The Last Lesson
1. Why did Franz crawl like a snail towards the school that day?
2. Why did Mr. Hamel stand everyone responsible for being indifferent towards the mother tongue?
3. Why did Mr. Hamel not scold Franz that day?
4. What unusual thing in the school did Franz see that day?
5. What order had the German army passed over France?
6. Why did the beauty of surrounding attract the young Franz?
7. Why and how did Mr. feel sense of guilt of not being too devoted to profession and mother tongue?
8. Why had the villagers and others had attended the last lesson by Mr. Hamel?
9. Why was there an unusual gathering around the bulletin board?
10. We often realize the worth of things when it separates. Justify it in regard the chapter Last Lesson.
11. How is the mother tongue key to prison?
12. Losing the mother tongue is losing own identity of ages. How?
13. How did Mr. Hamel conclude his lecture?
14. What changes did Franz observe in the school as well as in Mr. Hamel that day?
15. Why was little Franz afraid of going school that day?
16. The real identity of a nation of all its cultural, social, historical and religious belief lies is deep rooted in its mother tongue. How?
The Lost Spring
1. What health hazards did the bangle makers suffer from and how did it affect their coming generation?
2. Rag-picking is not a profession but life of the rag-pickers and their children. How?
3. Savita oscillates amid poverty, illiteracy and tradition. Elucidate.
4. Where did these rag pickers of Seemapuri come from and why?
5. How are these wretched rag-pickers exploited by the politicians and administrations?
6. Rag-picking is wonder for the young ones but means of survival for the adults. How?
7. Why does the canister fall heavier than the canister over Saheb?
8. Food is more important for survival than identity. Why does the author make this statement?
9. Why is the garbage gold to these rag-pickers?
10. How did Saheb react on offer of school by the author and what quality of him reflects here?
11. Why did Mukesh want to become a motor mechanic?
12. “It is his karam, his destiny.” Who says it and why?
13. What filthy and unhygienic conditions these bangle makers are forced to live in?
14. The bangle makers are synonym of poverty, destitute and suffering. Why?
15. The bangle makers are the neglected black spot in the modern civilized society. Why?
16. What are two distinct worlds there in Firozabad observed by the author?
17. How are the bangle makers oppressed and exploited by different affluent sections of society?
18. Why does Mukesh become silent on question of flying a car?
19. How is Mukesh more practical and realistic than Saheb?
20. The Lost Spring is story of poverty, illiteracy and tradition. How?
The Deep Water
1. Why and when did William Douglas develop an aversion to water?
2. How did he overcome the terror of water?
3. ‘I saw the absolute tranquility at approaching end.’ Why and when did he make this remark?
4. How did he struggle with death hand in hand?
5. The spiritedness and firm determination makes one to supersede and barricade of life. Justify it in reference to the chapter Deep Water.
6. Why and how did mother continuously warn him to avoid swimming?
7. Why did the Yakima River seem treacherous to the William Douglas?
8. “I flailed at the surface of the water, swallowed and choked”. Describe the process of drowning in the pool.
9. Why did the icy horror often grab the heart of William Douglas?
10. Why and how did the terror of water deprive him all water pleasantries?
11. How did the author challenge the approaching terror?
12. How did William Douglas gradually develop confidence in swimming against water?
13. Why did the author say, “Experience had a deep meaning for me”?
14. Who said, “All we have to fear is fear itself” and why?
15. When did William Douglas realize that he had overcome the terror of water?
The Rattrap
1. Why does the peddler consider the whole world as a rattrap?
2. Why and how does the crofter entertain and serve the strange peddler with delicious food?
3. Why was the Peddler mistaken by ironmaster as one of old acquaintance?
4. Why did the peddler not disclose his identity to the ironmaster?
5. How does the ironmaster react after the peddler’s real identity is disclosed?
6. Why did Edla Wilmanson urge the peddler to join Christmas Eve even against her father’s anger?
7. What changes occurred in the peddler and why?
8. An evil can turn into good through love and compassion. Prove it.
9. When does the peddler realize himself caught in the trap of world?
10. How and why did the peddler leave the ironmaster house?
11. Why were father and daughter perplexed and impatience while returning from church?
12. What did the valet inform father and daughter about the peddler?
13. Why and what did the Peddler leave at the host’s house?
14. Why did the Peddler sign himself in the letter ‘Captain Von Stahle’?
15. How did the Peddler react after his identity was disclosed?
Indigo
1. Who was Rajkumar Shukla and why did he pursue Mahatma Gandhi at different places throughout the country?
2. How were the sharecroppers exploited by Britishers and the landlord as well?
3. What were the real plight and travails of the sharecroppers?
4. Why did Gandhiji chide the lawyers?
5. How was Gandhiji treated by the British secretary, commissioner and police superintendent?
6. What explanation did Mahatma Gandhi give in the court on charge of law breaking?
7. How had civil dis-obedience triumphed first time in India?
8. Why did Mahatma Gandhi agree on merely 25% of return peasants’ money?
9. What measures of social, cultural, health development had Gandhiji initiated in Champaran?
10. How did Gandhi teach the lesson of self-reliance and national integrity to all?
11. How the efforts of Gandhiji in Champaran were not based on mere abstractness but on acute concreteness and genuineness?
