Class 12 English - Flamingo - Poetry - Chapter Keeping Quiet NCERT Solutions | What will counting upto twelve and keepi

Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?

What symbol from Nature does the poet invoke to say that there can be life under apparent stillness?

What is the ‘sadness’ that the poet refers to in the poem?

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?

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

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 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 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’?

Why is ‘grandeur’ associated with the ‘mighty dead’?

Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?

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?

What makes human beings love life in spite of troubles and sufferings?

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 kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?

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

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?

Of what or of whom is Aunt Jennifer terrified with in the third stanza?