all questions and answers of the portrait of a lady
Answers
1. Mention the three phases of the author's relationship with his grandmother before he left the country to study abroad.
Answer:
(i) For the author, Khushwant Singh, his grandmother, like everybody's grandmother, was an old woman who could never be young and pretty but was always beautiful. Her presence always exuded peace and contentment. (ii) When the auhor's parents went to live in the city and left him with his grandmother, she took utmost care of him right from waking him up in the morning, to getting him ready for the school, taking him to and bringing him back from the school. Both enjoyed an easy companionship. (iii) The author's parents asked for them to come to the city. This was the time when Khushwant Singh's relationship with his grandmother changed. The author went to a city school and subsequently, to the university, and slowly the friendship between them weakened.
2. Mention three reasons why the author's grandmother was disturbed when he started going to school?
Answer:
(i) The lessons taught in the city school were in English and the topics such as little things of Western science, law of gravity etc were all beyond grandmother's comprehension. She could not help her grandson with his lessons so, she was unhappy. (ii) She had no faith in the things that were taught in the English school and was distressed that there was no teaching about God and scriptures. (iii) She was very unhappy when she came to know that music lessons were taught in her grandson's school. She always associated music with harlots and beggars and not with gentle folk.
3. Mention three ways in which the author's grandmother spent her days after he grew up.
Answer:
(i) The author's grandmother rarely left her spinning wheel. From sunrise to sunset, she sat by her spinning wheel. (ii) While she sat by her spinning wheel, she recited her prayers and did not talk to anyone. (iii) In the afternoon, she relaxed for a while to feed the sparrows. While she sat on the verandah breaking the bread into little bits, hundreds of little birds collected surrounding her.
4. Mention the odd way in which the author's grandmother behaved just before she died.
Answer:
Just before the day the grandmother died, a change came upon her. She did not pray in the evening. She got an old drum and started singing for her grandson, which went on for hours. Next morning, she was taken ill. The doctor thought nothing of it but the grandmother thought differently. She told everyone that her end was near and since her end was near, she would spend last of her living moments in prayer and would not waste her time in talking to anyone. She lay peacefully in bed praying and before anyone could suspect, her lips stopped moving. She passed away peacefully.
5. Mention the way in which the sparrows expressed their sorrow when the author's grandmother died.
Answer:
In the evening, when the author and his family members went where grandmother's body was lying, they saw thousands of sparrows sitting scattered on the floor. There was no chirruping. The author's mother offered some bread to them, but the sparrows took no notice. After the grandmother's corpse was taken, the sparrows flew away quietly.