Answer any four of the following questions in 30 – 40 words each:

(a) In the last line of the poem, ‘My Mother at Sixty-six’, the word ‘smile’ is repeated three times. What is its significance?

(b) Why did the peddler decline the invitation extended to him by the ironmaster?

(c) Why did Gandhiji agree to 25 per cent refund to the peasants?

(d) Why did Derry’s mother not want him to visit Mr. Lamb?

(e) How does Roger Skunk’s mother show her anger over her son’s loss of smell?

(f) Why did the Maharaja decide to get married?

(a) In the poem, My Mother at Sixty-Six, the poet has beautifully described her fears and sadness on her mother’s growing age and nearing her last days. In the last line of the poem, she poet uses the word ‘smile’ three times because she is unable to express the feelings she has upon her departure from her mother, who she wishes to see again soon. She uses the word repeatedly to stress on the fact that she misses her mother terribly, Besides, the word also signifies an attached hope she continues to have.

(b) The peddler declined the invitation extended to him by the ironmaster because he believed that accepting such an invitation would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion’s den. He was scared of the ironmaster coming to know of his truth, that he was not a military captain but a thief and a liar, and this was very much possible if he stayed at the ironmaster’s place itself.

(c) Gandhiji agreed to a 25 percent refund to the peasants because it is not the amount of the refund that mattered to him then. What mattered more was the fact that the deadlock between the merchants and the peasants over the issue of refunds was being shattered and the peasants were getting their dutiful rights.

(d) Derry’s mother did not consider Mr. Lamb as an ideal company for her son because he was a lonely old man mocked by the entire world and who had no contacts outside his own personal boundary. Besides, she did not think the world sees things like he does, and therefore she did not want Derry to visit him.

(e) Roger Skunk’s mother did not want her son to lose his characteristic smell. When he did, she was really furious at the way things turned out. Therefore, she decided to keep him back to the Wizard for regaining his original smell. She was reluctant to send him out to play with friends when he wanted to do so, and even forced the Wizard to return Roger’s old smell, without caring a bit for her son’s feelings.

(f) The Maharaja wanted for long to kill a hundred tigers and reverse the prophecy that said he would be killed by one of them, but had already ended up the tigers in his own kingdom. Therefore, he wished to marry a princess whose estate had a greater number of tigers than his. This way he would attain the right to hunt as many tigers as he wants whenever he visits the estate.