NCERT Book Class 11 English (Woven Words) Short Stories 5 Pappachi's Moth

56 Woven Words

5 Pappachi’s Moth
Arundhati Roy

F Guess the meaning of the following expressions from the context

ignominy of retirement conical corneas
slouch around weaving
sullen circles entomologist
taxonomic reshuffle lepidopterists
pernicious ghost

Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon
after Pappachi retired from government service in Delhi
and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society
was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of
her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold
quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders
than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she
decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found
herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was
having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He
was seventeen years older than Mammachi and realised
with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was
still in her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was
already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with
the pickle-making, because he did not consider pickle-
making a suitable job for a high-ranking ex-government
official. He had always been a jealous man so he greatly
resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting. He
slouched around the compound in his immaculately tailored
suits, weaving sullen circles around mounds of red chillies
and freshly powdered yellow turmeric, watching Mammachi
supervise the buying, the weighing, the salting and drying,