NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Hornbill Chapter 1: The Portrait of a Lady and A Photograph

Chapter at a glance

The Portrait of a Lady – Understanding the Text

Question U1

Mention the three phases of the author’s relationship with his grandmother before he left the country to study abroad.

Answer

1. Village days: the two were constant companions. She woke him, got him ready and took him to the temple school, and they walked back together, feeding the village dogs.
2. City days: after the move to the city, she no longer went to school with him. They saw less of each other, but she still asked what he had learnt, and spent her time feeding sparrows.
3. University days: when he got a separate room at the university, the “common link of friendship” snapped and she accepted her seclusion, spinning and praying.

Village (close companions), city (growing distance) and university (separation and seclusion).

Question U2

Mention three reasons why the author’s grandmother was disturbed when he started going to the city school.

Answer

1. The school taught Western science and English words, which she did not believe in, and she could not help him with his lessons.
2. There was no teaching about God and the scriptures, which she valued most.
3. When he told her about music lessons, she was very upset because she thought music was meant for beggars and harlots and not for gentlefolk.

Western learning she did not believe in, no religious teaching, and music lessons she considered disreputable.

Question U3

Mention three ways in which the author’s grandmother spent her days after he grew up.

Answer

1. She sat at her spinning wheel from sunrise to sunset.
2. She recited prayers and told her rosary all day.
3. In the afternoon she relaxed by feeding the sparrows in the verandah, which was the happiest half-hour of her day.

Spinning, praying and feeding sparrows.

Question U4

Mention the odd way in which the author’s grandmother behaved just before she died.

Answer

On the evening of the author’s return she did not pray, for the first time in his memory. Instead she gathered the women of the neighbourhood, took an old drum and sang for hours the songs of the homecoming of warriors, until she had to be stopped to avoid overstraining. Next morning she fell ill and, feeling that her end was near, spent her last hours praying instead of talking to the family.

She stopped praying, beat an old drum and sang with the women for hours, then declared that her end was near.

Question U5

Mention the way in which the sparrows expressed their sorrow when the author’s grandmother died.

Answer

Thousands of sparrows sat silently all over the verandah and her room right up to where her body lay. There was no chirruping, and they did not touch the bread crumbs offered by the author’s mother. When the body was carried off, they flew away quietly.

The sparrows sat in silence, refused the bread and flew away quietly when she was carried away.

The Portrait of a Lady – Talking about the Text

Question T1

The author’s grandmother was a religious person. What are the different ways in which we come to know this?

Answer

1. She recited her morning prayer in a sing-song while bathing and dressing the child.
2. She read the scriptures at the temple school while he studied.
3. She was always telling the beads of her rosary, and her lips moved constantly in prayer, even at the railway station.
4. She was disturbed that the English school had no religious teaching.
5. She prayed all day while spinning, and spent her last hours praying, regretting the time when she did not.
6. She told the children stories of the Prophets.

Her daily prayers, scriptures, rosary, concern about religious education and last-hours prayer show her religiousness.

Question T2

Describe the changing relationship between the author and his grandmother. Did their feelings for each other change?

Answer

The relationship changed, but not their feelings.

• In the village they were “good friends” and always together.
• In the city, he went to an English school by bus and she took to feeding sparrows; she was distressed by his new learning, and they talked less.
• At the university they were separated by his own room, and she accepted her seclusion.

Yet the love stayed the same: she came to see him off and gave him a silent kiss, she was at the station after five years and clasped him, and he cherished her. Their bond was expressed through gestures and silence rather than words.

Their closeness reduced with changing circumstances, but their affection remained deep and unchanged.

Question T3

Would you agree that the author’s grandmother was a person strong in character? If yes, give instances that show this.

Answer

Yes. She was a woman of firm character.

1. She accepted her seclusion with resignation when the author grew up, without complaint.
2. She was not sentimental: at his departure to a foreign country for five years she showed no emotion and just prayed.
3. She kept her beliefs, even when the English school contradicted them, and showed her disapproval of music by silence.
4. She was steady in her routine of prayer and spinning for years.
5. She faced death calmly, knew her end was near and used the time for prayer.

