Dept.

of H&SS, IIT Bombay

M.A.RES. Admissions Test (MAAT)
SAMPLE PAPER

Dear Candidate,
1. This is a sample test paper. While the overall scope and question format of the test will remain
the same, the instructions and other details may change for the final exam. So please read the
instructions and questions carefully on the day of the exam.
2. Please check the H&SS website and your email regularly for any updates. You will receive
instructions about the online platform on which you will take the exam.
3. Please make sure that you have provided us your current mobile phone number and email
address. Should these change, let the department office know at the earliest. Since this is an
online exam, your contact details are important and you are responsible for the accuracy of this
information.
4. If you have any questions, you may write to the department office (office.hss@iitb.ac.in).

MA.Res Exam Committee,

Dept. of H&SS, IIT Bombay

Instructions:

1. Two passages are given below. Please read them carefully and answer the questions that follow.
You are expected to analyse the passages and answer the questions with strict reference to the
information, ideas and arguments as contained in the two texts.
2. There are three sections to the question paper of 10 marks each.
a. Section A – Short answers: 5 compulsory questions requiring short answers
(5x2marks). Word limit: 50-75 words (2-3 sentences).
b. Section B – Paragraph answers: You are expected to answer any TWO (2x5 marks) of the
three questions. Word limit: 200 words (half a page).
c. Section C – Essay answers: You are expected to answer only ONE (1x10 marks) of the
two questions. Word limit: 500 words (1-2 pages).
3. When writing your answers:
a. Do not exceed the word limits given.
b. Number your answers to match the questions you answer.
c. Do not attempt more questions than required.
d. Use only A4 size blank paper and leave a one-inch margin on the left side and on top of
the page.
e. Use only a blue or black pen and make sure that your writing is legible and clear.
f. If you need to strike out parts of an answer, please do so clearly and rewrite the answer.
Do not write over existing lines.
4. You are advised to write your roll number on the top of every page you submit.
5. You are required to upload the images of the answer sheets Section-wise; do not upload all at
once.

Sample Paper/MAAT/1
PASSAGE 1:
Excerpted/adapted from In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan by Syed Mujtaba Ali
(Speaking Tiger Publisher, translated from Bengali by Nazes Afroz, 2015)

I bought a pair of shorts from Chandini market for nine sikka before I boarded the train. In those days
smart Bengalis travelling by train often made full use of a facility called the ‘European Third’.
I was boarding that ‘Third’ when an Anglo-Indian shouted, ‘This is only for Europeans.’
I barked back, ‘Can’t see any European here. So let’s relax and spread our legs in this empty carriage.’
Comparative linguists say that if you add ‘ng’ at the end of a Bengali word, it would sound like Sanskrit;
similarly, if you put emphasis on the first syllable of a word, that will make it sound like the Queen’s
English. Meaning, accentuating on the first syllable is like putting too much chilli powder in Indian food
to hide all evidence of bad cooking. Simply put, this was barking English. The Anglo-Indian was a native
of Taltola, a cosmopolitan neighbourhood in central Calcutta. He was so impressed by my English that he
instantly started helping me with my luggage. I left the job of bargaining with the porter to him. His
entire family had worked for the Indian railways for generations, they knew how to deal with station
porters.
Meanwhile, my enthusiasm for the journey was fast fading. I had been so busy arranging my passport,
buying clothes and packing that I did not have the time to think about anything else. A most cowardly
thought crept into my mind soon after the train left―I was alone.
The Anglo-Indian was a good man. Guessing that I was feeling low he asked, ‘Why do you look so
depressed? Going far?’
I realised that he knew the rules of etiquette. He did not ask, ‘Where are you going?’ I had learned most
of my lessons in etiquette from a padre. He had taught me that it was proper to ask, ‘Going far?’, as you
could say yes or no―or anything you liked, if you wanted to respond. ‘Where are you going’ was like
facing interrogation by Elysium Rowe ―you had to give an answer; there was no escape, and that would
be rude.
I started chatting to him, which proved to be quite fruitful. Soon after it was dark, he opened a huge
basket and joked that his fianceé has cooked enough food to feed a whole army. I said hesitantly that I
too had some food but it was native fare and may be too hot for him. After some debate, it was decided
that there would be brotherly division and we would eat à la carte.
My eyeballs froze in their sockets as he started to lay out his food. The same seekh kabab, the same
Dhaka paratha, murgh musallam, meat-with-potato. I had brought the same from Zakaria Street. My
menu matched his exactly―no shami kebab instead of seekh, no meat-with-cabbage in place of
meat-with-potato. I said, ‘Brother, I have no fianceé and I bought all of it from a hotel in Zakaria Street.’
It tasted the same too. The Anglo-Indian kept looking out of the window pensively while eating. I
vaguely remembered a chubby Anglo-Indian woman coming into the hotel when I was buying my food
and ordering everything that was available. I thought of asking him to give a description of his fianceé,
but chose not to. It would do no good; besides he was drinking some smelly coloured liquid from a
bottle. He was Anglo-Indian after all; who could guarantee that his mood would not change.
It got darker. I did not eat much as I was not hungry. I was not sleepy either. It was a moonlit night.
Through the window I could clearly see that the land we were passing through was not Bengal, there
were no betel-nut trees or villages lush with mango and jackfruit orchards, only a few houses scattered
here and there. There was no pond. People were lifting water from high-walled wells. The wet-smell
from the earth of Bengal had evaporated and sand and dust from the scorched earth was whirling
around carried by a sudden gust of wind slapping you on the face. What would this land look like in
daylight if this were its face in this semi-darkness? Was this western India? The fertile-green-India? No
it was not. When Bankim mentioned the voices of thirty koti people in fertile-green-India, he meant
Bengal. It would be a joke to say that the west was fertile and green. Suddenly I saw Haren Ghosh from
our neighbourhood standing by me. What? Yes! It was our Haren all right! How come? And he was
singing, ‘Thirty Koti, thirty koti, koti koti―’
No, it was the ticket checker―come to check tickets. He was not singing ‘Koti, koti’; he was shouting
‘ticket, ticket’.

