Indian Poetry

Marks-2

a) What is 'Catamaran'? What are referred to as "sweeter" in "Coromondel Fishers"?

b) Which two adjectived are used to describe the father in "Night of the Scorpion"? Do you consider
these expressions as justified? Why?

c) Why "Gopi and Brinda" are repeated in "A River?"

d) What is the meaning of the expression "flesh was heavy on my back"? Why that was considered as
"hard to believe"?

e) "All mine, mine alone" – Contextualize the expression and comment

f) "Be Amy , or be Kamala, or, better still, be Madhabikutti." – Comment.

g) "They clicked their tongue" – Who are they? What they said about the incident?

h) Briefly comment on the title "Night of the Scorpion."

a) What does Sarojini Naidu mean by 'the leaping wealth of the tide'?

b) What is meant by 'the hand of the sea-god'?

c) Comment on the father's reaction in 'The Night of the Scorpion'.

d) "He was there for a day ..." — Who is 'He'? What happened on that day?

e) "I saw his white bone thrash his eyes" — Who is the speaker? Why was the man in that plight?

f) "Silence gripped my sleeves" — Comment on the significance of this observation.

g) Comment on Kamala Das's view over use of more than one language in 'An Introduction'.

a) Why does the speaker in "Coromandel Fishers" call themselves "Kings of the sea"?

b) Give two examples of village superstition in the poem "Night of the Scorpion".

c) What is the point of similarity between the old and the new poets in the poem "The River"?

d) Explain the line: "The flesh was heavy on my back".

e) Discuss the inside of the fishermen's hut in "Hunger".

f) "... The language I speak / Becomes mine ..." – Explain.

g) "... Dress in Sarees, be girl / Be wife, they said" – Explain.

Marks- 6

1. The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother.

2. "I too call myself I"
3. "The poets only sang of the floods."
4. "My mother twisted through and through groaning on a mat."
5. He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives.
6. May the sins of your previous birth be burned away tonight, they said.
7. The sky fell on me, and a father's exhausted wile.
8. I saw his white bone thrash his eyes.
9. My mother only said Thank God the scorpion picked on me And spared my children.