Yes. Her resignation, lack of sentimentality, firm faith and calm acceptance of death show strength of character.

Question T4

Have you known someone like the author’s grandmother? Do you feel the same sense of loss with regard to someone whom you have loved and lost?

Answer

Sample answer (a personal response; students should use their own experience):

Yes, my own grandfather was like the author’s grandmother. He woke me every morning, told me stories, and prayed at the same time every day. When he passed away, the house felt empty for many weeks, and even the small things he used to do, like feeding the birds, seemed to be missing. I felt the same silent grief as the author, and understood that love is felt most strongly when someone is no longer there.

Personal response: a loved elder’s absence leaves a similar sense of loss.

The Portrait of a Lady – Thinking about Language

Question L1

Which language do you think the author and his grandmother used while talking to each other?

Answer

They most probably spoke Punjabi, their mother tongue. The grandmother was uneducated, did not believe in English education, and sang folk songs, while the author, born in Punjab, grew up in a Punjabi-speaking family. English was the language of his school, not of their talk at home.

Punjabi, their mother tongue.

Question L2

Which language do you use to talk to elderly relatives in your family?

Answer

Personal response. For example: “I speak Hindi with my grandparents, because it is the language we are most comfortable in and it carries the closeness and customs of our home.”

Personal answer, such as Hindi or the home language.

Question L3

How would you say ‘a dilapidated drum’ in your language?

Answer

In Hindi: “टूटा-फूटा ढोल” (toota-phoota dhol) or “जर्जर ढोल” (jarjar dhol).

Hindi: टूटा-फूटा ढोल / जर्जर ढोल

Question L4

Can you think of a song or a poem in your language that talks of homecoming?

Answer

Examples: the Hindi film song “Ghar aaja pardesi, tera des bulaye re” and the ghazal-style song “Chitthi aayi hai, watan se chitthi aayi hai”, both of which speak of the longing for return. (Students may give a song or poem from their own language.)

E.g. “Ghar aaja pardesi” / “Chitthi aayi hai” (any homecoming song or poem is accepted).

The Portrait of a Lady – Working with Words

Question W1

Notice the following uses of the word ‘tell’ in the text.
1. Her fingers were busy telling the beads of her rosary.
2. I would tell her English words and little things of Western science and learning.
3. At her age one could never tell.
4. She told us that her end was near.
Given below are four different senses of the word ‘tell’. Match the meanings to the uses listed above.
(i) make something known to someone in spoken or written words
(ii) count while reciting
(iii) be sure
(iv) give information to somebody

Answer

1 – (ii), 2 – (iv), 3 – (iii), 4 – (i)

Question W2

Notice the different senses of the word ‘take’.
1. to take to something: to begin to do something as a habit
2. to take ill: to suddenly become ill
Locate these phrases in the text and notice the way they are used.

Answer

1. “she took to feeding sparrows in the courtyard of our city house” – took to means she began feeding the sparrows as a regular habit.
2. “The next morning she was taken ill.” – taken ill means she suddenly became sick.

“took to feeding sparrows” (began as a habit) and “was taken ill” (suddenly fell sick).

Question W3

The word ‘hobble’ means to walk with difficulty because the legs and feet are in bad condition. Tick the words in the box below that also refer to a manner of walking.
haggle, shuffle, stride, ride, waddle, wriggle, paddle, swagger, trudge, slog

Answer

Words for walking: shuffle, stride, waddle, swagger, trudge, slog.

The Portrait of a Lady – Noticing Form

Question N1

Notice the form of the verbs italicised in these sentences. (These are examples of the past perfect form of verbs. When we recount things in the distant past we use this form.)
1. My grandmother was an old woman. She had been old and wrinkled for the twenty years that I had known her. People said that she had once been young and pretty and had even had a husband, but that was hard to believe.
2. When we both had finished we would walk back together.
3. When I came back she would ask me what the teacher had taught me.
4. It was the first time since I had known her that she did not pray.
5. The sun was setting and had lit her room and verandah with a golden light.

Answer

The past perfect is formed as had + past participle (V3). It shows that an action was completed before another past action or time.

Example for practice: When I reached the station, the train had left.

