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Madam Rides the Bus Summary: A Story by Vallikkannan

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Class 10 English Chapter Madam Rides the Bus

The Class 10 English Chapter- Madam Rides The Bus is written by author Vallikkannan. The prose is a sensitive story that revolves around an eight-year-old girl and her first very adventurous bus ride into a new and different world outside her village. Her journey to the world teaches her about life and death. Through this story, the author presents the world as a whole from a child's perspective. The little protagonist wants to explore the world and wishes to go for another ride in the future.


The class 10 Madam Rides The Bus chapter summary presented here, is designed for students to easily comprehend and understand the meaning and other literary connotations while preparing for their board exams. 


Introduction to the Summary of Chapter Madam Rides the Bus


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The chapter "Madam Rides the Bus" is a short story about a brave eight-year-old Valli who lives near a bus stop. She likes the hustle of the street, and the treasured part was the sight of the arrival and departure of the bus, and thus, she developed an unbeatable desire and courage to fulfill her urge to travel and enjoy the ride on a bus. For this purpose, all sorts of information about the bus journey were collected, reducing all her expenses to save enough money for the two-way bus fare. She even planned accordingly such that Valli reached home before her mother woke up from her afternoon nap. Throughout the entire journey, she wants to feel independent. Thus, the story tells us how innocently but responsibly Valli fulfilled her wish and experience on the bus ride. She also realizes how an incident made her realize the reality of death. However, she still hopes to travel more, explore, and take another ride in the future.


Summary of Madam Rides the Bus

The Summary of Madam Rides the Bus illustrates a sensitive story about a little Tamil girl Valliammai, who is only eight years old. The little girl with no friends to play with and curious to explore the outside world keeps looping in her favorite pastime of standing at the doorway and watches the happenings on the street outside lost in the wish to travel by a bus journey. She would watch people board the bus and travel between her village and the nearest town and the rushing of the passengers filled her with a sense of eternal joy. She developed a strong urge to travel and experience the pleasure of a bus ride and started collecting all the necessary information about the bus timings through eavesdropping on travelers’ conversations. Valli learned that the bus travels to the nearest town, approximately six miles from her town, and a thirty paise fare for one way. Valli started saving around sixty paise to take a ride on the bus.


Valli planned to take the bus and travel one afternoon while her mother was still napping. As the bus arrives, she tells the conductor she would like to visit the town, and the conductor jovially calls her madam and ushers her to the seat. She notices the green and white stripes of the bus with comfortable seats and luxurious. She gets amused at how the driver blows the whistle when a young cow that runs wildly in front of the bus crosses the road, and to her, It was like a dream come true for her.


However, the landscape became her prime focus, and finally, when the bus started getting empty, the conductor asked her to get down too but to which she replied that she was there for the bus ride. Soon, the conductor asked her if she would like to walk around and explore the stalls in the town, but she replied telling him that she had limited money for which she needed to take the return bus ride. Valli collects her return ticket from the conductor, and on her way back she notices that the same cow that ran wildly in front of her bus during her onward journey to the town lay dead by the roadside. The sight of the dead bleeding cow made her understand the meaning of life in her terms and death and made her heart cry out. After the bus dropped her at the bus stop, she returned home and did not share a word about her adventurous bus trip that she had taken all by herself, without their knowledge.


Lessons to Learn from Valli

  • Be Curious Like Valli

Valli is the main character of the chapter madam rides the bus written by the author vallikannan. Valli is an eight-year-old girl wanting to travel and explore new places as she feels stuck and bored in a small town. Her eagerness to explore new places should be admired. Valli is curious to know what is out there in the world, her curiosity aids her imagination. If we aren't curious, we would stop exploring and eventually stop learning. Curiosity aids learning. Had Not been explored, she would never have found out about the beautiful trees, the blue sky, and the real-life pain of the death of the cow. 

  • Save Money Like Valli.

For a trip on the bus, that cost 30 paise for one way, Valli calculated and recalculated, planned, and saved money so she could afford the trip. Valli teaches to be calculative when it comes to money and saving is always a good idea.

  • With a Little Planning, the Desired Wish Can Come True!

