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प्रश्न
Who is the speaker in the poem Whatif? What is she worried about? Can you suggest ways to get rid of silly fears?
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उत्तर
The speaker in the poem is a girl. She is haunted by fears and worries. These are related to her safety. There is no sequence or substance in her fears. Such baseless and absurd fears trouble us when we go to bed. These are like frightening dreams, only a cowardly or weak minded person entertains such fears. One can get rid of them if one tells oneself firmly to shed all worries.
APPEARS IN
संबंधित प्रश्न
Thinking about the poem
Discuss what these phrases mean to you.
(i) a yellow wood
(ii) it was grassy and wanted wear
(iii) the passing there
(iv) leaves no step had trodden black
(v) how way leads on to way
Complete the following statement.
When she finished college, Santosh had to write a letter of apology to her father because _________
This poem describes the journey of a stream from its place of origin to the river that it joins. The poem has been written in the form of an autobiography where the brook relates its experiences as it flows towards the river. In Literature such a device by which an inanimate object is made to appear as a living creature is called Personification. Just as the brook has been personified in this poem, write a poem on any inanimate object making it come alive. You could begin with a poem of 6-8 lines. The poem should have a message. Maintain a rhyme scheme. Try and include similes, metaphors, alliteration etc. to enhance the beauty of the poem. You could write a poem on objects such as the candle/a tree/a rock/the desert etc.
This could be given as a homework activity. The teacher could read out some of the poems in the class and display the others.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see___
These things he plants who plants a tree.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow:
What is meant by the ‘forest’s heritage’?
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
Who was Peterkin?
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And,with a natural sigh,
"Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden,
For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men,"said he,
"Were slain in that great victory."
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
What does the tone of Kasper’s words suggest?
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.
How is every part of the soil sacred to his people?
Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass. “What’re you looking at ?” said William. Margot said nothing. “Speak when you’re spoken to.” He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
When did Margot react ?
So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future. “Get away 1” The boy gave her another push. “What’re you waiting for?”Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes. “Well, don’t wait around here !” cried the boy savagely. “You won’t see nothing!” Her lips moved. “Nothing 1” he cried. “It was all a joke, wasn’t it?” He turned to the other children. “Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?”
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
What is the ‘it’ referred to by William?
What is an oasis? How is it useful for desert plants?
What items of food did Golu take before leaving his home for the Limpopo river?
What was Purcell’s source of earning?
Do you find the poem humorous? Read aloud lines which make you laugh.
Answer the following question.
How does the hump of the camels help them to survive when there is no water?
Read the following line.
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
Can words crawl into your ear? This is an image. The poet is trying to make an image of what she/he experiences. Now with your partner try and list out some more images from the poem.
Match the sentences under I with those under II.
| I | II |
|
1. Jumman and Algu were the best of friends. |
1. He believed that his friend would never go against him. 2. She wanted justice. 3. In the absence of one, the other took care of his family. 4. The condition was that he would be responsible for her welfare. 5. The bond of friendship between him and Jumman was very strong. |
Replace the italicised portion of the sentence below with a suitable phrase from the box. Make necessary changes, wherever required.
Unfortunately, the train I was trying to catch was cancelled.
What is the condition of the window described in the poem?
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
| Brutus: | I did send to you For certain sums of gold, which you denied me; For I can raise no money by vile means: By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection. |
- To whom are these words addressed?
Why is Brutus angry with this person? [3] - How does this person feel when he hears these words?
What does he say to defend himself? [3] - Why did Brutus need ‘certain sums of gold’?
Why was he unable to raise these sums of money? [3] - Earlier in this scene, Brutus refers to Lucius Pella.
What had he been accused of?
Who had supported him and how? [3] - Mention any two aspects of Brutus’ character that are revealed in the above extract.
What do you understand about the relationship between Brutus and the person he addresses? [4]
Complete the following sentence by providing a reason.
In the poem, Telephone Conversation, the speaker resented the landlady asking him about the colour of his skin because ______.
