NCERT Solutions Class 11, English, Hornbill, Poem, Chapter- 1, A Photograph
Infer the meanings of the following words from the context.
Now look up the dictionary to see if your inference is right.
Solution:
Paddling: To move a boat by means of paddles.
Transient: Something that stays at a place for a short time-period.
Think it out
1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Solution:
The word cardboard denotes the photograph pasted on a hard thick paper. This word has been used to refer to a practice in the past when photographs were pasted on cardboard and framed with glass front to preserve them.
2. What has the camera captured?
Solution:
The camera has captured some happy moments from the childhood of the poet’s mother. It was a scene taken from a beach where she had gone with her cousins and her uncle for a sea holiday. The girls were paddling in the water.
3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Solution:
The sea has not changed over the years. It is still the same. The sea symbolizes eternity.
4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
Solution:
This laugh’ indicated her joy at remembering an incident connected with her past life, when she was quite young and free from the tensions and worries of life.
5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”
Solution:
The sea holiday and the laughter of the poet’s mother are incidents of the past. There is a sense of loss associated with them. Both are amusing yet disappointing as the state of feeling comfortable or relaxed is unnatural or forced one. This sense of loss is quite painful to bear.
6. What does “this circumstance” refer to?
Solution:
This circumstance refers to the death of the poet’s mother.
7. The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?
Solution:
- The girlhood of the poet’s mother—the period before the birth of the poet.
- Her middle age—the period during the childhood of the poet
- Period after the death of the poet’s mother.