A ROADSIUDE STAND
H.S. EXAM. QUESTIONS
A. Short type questions: Marks: 2
1. What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to in the poem ‘A Roadside Stand’? Why is it ‘vain’? [HS ’12,’17]
2. Name some of the things that the roadside stand offered for sale. [HS ’13]
3. Which things irritated the passersby who stopped at the roadside stand? [HS ’14,’18]
4. What is ‘in the news’ as mentioned in ‘A Roadside Stand’? [HS ’15]
5. Why do the people who are running the roadside stand ‘ask for some city money’? [HS ’15]
6. ‘Of all the thousaned selfish cars’ some stop there but not for buying something. Why do they stop there at all? [HS ’16]
7. Who will soothe the rural poor out of their wits and how? [HS ‘161
8. What are being sold in the Road-side stand? [HS ’17]
9. Who are referred to as the ‘flower of cities’ in ‘A Roadside Stand”? [HS’18]
C. Important extracts for comprehension: 4
1. Read the following extracts and answer the questions that follow: [HS ’12]
(a), “The polished traffic passed with a mind
ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts.
At having the landscape marred with the
artless paint
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S
turned wrong
offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts,
Or crook-necked golden squash with silver
warts,
Or beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene,
You have the money, but if you want to be
mean,
Why keep your money (this crossly) and go
along.”
(i) How did the traffic pass? 1
(ii) Why did one turn out of sorts? 1
(iii) What are the two things that were sold in that stand? 1
(iv) What should one do if one wants to be mean? 1
(b) “The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my
complaint
So much as the trusting sorrow of what is
unsaid:
far from the city we make our roadside
stand
And ask for some city money to feel in hand
To try if it will not make our being expand,
And give us the life of the moving-pictures’
promise
That the party in power is said to be keeping
from us”. [HS’15]
(i) What is not the complaint of the poet? 1
(ii) What is the real worry of the poet? 1
(iii) Why do the people who are running the roadside stand’ ask for some city money”? 1
(iv) What is the party in power doing for the rural poor? 1
In front at the edge of the road
When the traffic sped,
A roadsaid stand that too pathetically pled,
It would not be fair to say for a dole
of bread,
But for some of the money, the cash
whose flow supports
The flower of cities from sinking and
withering faint.” [HS ’17]
Questions:
(i) Where was the shed put up? 1
(ii) What was its purpose? 1
(iii) Why does the poet use the word ‘pathetic’? 1
(iv) Who are referred to as ‘the flower of cities’? 1
(d) “No, in country money, the country scale of gain,
The requisite lift of spirit has never been found,
Or so the voice of the country seems to complain,
I can’t help owning the great relief it would be,
To put these people at one stroke out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back into the sane,
I wonder how I should like you to come to me
And offer to put me gently out of my pain”.
Questions: [HS ’18]
(i) Where do these lines occur? 1
(ii) Why has the requisite spirit never been found? 1
(iii) What does the voice of the country people seem to say? 1
(iv) What will be of great relief for the poet? 1
Type: Himashree Bora.