Class 12 English - Flamingo - Poetry - Chapter An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum NCERT Solutions | The walls of the classroom are decorated

What does the poet want for the children of the slums? How can their lives be made to change?

Tick the item which best answers the following.

(a) The tall girl with her head weighed down means
     The girl
           (i) is ill and exhausted
           (ii) has her head bent with shame
           (iii) has untidy hair

(b) The paper-seeming boy with rat’s eyes means
     The boy is
           (i) sly and secretive
           (ii) thin, hungry and weak
           (iii) unpleasant looking

(c) The stunted, unlucky heir of twisted bones means
     The boy
           (i) has an inherited disability
           (ii) was short and bony

(d) His eyes live in a dream, A squirrel’s game, in the tree room other than this means
     The boy is
           (i) full of hope in the future
           (ii) mentally ill
           (iii) distracted from the lesson

(e) The children’s faces are compared to ‘rootless weeds’
     This means they
           (i) are insecure
           (ii) are ill-fed
           (iii) are wasters

What do you think is the colour of ‘sour cream’? Why do you think the poet has used this expression to describe the classroom walls?

What does the title of the poem suggest to you? What do you think the poem is about?

What pleasure does a beautiful thing give us? Are beautiful things worth treasuring?

What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?

The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?

How do ‘denizens’ and ‘chivalric’ add to our understanding of the tiger’s attitudes?

Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?

What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

Why do you think Aunt Jennifer’s hands are ‘fluttering through her wool’ in the second stanza? Why is she finding the needle so hard to pull?

Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their homes’?

The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet uses to show their double standards.

The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?

What are the ‘ordeals’ Aunt Jennifer is surrounded by, why is it significant that the poet uses the word ‘ringed’? What are the meanings of the word ‘ringed’ in the poem?

What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it ‘vain’?

Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?

Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?

Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?

Do we experience things of beauty only for short moments or do they make a lasting impression on us?

Why do you think Aunt Jennifer created animals that are so different from her own character? What might the poet be suggesting, through this difference?

The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet uses to show their double standards.

Do you sympathise with Aunt Jennifer. What is the attitude of the speaker towards Aunt Jennifer?