Sample Paper/MAAT/2
PASSAGE 2:
Excerpted/adapted from BR Ambedkar’s A childhood journey to Koregaon becomes a nightmare,
(1935/6)
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_waiting.html1
[This] incident, which I am recording as well as I can remember, occurred in about 1901, when we were
at Satara. My mother was then dead. My father was away on service as a cashier at a place called
Koregaon in Khatav Taluka in the Satara District, where the Government of Bombay had started the
work of excavating a Tank ...
…Being a cashier, my father could not leave his station to come to Satara to see us; therefore he wrote to
us to come to Koregaon and spend our summer vacation with him. We children were thoroughly excited
over the prospect, especially as none of us had up to that time seen a railway train.
Great preparations were made. New shirts of English make, bright bejewelled caps, new shoes, new
silk-bordered dhoties, were ordered for the journey. My father had given us all the particulars regarding
our journey, and had told us to inform him on which day we were starting, so that he would send his
peon to the Railway Station to meet us and to take us to Koregaon. According to this arrangement
myself, my brother, and one of my sister's sons left Satara ...
The Railway Station was ten miles distant from our place, and a tonga … was engaged to take us to the
Station. We were dressed in the new clothing specially made for the occasion, and we left our home full
of joy…
When we reached the station my brother bought tickets, and gave me and my sister's son two annas
each as pocket money, to be spent at our pleasure. We at once began our career of riotous living, and
each ordered a bottle of lemonade at the start. … We were told to detrain at Masur, the nearest railway
station for Koregaon.
The train arrived at Masur at about five in the evening, and we got down with our luggage. In a few
minutes all the passengers who had got down from the train had gone away to their destinations. We
four children remained on the platform, looking out for my father or his servant whom he had promised
to send. Long did we wait--but no one turned up. An hour elapsed, and the station-master came to
enquire. …
We told him that we were bound for Koregaon, and that we were waiting for father or his servant to
come... We were well-dressed children. From our dress or talk no one could make out that we were
children of the untouchables. Indeed, the station-master was quite sure we were Brahmin children, and
was extremely touched at the plight in which he found us.
As is usual among the Hindus, the station-master asked us who we were. Without a moment's thought I
blurted out that we were Mahars. … He was stunned. … We could see that he was overpowered by a
strange feeling of repulsion. As soon as he heard my reply he went away to his room, and we stood
where we were. Fifteen to twenty minutes elapsed; the sun was almost setting. Our father had not
turned up, nor had he sent his servant; and now the station-master had also left us. We were quite
bewildered, and the joy and happiness which we had felt at the beginning of the journey gave way to a
feeling of extreme sadness.
After half an hour, the station-master returned and asked us what we proposed to do. We said that if we
could get a bullock-cart on hire, we would go to Koregaon; and if it was not very far, we would like to
start straightway. There were many bullock-carts plying for hire. But my reply to the station-master that
we were Mahars had gone round among the cartmen, and not one of them was prepared to suffer being
polluted, and to demean himself carrying passengers of the untouchable classes. We were prepared to
pay double the fare, but we found that money did not work.
The station-master who was negotiating on our behalf stood silent, not knowing what to do. Suddenly a
thought seemed to have entered his head and he asked us, "Can you drive the cart?" …, we shouted,
"Yes, we can." With that answer he went and proposed on our behalf that we were to pay the cartman
double the fare and drive the cart, and that he should walk on foot along with the cart on our journey.
One cartman agreed, since it gave him an opportunity to earn his fare and also saved him from being
polluted.

