Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.

The leaves strain towards the glass

Small twigs stiff with exertion

Long cramped boughs shuffling under the roof

Like newly discharged patients

Half dazed, moving

To the clinic doors

Questions:

a. Why are leaves and boughs tired?

b. Why the poet does compare the boughs with the patients?

c. Identify the figures of speech used in these lines.

OR

An elderly woman came and sat beside her

.”Are you all alone dear?” she asked Valli as the bus started again.

Valli found the woman absolutely repulsive-such big holes in her ear lobes, and such ugly earrings in them! And she could smell the betel nut the woman was chewing and see the betel juice that was threatening to spill over her lips at any moment

Ugh!-who could be sociable with such a person?

“Yes I am travelling alone, “she answered curtly, “and I’ve got a ticket too.”

“Yes, she’s on her way to town.” said the conductor. “With a thirty paise ticket”

“Oh, why don't you mind your own business?”

Questions:

i. Why did the elderly woman come to sit near Valli?

ii. Valli’s dislike the elderly woman? Briefly explain.

iii. Conductor makes fun of Valli. Give reason

a. The leaves and boughs were tired because they wanted freedom. They were tired of staying indoors and were seeking freedom in the forest. They wanted to go out of the closed room.

b. The poet has used the figures of speech i.e. ‘simile’. The branches of the trees are being compared to the patients. They are like the newly discharged patients who are coming out of the clinic of the doctors. They are in need of medical help similar to the branched that are weak and are not fresh

c. The figures of speech used in these lines are ‘alliteration’. It means the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. The poem involves both human and domestic elements like the newly discharged patients.

OR

i. The elderly woman comes to sit near Valli she felt travelling all alone. So, she thought that she could spend some time with Valli and can spend her time wisely.

ii. Valli’s dislike the elderly woman because she could smell the betel nut that she was chewing and also she was scared of the betel juice that she can spill at any moment at her lips.

iii. Conductor makes fun of Valli because she was talking very rudely to the conductor. Also, she feels proud in herself of travelling alone. This all made conductor to make fun of Valli.