Question

Answer any four  of the following questions in 30 - 40 words each:      

(a) What does the poet's smile in the poem, 'My Mother at Sixty-six' show?

(b) Listening to them, I see two distinct worlds ... ." In the context of Mukesh, the bangle maker's son, which two worlds is Anees Jung referring to ?

(c) Though the sharecroppers of Champaran received only one-fourth of the compensation, how can the Champaran struggle still be termed a huge success and victory?

(d) Which article in McLeery's suitcase played perhaps the most significant role in Evans' escape and how?

(e) Why does Derry’s mother not want him to go back to visit Mr. Lamb?

(f) What considerations influenced the Tiger King to get married?

Answer 1

a) When the poet reached the airport, she looked at her mother who was pale and old. She was suffering from aches of old age. The poet kept smiling and said, 'See you soon Amma'. The poet could do or say nothing much but smiled at her mother because she her mind was filled with thoughts and fear that she might not be able to see her mother alive the next time she visits the city. Her pain was reflected in her smile which was plain and devoid of real happiness. The poet was choked.
 
b) Anees Jung sees two distinct worlds — one of the family, caught in a web of poverty, burdened ​by the stigma of caste in which they are born; the other a vicious circle of the sahukars, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of law, the bureaucrats and the politicians. Together they impose the baggage on the child that he cannot put down. Before he is aware, he accepts it as naturally as his father. To do anything else would mean to dare. When he finds a spark of that daring in Mukesh he is cheered up. He believes that maybe one child would be able to break out of this vicious cycle.

c) The Champaran episode began as an attempt to alleviate the distress of poor peasants. Ultimately it proved to be a turning point in Gandhiji’s life because it was a loud proclaimation that made the British realise that Gandhiji could not be ordered about in his own country. It infused courage to question British authority in the masses and laid the foundation of non-cooperation as a new tool to fight the British tooth and nail.
 
d) Evans had arranged blood with the help of Mc Leery (Evans friends) through a semi inflated rubber ring. His friend had made an excuse that he was suffering from piles and could not sit at a particular position for a long time.
 
 
e) As rumours said ,Mr. Lamb was an enthusiastic interactor. This quality of his made the mother doubt on his intention. Thinking about the good of Derry, The concerned mother asked him not to return to him. Lamb lived alone in his house with windows and doors open.
 
 
f) The king did not seem to have paid much attention to his wife, his marriage had been an alliance formed to fulfil his objective of killing a hundred tigers and that is what he devoted his attention to. He married, not out of love, but to have more tigers to kill by forming an alliance with a neighbouring kingdom which had a considerable tiger population.