(a) What do 'gusty waves' mean? (b) What are the children like in the slum ?

Question

Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :

"Far far from gusty waves these children's faces. 

Like rootless weeds, the hair torn round their pallor: 

The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper

seeming boy, with rat's eyes. The stunted, unlucky heir Of twisted bones, reciting a father's gnarled disease, 

His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream, Of squirrel's game, in tree room, other than this."

(a) What do 'gusty waves' mean?

(b) What are the children like in the slum ?

(c) Explain 'reciting a father's gnarled disease'.

(d) How do a child's eyes live in a dream ?

(e) Who are these children?

(f) What has possible weight-down the tall girl’s head?

(g) What are the children compared to?

(h) Give two phrases which tell us that children are under-nourished?

(i) Identify the figure of speech used in these lines.

Answer 1

(a) Gusty waves signify the vibrance and the bounties of nature which are far removed from the reach of the children of the slum.

(b) The children hail from poor families. They are malnourished and look sickly.

(c) The lessons recited by the child are but mute tragic story of the abnormalities of the body. They continue to play havoc in their lives too (inherited disease).

(d) The child has a living dream in his eyes. It seems to be alive in his eyes despite the dismal life of the slum.

(e) These children belong to slums and are studying in class of slum area.

(f) The object poverty, the burden of her day-to-day worries and anxieties have possible weight down the tall girl’s head.

(g) The children compared to ‘rootless weeds’ as they are unwanted like the weeds.

(h) The paper-seeming boy and rat’s eyes are the two phrase that tell us that the children are undernourished.

(i) Simile; like rootless weeds.