1
Accessed on 01.05.2022

Sample Paper/MAAT/3
It was about 6:30 p.m. [and] the cartman … assured us that it would [take] not more than three hours.
Believing in his word, … One of us took the reins and the cart started, with the man walking by our side.
Not very far from the station there flowed a river. It was quite dry [and] the cart[man] proposed that we
should halt there and have our meal, as we might not get water on our way. We agreed. … My brother
gave him some money and he left, promising to return soon. We were very hungry, and … opened the
tiffin basket and started eating.
We needed water to wash things down. … But the water really was no water. It was thick with mud and
urine and excreta of the cows and buffaloes and other cattle who went to the pool for drinking. … We
had therefore to close our meal before we were satisfied, and wait for the arrival of the cartman. He did
not come for a long time, and all that we could do was to look for him in all directions.
Ultimately he came, and we started on our journey. For some four or five miles we drove the cart and he
walked on foot. Then he suddenly jumped into the cart and took the reins from our hand. We thought
this to be rather strange conduct on the part of a man who had refused to let the cart on hire for fear of
pollution … but we dared not ask him any questions on the point. …
But soon there was darkness all around us. There were no street lights to relieve the darkness. There
were no men or women or even cattle passing by, to make us feel that we were in their midst. We
became fearful of the loneliness which surrounded us. Our anxiety was growing. …
We started asking him how far Koregaon was, and why we were so late in reaching it. He kept on saying,
"It is not very far, we shall soon reach it." It was about 10:00 at night when, finding that there was no
trace of Koregaon, we children started crying and abusing the cartman. …
Suddenly we saw a light burning at some distance. The cartman said, "Do you see that light? That is a
light of the toll-collector. We will rest there for the night." We felt some relief. … It took us two hours to
reach the toll-collector's hut. …
Ultimately by midnight the cart reached the toll-collector's hut. … When we arrived we saw a large
number of bullock-carts there, all resting for the night. We were extremely hungry, and wanted very
much to eat. But again there was the question of water. So we asked our driver whether it was possible
to get water. He warned us that the toll-collector was a Hindu, and that there was no possibility of our
getting water if we spoke the truth and said that we were Mahars. He said, "Say you are Mohammedans
and try your luck."
On his advice I went to the toll-collector's hut and asked him if he would give us some water. "Who are
you?" he inquired. I replied that we were Musalmans. … But the trick did not work and his reply was
very curt. "Who has kept water for you? There is water on the hill, if you want to go and get it; I have
none." With this he dismissed me. I returned to the cart, and conveyed to my brother his reply. [He told]
us to lie down.
… Now that we had come to a place of safety we did not mind what happened. But our minds could not
help turning to the latest event. There was plenty of food with us. There was hunger burning within us;
with all this we were to sleep without food; that was because we could get no water, and we could get no
water because we were untouchables. Such was the last thought that entered our mind. …
[W]e left at eight [in the morning]and reached Koregaon at eleven. My father was surprised to see us,
and said that he had received no intimation of our coming. …
This incident has a very important place in my life. I was a boy of nine when it happened. But it has left
an indelible impression on my mind. Before this incident occurred, I knew that I was an untouchable,
and that untouchables were subjected to certain indignities and discriminations. For instance, I knew
that in the school I could not sit in the midst of my classmates according to my rank [in class
performance], but that I was to sit in a corner by myself. … Washing was done by my sisters because we
were untouchables and no washerman would wash the clothes of an untouchable. …. The work of
shaving and hair-cutting was done by my sister because we were untouchables, and no barber would
consent to shave an untouchable.
All this I knew. But this incident gave me a shock such as I had never received before, and it made me
think about untouchability – which, before this incident happened, was with me a matter of course, as it
is with many touchables as well as the untouchables.