12. Why did Mahatma Gandhi defy the help of Andrews?
13. Why did the landlords change the policy of indigo cropping after the discovery of synthetic indigo in Germany?
14. Why and how were the officials baffled in front of crowd?
15. Why did Mahatma Gandhi refuge the bail?
16. Why was the commission constituted after protracted interview with the governor?
17. Why was the Champaran episode a turning point in Gandhi’s life?
18. What qualities of Gandhi reflect when he remarks, “The British cannot order me in my own country”.
The poets and Pancakes
1. How was hierarchy established in the Gemini studio?
2. What was the role of office boy in the studio?
3. What role did the writer perform in Gemini studio?
4. Who was Subbu and how did he differ from the office boy?
5. How and why did the visit of Stephen remain mystery in Gemini studio?
6. How did the MRA affect the Tamil plays and people?
7. How did the ‘The God that failed’ speak about the failure of communalism over the world?
8. How did the lawyer bring tragic end to the young actress?
9. How was Gemini Studio platform of national integration?
10. Why did the Gemini staff not have any political liking?
11. Why did Gemini staff consider communists as godless men?
12. Why did the Stephen Spender baffle on sheer incongruity of his talk?
13. What caused the lack of communication between the Englishman and people of Gemini studios?
14. Why and when did the author feel as if he has found his lost brother?
15. How did the dark chamber of author’s mind lit up with a hazy illumination?
16. How and where the humour and satire is applied in the chapter ‘The Poet and Pancakes’?
The Interview
1. What are the merits and demerits of Interview?
2. What did the primitive people believe to Interview?
3. Why did Rudyard Kipling not like to be interviewed?
4. Who described interview as the thumbprints over the windpipe?
5. Why did Umberto Eco prefer to be called a professor to a novelist?
6. How could Umberto Eco manage to write narratives in busy schedules?
7. What were the keynotes of Uberto Eco’s novel ‘The Name of the Rose’?
8. What might be the secret of success of ‘Name of the Rose’?
9. Who says interview ‘Just horror of the interviewer’ and why?
10. How is the interview an unwarranted intrusion into one’s life?
11. What did Dennis Brown opine about interview?
12. Who was Uberto Eco and why was he interviewed?
13. What is the theme of Uberto Eco’s book The Name of the Rose?
14. Does Uberto Eco like to be interviewed? Why?
15. Who says interview as cowardly and vile and why?
Going Places
1. How does Sophie differ from Jansie?
2. Why does Sophie only share the things only to Geoff?
3. What does dreaming of Danny Cassey symbolize?
4. Why does father not believe in Sophie?
5. Was the dream of Sophie merely nonsense? Why?
6. All the frustrations and depression of Sophie is the outcome of her own fantasy. How?
7. Why did Sophie not want Geoff to tell her secret to Jansie and others?
8. Sophie is representative of youth of her age. How?
9. Was the family of Sophie fan of Danny Cassey? Why?
10. Did Sophie realize the futility of her dreaming and fantasy? Why and how?
11. Was the character of Sophie overdone and exaggerated in the chapter Going Place?
12. Do you like Sophie or Jansie and why?
13. Did the dreaming and fantasizing of Sophie harm anyone? Why?
My mother at sixty-six
1. Why did Kamala Das say, ‘Doze, open-mouthed, her face ashen like that of a corpse?’
2. How did Kamala Das reach the Cochin airport and why?
3. What pain did the poetess realize while driving to Cochin airport?
4. What did the sprinting trees and spilling children symbolize and signify?
5. What old familiar ache did the poet have at the airport?
6. What is the childhood fear of the poet?
7. Why the mother is compared as late winter’s moon?
8. With what note the poem ‘My mother at sixty six’ ended?
9. ‘All I did was smile and smile and smile…..’ Why did the poet smile?
10. ‘But all I said was see you soon, Amma.’ What did this signify?
