spotting her at a youth event.
• Advocates multiply. One session does not create one supporter; it creates people who argue for accessibility in their own colleges, workplaces and colonies. This is what makes it a long-term impact rather than a day’s programme.

The title The World of Limitless Possibilities is appropriate because it is her own phrase, spoken at the exact moment of choice, and because everything after that moment tests whether the phrase was true.

1. The title comes from the text’s turning point. Told she would use a wheelchair for life, she says: “I had two choices—squander my life in remorse or transform it to a world of limitless possibilities.” The title is therefore not a label added by an editor; it is the decision the whole interview grows out of.

2. ‘Limitless’ is chosen against a limit that had just been imposed. The doctors’ sentence contained the word rest of my life — a boundary. Her reply uses the one adjective that cancels a boundary. The title is an argument, not a description.

3. The achievements make the word literal rather than decorative. Silver at Rio 2016 in shot-put; the first Indian woman para-athlete with an Asian Games athletics medal; India’s first woman Paralympic medallist in any sport; Khel Ratna, Arjuna, Padma Shri; a listing among the world’s 10 most inspirational women para-athletes. Each is a limit that turned out not to exist.

4. ‘World’ is as important as ‘limitless’. A world is something you live in and share, not a personal feat. Her advocacy — equipment for para sportspersons, support for persons from lower socio-economic strata, awareness sessions in schools and colleges — is the attempt to make that world large enough for others: “a society where everyone, regardless of ability, is treated with dignity and given a fair chance to succeed.”

The sentence is useful to everybody because it does not promise that setbacks are pleasant or fair. It only says a setback reveals something that success never has to — how you behave when the plan fails.

• It moves attention from the event to the response. Nobody chooses a failed exam, a lost job, an illness or a shifted house. What is genuinely open is the next decision. That is Dr. Malik’s framing: she names two choices — “squander my life in remorse or transform it”.
• Strength is only visible under load. A student who scores well in easy tests learns nothing about her own resilience. A student who fails a unit test, finds the actual gap, and rebuilds the topic has evidence about herself that she can use for years.
• It converts a verdict into information. A setback usually tells you exactly what was weak — an untested assumption, a skill not practised, a friendship not maintained. Read that way, it is feedback rather than a judgement.
• It works in ordinary, unheroic settings. A shopkeeper whose stock is spoiled by rain, a farmer facing a failed monsoon, a child moved to a new school mid-year — each of these is a setback with no medal at the end of it, and the same rule applies: the loss is fixed, the response is not.
• It builds a habit, not a single act. Dr. Malik pairs the sentence with two practical instructions — “Surround yourself with a support system, believe in yourself” — because strength in the long run is a routine and a set of people, not a mood.

It contributes by placing an Indian woman with a disability in a global list of the best, and thereby attacking two exclusions at once — the exclusion of women from the front rank of sport, and the exclusion of athletes with disabilities from it. Her recognition sits at the point where the two overlap.

• Visibility creates a standard. The interviewer’s own words are “one of the 10 most inspirational women para-athletes globally by the International Paralympic Committee.” A world body naming women specifically forces reporters, sponsors and selectors to treat women’s para-sport as a category with rankings and reputations, not as a footnote.
• ‘Firsts’ show the gap rather than hide it. That she is the first Indian woman to win an Asian Games athletics medal as a para-athlete, and India’s first woman Paralympic medallist in any sport, is a compliment to her and an indictment of the system before her. Every ‘first’ is also a question: why did this take so long?
• It supplies the model that was missing. Girls with disabilities in small towns had no Indian sportswoman to point to. Recognition converts a private career into a public example; a coach can now say ‘like Deepa Malik’ to a family that has never considered sport for a daughter.
• It shifts the argument from welfare to merit. She is honoured for performance — a silver medal at the Rio Games — and the same national awards, Khel Ratna and Arjuna, that able-bodied athletes receive. Equality is claimed on the ground of results, which is the hardest ground to argue against.
• She then spends the recognition on other women. Page 142: she works at “empowering women through outdoor sports and adventure activities”, and supports “persons from lower socio-economic strata”. Recognition becomes infrastructure — equipment, sessions, access — for women who will never be interviewed.

Because it is a working instruction, not a slogan. The phrase tells an athlete where to look: at what the body can be trained to do, and not at what a medical report says it cannot.

• It fixes the starting question. The useful question is never ‘what have I lost?’ but ‘which event rewards what I have?’ Dr. Malik’s own move is the model: a swimmer with strong shoulders and no use below the waist switched to shot-put, an event decided almost entirely by upper-body power. Sheetal Devi’s answer to the same question was a compound bow drawn with the foot and released from the shoulder.
• It makes technique the field of invention. A para-athlete often has no ready-made method to copy. ‘Ability beyond disability’ licenses building one — a new grip, a new release, a new throwing position — instead of waiting for a manual.
• It protects against other people’s ceilings. Her stated obstacle was “societal perceptions… People often underestimated my abilities.” An athlete who has internalised this phrase has an answer ready when a school, a family or a selector sets a limit for her.
• It sets the right measure of success. ‘Beyond’ is comparative and personal: beyond what was expected, beyond last season’s mark. That keeps improvement measurable in training terms — distance, time, ring score — rather than in sympathy.
• It keeps the effort collective. She adds the practical half herself: “Surround yourself with a support system.” Ability is realised through coaching, equipment and family support — which is why she personally provides equipment to para sportspersons.

This asks for your take-away, so it must be personal — but ‘implement’ means the second half has to name an action, with a time and a place in it, not a resolution.

Sample answer: Three things stayed with me. First, that the obstacle is often outside the person — “People often underestimated my abilities.” I have done exactly that to a classmate who uses crutches: I quietly kept him out of our badminton pairs because I decided for him that he would not want to play. I have started asking instead of deciding, and he now keeps score and plays doubles on the near court. Second, that a setback is information. She did not wait for her old life to come back; she asked which event her strengths suited and switched to shot-put. When I failed my last science unit test I used to reread the whole chapter in panic; now I mark the exact questions I lost marks on and rebuild only those topics, which takes less time and works better. Third, that ability needs equipment and access, not only encouragement — she provides equipment to para sportspersons rather than only speaking at schools. In our school the sports store is up a flight of stairs, and I have written to the Sports Captain suggesting the equipment cupboard be moved to the ground-floor room. That is a small thing, but it is the kind of thing her advocacy is actually made of.