One Centimetre (Bi Shu-Min) — NCERT Solutions

The story shows that a child's view is direct and sincere. Xiao Ye believes a promise must be kept, and a ticket is a real sign of a proper ride. He reacts strongly to the height rule and to being measured because he takes everything exactly as it appears. Tao Ying, however, sees the social side of things: money, shame, appearance, and how others will judge her. This contrast highlights the difference between childish innocence and adult complexity.

There is a clear gap between appearance and reality in Tao Ying's life. She wants to seem gentle, gracious, and morally upright before her son and others, even though she is a working-class woman under financial pressure. She avoids dishonest acts when Xiao Ye may notice them, because she wants him to see a perfect mother. This contrast between what she is and what she wishes to seem is one of the story's main themes.

The first sentence introduces Tao Ying as someone who does not always pay bus fare when travelling alone. This small act of evasion sets up the story's larger concern with ethics, self-interest, and appearance. It also creates irony, because the woman who sometimes avoids paying later becomes obsessed with being honest in front of her child. Thus the opening sentence is a compact preview of the whole theme.

The portrayal of Tao Ying is realistic. The author shows her with mixed motives: caring, proud, practical, anxious, and sometimes self-contradictory. She is neither idealised nor condemned outright; instead, she is presented as a believable human being caught between love for her child and the pressures of daily life.

The story brings out the mixed, ambivalent ethics of human life through several episodes. Tao Ying sometimes evades bus fares, yet she later insists on fairness and honesty for her son's sake. She first tries to exploit the child-height rule, but when the situation becomes public she worries about dignity and truth. The temple officials also embody this ambiguity: they investigate and compensate her, but the compensation cannot erase the original humiliation. These episodes show that ethics in real life is often mixed with convenience, pride, and self-protection.

The story has strong unity of thought because all its incidents are connected with one central concern: a child's height and what it means to a mother. The bus scene, the temple scene, the measurements, the dispute, and the later apology all circle around this same idea. The narrative does not wander; instead, each episode deepens the same emotional and moral conflict. That makes the technique very effective.

The story uses many similes and metaphors to make its images vivid.

Simile examples:

• ballooning up like a tent — jacket and tent.
• hair looks as fluffy as a bundle of straw — hair and straw.
• shiny, glistening like the smooth curved back of a sea shell — nails and shell.
• stamping on the floor as if it were a tin drum — floor and drum.
• like a paper windmill — the sound of the tickets and a windmill.
• the red line ... looks like an earthworm — line and earthworm.

Metaphor examples:

• the door to life itself — the soft spot on the head is treated as a door.
• melt the ice in her son’s eyes — emotional coldness is treated as ice.
• a strand of silk unwinding towards him — her gaze is compared to silk.
• the yellow tape ... a poisonous viper — the tape is treated as a snake.

These comparisons are made either explicitly with like/as if or implicitly by calling one thing another.

The words that can be used as both a noun and a verb are conduct, protest, permit, progress, and desert.

For these words, the stress falls on the first syllable when they are used as nouns, and on the second syllable when they are used as verbs.

Yes, there is a change in pronunciation of the first syllable. When these words are used as nouns, the first syllable is usually pronounced more strongly; when used as verbs, it is often weaker.

Rhyming examples for the first syllable pronunciation:

• conduct → con as in conflict
• protest → pro as in problem
• permit → per as in person
• progress → pro as in problem
• desert → de as in deserve