Valli had a burning desire to take a ride on the bus. She not only dreamt about it but also took action to make it come true. She asked around for the information, collected information, saved money to be able to afford it, and not only that when the time came she acted on it. Valli teaches to dream and work on the dreams for they will come true.

  • Enjoy Along The Way

Valli enjoys her ride back and forth. She is so excited not about the destination but about the journey itself. Often when we think of going somewhere or doing something, we are lost in the end destination or result and concentrate too little on how we got there. The real fun lies there, to enjoy the journey, and Valli teaches us just that.

FAQs on Madam Rides the Bus Summary: A Story by Vallikkannan

1. Give a Brief Introduction on the Madam Rides the Bus Class 10 Chapter.

The chapter-Madam Rides the Bus is a sensitive story of a little eight-year-old named Valliammai. Valli finds the outside world all fascinating and charming, and she longs to experience the world all by herself. She eavesdrops on the traveller's conversation and saves sixty paise for a two-way ride and notices the illustrations on the bus and devours every scenic natural beauty with her eyes. Little Valli gets amused to see a cow running widely on the road ahead of the bus. However, while returning, she notices the dead bleeding of the cow that made her understand the meaning of life in her terms. She returned home in time, and no one knew about her adventurous journey.

2. Write a Short Brief about the Author Vallikannan.

Vallikannan is the pseudonym of R. S. Krishnasamy, a Tamil journalist, writer, translator, and critic from Tamil Nadu, India. Vallikannan pursued his dream of writing at a very young age and has published five books by the age of thirty. He wrote a total of 75 novels, poetry collections, novellas, plays and essay anthologies under other pseudonyms "Naiyandi Bharathi" and "Koranathan". He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award Tamil for his critical work on the modern Tamil poetry Pudhu Kavithaiyin Thotramum Valarchiyum, which means 'The birth and growth of Modern Tamil Poetry' in the year 1978. However, he also worked for magazines like Grama Oozhiyan, Cinema Ulagam, Hanuman, and Navasakthi.

3. What was Valli’s deepest desire? Describe it.

Valli lived in a small village. She was only eight years old and was very fascinated by the bus that traveled between her village and the nearby town. She would stare at the bus longingly for it to arrive. Day by day her wish of getting on that bus grew. It turned into an overwhelming desire. She spent all day watching people get on and off that bus. 


For many days and even months, Valli listened to the stories and conversations of her neighbors and people who traveled through the bus.


She would too ask a few questions regarding the bus. This is how she collected small details of the bus and about the journey. The bus took forty-five minutes to reach the nearby town, which was around six miles from her village. Valli also found out that the bus conductor would charge thirty paise for one way ride on the bus. Valli’s small wish became her deepest desire. All Valli could think about was the joy of the bus ride. She longed to get on that bus and take a look at how the world looks from the window of a bus.

4. Describe the bus experience Valli had in detail?

One afternoon, when Valli finally had collected all the required information about the bus and the fare, she decided to take the plunge. Valli ran towards the bus as it was leaving the town on the main road. She raised her hand and shouted, “stop the bus!” to make it stop. The bus slowly stopped and the conductor asked her to get in. Valli hopped onto the bus and chose an empty seat to settle down. As the bus journey began, Valli saw that the road was rather narrow. On one side of the bus were luscious palm trees, mountains, and deep blue sky, and on the other side of the bus were green fields stretched across the horizon as far as the eyes could see. It all seemed surreal to Valli. Nature was indeed beautiful.


After the stop near the town, Valli saw a cow that was in the middle of the road. She was glad to see it. The was rather terrified of the moving vehicles, so it started running. The bus slowed down and the driver started honking, signaling the cow to move. On the way to her village again, she saw the same young cow lying on the side of the road. It was struck by a fast-moving vehicle and was laying there lifeless, spreading its legs. Valli was devastated. She thought to herself that the bus ride was supposed to be filled with happiness, this should not have happened. What a sad ending to this bus journey she thought. 


Her journey was a combination of good and bad things. It started enthusiastically and then a small incident reminded her of the tragedies of life. In the end, Valli picked up enthusiasm again as she bid goodbye to the conductor and returned to her home.