Q92Comprehension2 Marks22 Dec 2024
Passage
Read the following passage and answer the given subquestions:
"I had been puzzled too when I first discovered how much deference Robi commanded in college. It was hard to understand, for he did not excel particularly in any of the spheres which were held to confer distinction in that milieu: he was not unusually good at sports, just about good enough to keep a place in the college cricket eleven; he was good at his studies but not brilliant; he was not well dressed, not talented, nor in any way unlike a dozen others in our college, and yet, without his asking for it, barely seeming to notice, he commanded a respect immeasurably greater than the best sportsmen and the most brilliant students. It took me time to see that this respect was really a tribute to the superhuman simplicity of his view of the world: to the fact that he had no hesitation in making judgements -- because there were whole domains of conduct within which he would not admit the possibility of argument -- and no fear of defending them, because of his abundant physical courage. Once, for example, there was a great uproar in our college because a student had been expelled for some minor misdemeanour -- for asking a girl up to his room for a cup of tea or some such thing. The students' union was unanimous in calling for a strike. But Robi, alone in the whole college, refused to go along with everyone else; he didn't argue or make speeches, he merely refused to attend the union meetings. And when some of the union's leaders threatened to give him a beating, they found to their surprise that he was relieved at the prospect of settling the issue by a straightforward physical contest. Such was his standing in the college that eventually the leaders gave in and the strike was called off. Later I asked him: 'Why didn't you join the strike? Tell me, just as a matter of interest.' He wouldn't answer, so I asked him again, and then reluctantly he said: 'Because a rule's a rule; if you break one you have to be willing to pay the price.'" Extract from: The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
What did Robi say when asked why he wouldn't join the strike?