Sample Paper/MAAT/4
 QUESTION PAPER

SECTION A: SHORT ANSWERS (5x2 marks)

Word limit: 50-75 words (2-3 sentences)
1. What does the author want you to infer or conclude from the following lines:
Soon after it was dark, he opened a huge basket and joked that his fianceé has
cooked enough food to feed a whole army. I said hesitantly that I too had some food
but it was native fare and may be too hot for him. [...] The same seekh kabab, the
same Dhaka paratha, murgh musallam, meat-with-potato. I had brought the same
from Zakaria Street. My menu matched his exactly―no shami kebab instead of
seekh, no meat-with-cabbage in place of meat-with-potato. I said, ‘Brother, I have no
fianceé and I bought all of it from a hotel in Zakaria Street.’
2. What is the single most important insight that young Ambedkar gains on this journey?
3. Use any one passage to highlight the impact of clothing on social interactions.
4. What according to Dr. Ambedkar is the relationship between an individual’s economic and caste
positions?
5. When the toll master asks young Ambedkar to go up the mountain to get water, is there any
indication in the passage that he knew that this was an impossible task?.

SECTION B: Answer any TWO (2x5 marks) each

Word limit: 200 words (half a page)
1. What are the changes in landscape that Syed Mujtaba Ali describes and what conclusions does he
draw from them?
2. Examine the preparation for the journey and the accompanying anticipation with the later
outcomes in Passage 2.
3. What does food signify in each of the two passages?

SECTION C: Answer any ONE (1x10 marks)

Word limit: 500 words (1-2 pages)
1. In the passages, when and how do an individual’s social attributes such as caste, class, language,
gender, race and age become significant?
2. Identify the various emotions as they arise in the passages. Choose two and, for each, describe the
context of the emotion and how the individuals involved deal with that emotion.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

GUIDE TO ANSWERS, EXAMPLES

SECTION A:
For Q2 in Section A, your answer will be expected to include the following
The author/narrator wants his reader to conclude/infer from the identical nature of his
Anglo-Indian co-passenger’s food that the co-passengers’ fianceé had bought all of it from
the same hotel in Zakaria Street from which he had bought his ‘native fare’.

SECTION B:
For Q1 in Section B, your answers will be expected to touch on the following
a. The changes in landscape become evident from their difference from his native Bengal: ‘no
betel-nut trees or villages lush with mango and jackfruit orchards, only a few houses scattered
here and there. There was no pond.’ In other words, the changes are marked by the absence of
familiar trees and geographical features.
b. The increasing difference along the railway journey is further marked in terms of the ‘wet-smell
from the earth’ of Bengal, which is contrasted with the ‘sand and dust from the scorched
earth…whirling around…slapping you on the face.’ Ali tells us that this changed landscape is
‘western India’.
c. Using this contrast between images of a well-irrigated and fertile Bengal and a dry and arid
western India, Ali transitions to a phrase from Bankim’s poem which spoke about ‘thirty koti
people in fertile-green-India’.
Sample Paper/MAAT/5
 d. The reference to ‘thirty koti people’ suggests that this phrase evokes the Indian masses,
associating the people with the fertile land.
e. Yet, Ali uses the aridity of western India to conclude that Bankim’s image of the ‘thirty koti
people in fertile-green-India’ could not have referred to people from all parts of the Indian
subcontinent, but to Bengal alone.

SECTION C:
For Q1 in Section C, your answers will be expected to touch on the following
a. Children facing up to an unequal world, vulnerable without adult
mediation/softening/protection - that their being children does not protect them.
b. The expected cultural tendency to assist children in distress is avoided. This can be contrasted
with the adult Ali’s deft manoeuvring of racial discrimination.
c. A discussion of caste discrimination going beyond economic standing; and racial
discrimination/stereotyping.
d. Mujtaba Ali draws some generalisations about Anglo-Indians--referring to alcohol and swift
changes in mood; Ambedkar refers to himself in the first instance using caste and in the second
using religion – both these paragraphs indicate the use of communities (caste-religion) and
identities and general perceptions or generalisations.
e. In both passages the seating of the person be it the compartment of the train or location in the
classroom is decided based on caste and race
f. In both passages, initial impressions are based on appearance: in Mujtaba Ali’s experience he
shows a social affinity or familiarity with the Anglo-Indian due to his proficiency in English
(politeness/etiquette); in Ambedkar’s experience he states that from their dress and speech the
station master could not identify them as Mahar; once the station master is aware of their caste
his attitude towards them shifts from sympathy to disinterest.

(End)

Sample Paper/MAAT/6