All italicised verbs are in the past perfect: had + past participle.

The Portrait of a Lady – Things to Do

Question D1

Talk with your family members about elderly people who you have been intimately connected with and who are not there with you now. Write a short description of someone you liked a lot.

Answer

Model description (to be adapted personally):

My grandfather was a tall, soft-spoken man with white hair and a gentle smile. Every evening he sat on the veranda with me and told stories of his village. He walked me to school holding my hand, and he never raised his voice, even when I made mistakes. When he passed away, the veranda seemed very quiet. I still remember his stories, and I try to be as patient and kind as he was.

A short, personal description of a loved elder, written from memory and family conversation.

A Photograph – Poem

Question P1

Infer the meanings of the following words from the context: paddling, transient. Now look up the dictionary to see if your inference is right.

Answer

• paddling: walking or playing in shallow water with bare feet. The mother and her cousins “went paddling” at the sea, and it is the sea that washed their feet.
• transient: lasting only for a short time, passing. The poet calls the girls’ feet “terribly transient” as the sea washes them, suggesting that their moment of childhood is passing.

The dictionary confirms both meanings.

paddling = walking in shallow water; transient = short-lived, passing.

Question P2

What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?

Answer

‘Cardboard’ means the photograph, which is mounted on a piece of cardboard. The poet uses this word to show that all that is left of her mother’s happy childhood is a flat, lifeless piece of paper, and to bring out the contrast between the vivid moment and the stillness of a picture.

It denotes the photograph, now only a flat piece of card, the sole survivor of the happy moment.

Question P3

What has the camera captured?

Answer

The camera has captured a moment of happiness at the seaside: the poet’s mother, a girl of about twelve, with her two cousins, holding hands as they paddled in the sea and smiling at their uncle who was taking the photograph.

A happy seaside moment of the mother as a girl, paddling with her two cousins.

Question P4

What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?

Answer

The sea has changed little over the years. It suggests that nature is permanent and constant, while human life is short, transient and keeps changing. People pass away but nature continues.

The sea has not changed, which suggests the permanence of nature against the fleeting human life.

Question P5

The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?

Answer

Years later, the mother laughed at the snapshot, saying “See Betty and Dolly… look how they dressed us for the beach.” The laugh shows that she looked back on her childhood with amusement and fondness. It was also a way of accepting time passing, with a touch of nostalgia and sadness for the time that cannot return.

It showed amused fondness and a wry acceptance of the past, mixed with nostalgia.

Question P6

What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”?

Answer

Wry means twisted or ironic. For the mother, the sea holiday was her lost childhood, and for the poet, her mother’s laughter is a memory. Both of them (the past of the mother and the past of the poet) are shown as a sad smile, a laboured ease: a kind of effortful calm with which they accept loss. The ease seems natural, but it takes effort, because the pain is still there.

Both the mother’s lost childhood and the poet’s lost mother are remembered with a forced, bittersweet calm.

Question P7

What is the meaning of “this circumstance”? / What does “this circumstance” refer to?

Answer

“This circumstance” refers to the fact that the poet’s mother has been dead for nearly as many years as the girl in the photograph had lived (about twelve). The poet finds the thought so overwhelming that “there is nothing to say at all”, and the silence deepens the loss.

It refers to the mother having been dead almost as long as she had lived when the photograph was taken.

Question P8

The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?

Answer

1. Stanza 1: the mother’s childhood, a happy moment at the seaside, as shown by the photograph.
2. Stanza 2: the mother’s later life, twenty or thirty years later, when she laughs at the snapshot, and the poet’s own memory of that laughter.
3. Stanza 3: the present, after the mother’s death, when the poet feels the silence of the loss.

Childhood of the mother, the mother in later years laughing at the photograph, and the poet’s present sense of loss.

Topic checklist

• ☒ Comprehension of The Portrait of a Lady (U1 – U5, T1 – T4)
• ☒ Language and vocabulary: tell, take, walking verbs (L1 – L4, W1 – W3)
• ☒ Grammar: past perfect (N1)
• ☒ Writing task (D1)
• ☒ The poem A Photograph (P1 – P8)

Total questions answered: 26 of 26