Question

Summary of the portrait of a lady by khushwant singh

Answer 1

Khushwant Singh draws here an interesting portrait of his grandmother. He presents her as a tender, loving and deeply religious old lady. Singh says that his grandmother was an old woman. She was so old that her face was wrinkled that at the present it was difficult to believe she would ever had been young and pretty. Her hair was white as snow. She had a little stoop in her back. She could be seeing reciting her rosary all the time. The author says that "she was like the winter landscape in the mountains and exponce of pure white serenity breathing peace and contentment."
                                                          A picture of author's grandfather was hung on the wall. He appeared too old and it was that he ever had a wife. He appeared to have only lots and lots of grandchildren. Singh was the only child at that time. His parents had gone to live in the city leaving him behind the village under the care of his grandmother. She would get him ready for school. The School as attached with a temple. All the children sat in the verandah reciting alphabets while his grandmother is engaged reading holy scriptures. Finally in the evening, the author and the grandmother would walk back home feeding the dogs. After a friendly relationship with his grandmother, he had to adopt a new life in the city. This itself was a turning point for the grandmother and the grandson. Both of them was sent for to settle down in the city with his parents. The author went to an English school but the grandmother never liked the way he was taught. Though Singh and his grandmother shared the same room, she was unable to help him. In due course, Singh went up to a University and because of that, he was given a separate room. This indeed made the common link of their relationship snapped down completely. The grandmother agreed the fact and she used to spin the wheel from sunrise to sunset to compensate that. Only during the afternoon she would relax by feeding the sparrows with little pieces of bread. They were her best friends and the sparrows also liked her company.

                                                          Later, Singh went up abroad for higher studies which was for 5 long years. He had a doubt in his mind that whether his grandmother may survive or not until he come back. After 5 years he came back, incredibly he was welcomed y his grandmother who was not grown  a single day older. Singh notices that even at this time when everyone is joyful about his return, grandmother's happiest moments was with her sparrows.
                                                         Later in the morning, grandmother's health deteriorates and she reveals that she was nearing her end. So she decides that she is not going to waste a single moment by talking so she prayed. Quite suddenly, the rosary falls from her hand and she exhaled her last breath and it was clear that she was no more. After making the preparations for the funeral, the family members went to fetch her body for the last journey. And to pay the last homage to the grandmother, thousands of sparrows gathered in and around her room. The sparrows never did cheered nor did they do anything normal. They don't even bother to notice the read pieces thrown at them. Along with her funeral, the sparrows flew away.

Answer 2

The chapter ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ is the story of the author and his grandmother. The grandmother was an old woman with a wrinkled face. The author had always seen her like this, for the past twenty years. She appeared to be so old that he could not imagine her being ‘young and pretty’, someone who had a husband. She was short, fat and slightly bent. The author had seen his grandfather’s portrait- an old man with a turban and a long white beard covering his chest. To the author, his grandfather didn’t seem like a man who could have a wife and children, but someone who could have lots of grandchildren. His grandmother used to move around the house in ‘Spotless White’ with her one hand resting on her waist and her other hand counting the beads of her rosary.  In the initial days, the author and his grandmother had a good relationship. She used to wake him up and get him ready for school. She used to pack the things required by him for the day and walked him to school everyday. She used to visit the temple that was attached to the school. She had a routine of reading the scriptures. The author along with other children sat on the verandah singing alphabets and morning prayers. They both used to come back home together with stray dogs roaming around them as his grandmother would carry the stale chapattis to feed them.  Soon, the parents of the author who went to the city to settle in and called them. As they reached the city, his relationship with his grandmother took a turn. Though they shared the room, there bond grew apart. He started going to an English medium school, she no longer accompanied him to his school, and there were no longer stray dogs who roamed around them while walking back home. She, however, used to ask him about his day and what he had learned. She didn’t understand anything as everything was in another language which she could not understand. She didn’t approve of the new syllabus that he was studying because she thought that they did not teach him about God and the scriptures. They saw less of each other.  As the days passed, he grew older and soon went to the university. He had his own room and this made their relationship sour. She stopped talking to everyone and spent her whole day sitting at her spinning wheel, reciting prayers and moving beads of the rosary with one hand. However, she loved feeding sparrows in the verandah at dawn. Breaking bread into pieces and feeding it to the birds was her daily routine. The birds would sit on her legs, her head, some even on the shoulders.  Soon, the author decided to go abroad for further studies. She came to the railway station to leave him off. She was not sentimental, continuously recited her prayers, her mind lost in the prayers, and she kissed him on the forehead. After five years, as he returned home, she was there, came to pick him at the station, was still the same as she had been five years ago. She clasped him within her arms and didn’t say a word. She still used to feed her sparrows.  One day, she didn’t recite her prayers but instead collected the women of the neighbourhood, got a drum and started singing. The next morning, she was ill with mild fever. The doctor said that there was nothing to worry about but she was sure that her end was near. She didn’t want to waste her time talking to anyone in the family anymore but spend her last hours in reciting her prayers laying on the bed. She died and so her body lay on the bed, lifeless. As they prepared for her funeral, they saw all the sparrows sitting in the verandah around her, mourning her death.