Class 12 English - Flamingo - Poetry - Chapter My Mother at Sixty - Six NCERT Solutions | Why has the mother been compared to the

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

What do the parting words of the poet and her smile signify?

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

Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?

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?

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?

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?

The walls of the classroom are decorated with the pictures of ‘Shakespeare’, ‘buildings with  domes’, ‘world maps’ and beautiful valleys. How do these contrast with the world of these children?

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.

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

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?

Interpret the symbols found in this poem.

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

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

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

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 suggested by the image ‘massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band’?