Question

The tree was young and strong and it took a long time to kill. It took two workmen with axes, two days
including tea breaks. Which without conscious irony, they took in the shade of the leafy branches of the, tree
they were chopping down. It was a Gulmohar I had planted 13 years ago, along with several other saplings,
when Bunny and I moved into the National media centre. The National media centre is built on a little over 22
acres and many hundreds of the local babul trees that used to cloak that part of the Haryana countryside like
smoke from evening chullas must have been cut down to make way for the brick and cement of our colony.
I'm not a tree hugger but still felt that some restitution was due. So Bunny and I planted several saplings. The
two Gulmohars at the rear were foot high saplings when we put them in the floor window, flooding the room
with afterglow and screening from view the ugly scars of new construction in what had once been open fields
behind our house. I felt the smugness of satisfaction, of having done the right thing. I'd given back, in however
small a way, a little bit of what we take away from the earth every day, everywhere. Righteousness invites its
own revenge. The roots of one of the trees had spread, crushing the sewage system. The handyman gave us the
choice of either cutting down the tree or its roots would endanger the foundations of the house.
a) What is the irony in the first para?
b) What did the author decide to do?
c) What sort of feelings evoked in the author when he visualises newly grown Gulmohar trees?
d) Why did the writer had to get free felled?
e) What is meant by 'being righteous'?​

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

irony is a contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and what is reality. This can be a difference between the surface meaning of something that is said and the underlying meaning. It can also be a difference between what might be expected to happen and what actually occurs.

The Gulmohar tree planted by the speaker’s dad is being referred to in these line two Gulmohars at the rear were foot high saplings when we put them in the floor window, flooding the room

I felt the smugness of satisfaction, of having done the right thing.