Poem 9 - The Accidental Tourist

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About the Story:

This story is a tale of humour and is based on an incident that had happened with the writer. The protagonist tries to act sophisticated but instead ends up acting clumsy, spilling drinks on people and smearing the faces of the guests with ink. All in all, he creates a complete mess and makes an utter fool of himself.

Summary

In the prose, “The accidental tourist” by Bill Bryson, the author starts by narrating an incident that took place in his life, where he acted the most clumsy and made a complete fool of himself. In the story, the writer comes across many such embarrassing moments in his life only while travelling by air.

On one occasion, he ended up spilling his drinks on a co-passenger. On another time, he tried to present his card to the clerk, but he refused to give him the points. Once the writer had tried to bring his bag down, and for some reason, some articles fell out, a few minutes later, everything was in complete chaos.

Another humorous incident that happened with the writer was during a trip when he ended up messing his chin, teeth, and gum with ink. The writer’s face turned navy blue, and he had to walk around with that look for quite some time.

On another occasion, the writer had to bend down to tie his shoelace, when suddenly the seat in front ended up reclining, and the protagonist got his head stuck.  There were several other such incidents like- his table was in a complete mess when he ate and it appeared as if an earthquake had come suddenly, of which no one was aware of. The family of the protagonist had gotten used to it and were alert at all times to avoid such situations.

So, in the end, the writer came down to the only solution he could think of. From then onwards, whenever he travelled, he decided to keep his hands entirely to himself, to avoid causing a problem and embarrassing himself. However, he couldn’t even manage to get his Airmiles, and therefore lost his chance to travel to Bali cost-free. Later, he concluded that it was a good thing that it happened as he thought to himself that remaining without food on a long flight was kind of impossible for him.

Find more information and explanation on this chapter, refer to NCERT Solution for Class 9 English Moments Chapter 9 at UrbanPro.