Read the following extract and answer the questions given below:
The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house
Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet
Its scraggly aerial roots fell to the ground
From thirty feet or more so first they cut the branches
Sawing them off for seven days and the heap was huge
Insects and birds began to leave the tree
And then they came to its massive trunk
Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped
The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years
We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter
As a raw mythology revealed to us its age
(1) What were the feelings of the family members at the felling of the banyan tree?
(2) Why, according to you, did insects and birds begin to leave the banyan tree?
(3) Find out an example of 'Repetition' from the extract.
(4) Pick out the line from the extract expressing the feelings of the people who watched the merciless cutting of the banyan
tree.
Solution
(1) The family members were upset as they watched the slaughter of the tree in terror.
(2) Insects and birds began to leave the banyan tree because the felling of the tree destroyed their nests, they were afraid of the axes and the loud noise of the workers.
(3) Fifty men with axes, chopped and chopped.
(4) We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter.
