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प्रश्न
Thinking about the Poem
Is the poet now a child? Is his mother still alive?
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उत्तर
No, the poet is not a child now. He is a grown up man. He remembers her when he is inside his cosy cottage and enjoy the pattern of rain on the roof.
संबंधित प्रश्न
Thinking about the Poem
Do you think that the old lady would have been so ungenerous if she had known who Saint Peter really was? What would she have done then?
Look for information on how to find out whether a snake is harmful.
After reading the poem answer the following questions.
The poet has used a number of words which indicate 'movement' and 'sound'. Working
with your partner make a list of these words from the poem and complete the web chart.
(c.) A word or a combination of words, whose sound seems to resemble the sound it
denotes (for example: "hiss", "buzz", "etc.) is called onomatopoeia. From the words that
you have filled in the blurbs above point out these words.
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs;
The first man held his back.
For on the faces around the fire,
He noticed one was black.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
Explain the symbolism used by the poet.
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe^ and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts’that once filled them and still lover this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What is the condition laid by the speaker before he accepts the white man’s proposition?
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening— the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.
One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing. She crept along trembling with cold and hunger—a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Had she managed to sell any matches?
From the day, perhaps a hundred years ago when he sun had hatched him in a sandbank, and he had broken his shell, and got his head out and looked around, ready to snap at anything, before he was even fully hatched-from that day, when he had at once made for the water, ready to fend for himself immediately, he had lived by his brainless craft and ferocity. Escaping the birds of prey and the great carnivorous fishes that eat baby crocodiles, he has prospered, catching all the food he needed, and storing it till putrid in holes in the bank. Tepid water to live in and plenty of rotted food grew him to his great length. Now nothing could pierce the inch-?thick armoured hide. Not even rifle bullets,
which would bounce off. Only the eyes and the soft underarms offered a place. He lived well in the river, sunning himself sometimes with other crocodiles-muggers, as well as the long-? snouted fish-?eating gharials-on warm rocks and sandbanks where the sun dried the clay on them quite white, and where they could plop off into the water in a moment if alarmed. The big crocodile fed mostly on fish, but also on deer and monkeys come to drink, perhaps a duck or two.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What protected him now? How?
Discuss the following topic in groups.
Do you think there is life on other planets? Can you guess what kind of people there may be on them? In what ways are they likely to be different from us?
Describe the hermit in one or two sentences.
Compare how the music teacher played the violin with that of Lalli’s.
What was the king’s reaction when he came to know that he had lost the challenge?
Why the author called those boots bought from big firm ‘ill-omened’?
Why was Tilloo escorted back home?
How did the king reach the rishi’s ashram? Why did the two birds behave with the king differently?
Discuss the question in pairs before you write the answer.
Who did he first choose as his master? Why did he leave that master?
Now complete these sentences about your house and home.
(i) My house is ____________.
(ii) The best thing about my home is ____________.
Multiple Choice Question:
Which word means the same as “in a very bad shape, torn’.
Answer the following question:
Why did the Emperor reward Taro?
What exciting scene did the author enjoy from his platform in the banyan tree?
In the poem “Birches,” the poet observes that the birches are bent because ______.
