Read the following poem carefully and answer the following questions.
Amalkanti
(Nirendranath Chakrabarti)
Amalkanti is a friend of mine,
we were together at school.
He often came late to class
and never knew his lessons.
When asked to conjugate a verb,
he looked out of the window
in such puzzlement
that we all felt sorry for him.
Some of us wanted to be teachers,
some doctors, some lawyers.
Amalkanti didn't want to be any of these.
He wanted to be sunlight —
the timid sunlight of late afternoon,
when it stops raining
and the crows call again,
the sunlight that clings like a smile
to the leaves of the jaam and the jaamrul
Some of us have become teachers,
some doctors, some lawyers.
Amalkanti couldn't become sunlight.
He works in a poorly lit room
for a printer.
He drops in now and then to see me,
chats about this and that
over a cup of tea, then gets up to go.
I see him off at the door.
The one among us who's a teacher
could easily have become a doctor.
If the one who'd wanted to be a doctor
had become a lawyer,
it wouldn't have made much difference to him.
All of us got more or less what we wanted,
all except Amalkanti —
who used to think so much about sunlight
that he wanted to become sunlight.
a. How is Amalkanti’s dream different from that of the other boys in the class? What does it
tell us about him?
b. What do you think is the speaker's attitude towards Amalkanti: full of pity, critical or
sympathetic? Why? Pick out the lines to support your answer.
c. The tone of the speaker in the first three stanzas of the poem is confident and amused but
the tone in lines 12-17 and the last stanza of the poem changes. Does it become:
i surprised/full of wonder?
ii appreciation?
iii lyrical?
Give reasons for your answer.
d. Do you think Amalkanti is a failure? Why/Why not? Pick out the appropriate lines.
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Pick out the literary devices from the following sentences. Indicate what type they are
(simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, euphemism and metonymy): 10
i Blow, blow thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.
ii I will write a letter to his mother that will open her eyes as wide as a gate.
iii In supporting Mussolini she found she had backed the wrong horse.
iv The catch of herrings lay like a pool of quick-silver.
v The cynical indifference of the sea to the merits of human suffering and courage,
revolted me.
vi Screams of horror rent the very air.
vii He has just completed six months as the guest of The State and is now released.
viii Take out your Shakespeare.
ix Life is the greatest teacher of all.
x Kindly address your remarks to the Chair.
Replace the underlined words in the sentences by a phrasal verb from the box. You may
change the form of the phrasal verb, if need be. There is one extra phrasal verb.
i We really should reduce expenses if the play is to make a profit.
ii The actors will have to obey the director’s instructions faithfully.
iii Meera refused our offer to make her the star.
iv She had promised to act in the play, but she withdrew later.
v This was when she discovered that she had been cast as an alien from outer space.
Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles a/the.
Last year we went on ……… trekking-holiday near Madurai. While there, we set out to
climb ………highest hill. We borrowed ………map from some fellow trekkers. They told
us to follow ………routes marked on ………map. v
He has just completed six months as the guest of The State and is now released.
Fill in the blanks choosing the correct words from the list given below: 5
diary, dairy; quiet, quite; profit, prophet; patrol, petrol, desert, dessert
i Cow’s milk is sold at this………………….
ii He likes ………….surroundings.
iii The company has made no ………….this year.
iv The price of …………. has gone up.
v ………….was served soon after the dinner
Blow, blow thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude.
Life is the greatest teacher of all.