Page 1 - Home Assignment

My Mother At Sixty Six

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
a) “Driving from my parent’s
home to Cochin last Friday
morning,I saw my mother,beside me
doze, open mouthed, her face ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with pain
that she was as old as she looked…”
1. Name the poem and the poet.
2. Where was the poet driving to?
3. What did she notice about her mother?
4. Why was her mother’s face looking like that of a corpse?

b) ….but soon
put that thought away, and
looked out at young
trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes,….
1. What thought did the poet drive away from her mind?
2. What did she see when she looked out of the car?
3. How do you know that the joyful scene didn’t help her drive away the painful thought from
her mind?
4. What does the phrase ‘trees sprinting’ signify?

SHORT QUESTIONS

(Q.1) Why does the poet smile and what does she say while bidding goodbye to her mother?

(Q.2) Why are the young trees described as sprinting?

(Q.3) Why has the poet bought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their homes’?

(Q.4) Why has the mother been compared to ‘late winter’s moon’?

(Q.5) What do the parting words of the poet and her smile signify?
(Q.6) What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?

(Q.7) What were the activities that the poet saw outside the car window?

(Q.8) Why did the Poet put that thought away?

(Q.9) What are the Poet’s parting words?

(Q.10)What thought did the poet put away and how?