An elementary school classroom in slum
1. Why did the children in slum school have fragile physic?
2. What physical features had they inherited from their forefathers?
3. Why did the poet say,’ His eyes live in a dream’?
4. What foul and filthy condition of slum school is depicted in the poem?
5. Why is the window only the world of the slum school children?
6. Why is the future of these children painted with fog?
7. Why is there school in slum compared as the Tyrolese valley?
8. Why are these slum school children far from the river, capes and stars of word?
9. Why is Shakespeare wicked for these slum school children?
10. How did the lives slyly turn from cramped holes to endless night?
11. Who are responsible for the miseries and apathy of these slum children?
12. What appeal does the poet Stephen Spender make and why?
13. ‘History theirs whose language is the sun’. What does this statement signify?
14. How does the poet present in sequence –physical appearance, condition of slum school, suffering of slum children and urge to uproot the agony.
15. There is one socialist criticizing the capitalists in in exaggerated way? Comment.
16. The poem ‘An elementary school classroom is slum’ is more a prose than a poem dealing certain socialistic issue. How?
17. Why are slum children compared with rootless weeds?
18. Why do bones peep through their bodies?
The keeping Quiet
1. Why does Pablo Neruda say to be silent for a while?
2. Why should none speak in any language once upon the face of earth?
3. What exotic moment will be without rush, without engine?
4. Why should the fishermen not harm the whales in the cold sea?
5. Why should the man gathering salt not hurt his hands?
6. What will be the image of victory without survivors?
7. What types of wars are prevailing in the society?
8. Why does the poet say to put clean cloth and walk about with their brothers I shade doing nothing?
9. ‘I want no truck with death.’ What does the poet want to say with it?
10. Why were all so single minded about keeping our life moving?
11. What will interrupt the sadness of never understanding ourselves and how?
12. What does threaten ourselves continuously with death and how?
13. What and how can Earth teach us when everything seems dead?
14. The poet lays stress over harmony and peace in everything. Why?
15. The keeping quiet is the panacea in the world of rush, worries and insecurities. How?
A Thing of Beauty
1. Why is a thing of beauty a joy forever?
2. Why are we wreathing a flowery band to bind us to the earth?
3. What are the gloomy aspects of human life in the world?
4. Why is there inhuman dearth of noble natures?
5. What are the sources of eternal pleasure in the nature?
6. How the trees old or young are sprouting shady boons for the ship and what does it symbolize?
7. Why and how does the rills make cooling covert against the hot season?
8. What is the grandeur of the dead?
9. Who is pouring immortal drink from the heaven’s brink and how?
10. Who are attributed as mighty dead and why?
11. Why is there inhuman dearth of noble natures?
12. How does the beauty move the pall from our dark spirits?
13. ‘Its loveliness increases, it never passes into nothingness.’ How?
14. The poet has applied Imagery and Symbols in abundance in the poem ‘A Thing of Beauty.’ Where and how?
15. Beauty is like sweet dream, and health and quiet breathing. How?
A roadside stand
1. Why do the country people set up the shed near the road?
2. Why is the roadside stand too pathetically pled?
3. Why does the polished traffic pass with mind ahead? What does it signify?
4. What sorts of things do these country people sell? And why?
5. What complain do the city people make if the occasionally stop?
6. Why do the city people with mind ahead sometimes stop there at roadside stand?
7. Why is the trusting sorrow of roadside stand people still unsaid?
8. What dream and hope do the roadside stand people have?
9. Why are they given the life of moving pictures’ promise?
10. Who are greedy good-doers and beneficent beast prey? And why are they called like this?
11. Who are enforcing benefits swarming over their lives and how?
12. Who destroys the sleep of stand people in ancient way and why?
13. What is childish longing at roadside stand?
14. What do the city people ask for and why?
15. Why do the city people stop their cars at roadside stand?
16. What sort of change in the country people of roadside stand does the poet want?
17. How will the poet be out of pain returning to roadside stand one day?
18. What is the appropriate remedy suggested by the poet for people of roadside stand?
Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger
1. How did the tiger in the panel stand in stark contrast with Aunt Jennifer herself?
2. Why did Aunt Jennifer make the tiger in the panel?
3. What are the symbols used in the poem Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger and why?
4. Why are the ivory needles hard to pull for Aunt Jennifer?
5. Why did the uncle’s wedding band sit heavy upon Aunt Jennifer’s hands?
6. What are the real sufferings of Aunt Jennifer?
7. There is an appeal to reveal the suppressed feelings in Aunt Jennifer. How?
8. The women are considered as the resource or property to be governed as the men think. How this idea is reflected in the poem ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger?
9. What impression do you form after reading the poem Aunt Jennifer’ Tiger?
10. Why will the terrified hands of Aunt be ringed with ordeals?
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