Answer any four of the following questions in 30 – 40 words each:
(a) What sort of pain does the poet feel in ‘My Mother at Sixty-six’?
(b) Why does Mr. Lamb say to Derry, ‘‘So you are not lost, are you? Not altogether?’’
(c) How did the peddler show his gratitude to Edla?
(d) What made the Lieutenant Governor drop all charges against Gandhiji?
(e) Why did Roger Skunk’s mother dislike the new smell? What does it tell us about mothers in general?
(f) Why did the Maharaja decide to double the land tax in a hillside village?
Answers
The correct answers are -
a. The poet feels the pain of insecurities and the health of her mother. The emotional ache and agony that the author feels is due to the fact that in her old age her mother is gone and has become frail and pale like a corpse. She relies on her family. The pain often applies to the childhood's centuries-old familiar suffering that revisits the writer due to mother's old age and her imminent death.
b. Mr. Lamb says this quote to Derry as he finds positivity and hope in Derry's attitude towards nature.He likes Mr. Lamb's garden and loves the rain and all these shows he still has some light left in his mind and hasn't given up on life yet. The fact that he is not completely lost in his mind's negativity but is simply scattered and that he must be guided to the light is what Mr. Lamb is talking about here.
c. As Edla Willmansson came home from Church the valet brought her a gift for her kindness and her trust in him provided by the peddler. Edla opened the package and found a small pick, and three wrinkled ten kronor notes. There was also a letter stating that as she has been nice to him all day long, he also wanted to be same. In return, as if I were a real captain, because I don't want you to be humiliated by a robber at this Christmas season; but you can give the money back to the old man on the side of the road who's got the money pouch hanging on the window frame as a lure for the poor wanderers.
d. In exasperation and rage, Maharaja doubled land tax after he failed to hunt the hundredth tiger near the village he had put his tent in. The Maharaja was overly concerned about completing his tally of killing hundred tigers. Ninety-nine tigers had already been captured. Only one tiger remained; however, he was unable to get this tiger. Then, the news that sheep and goats were missing near a village had reached him. He had come to this village to kill the last tiger, having found out that a tiger was behind those disappearances. In agitation he had declared land tax exemption for village people.