Chapter 1: Flamingo a Roadside Stand

English
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Chapter 1 – Flamingo a Roadside Stand

Class: XII

Exercise number – 1

Question 1

1. The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?

Answer 1

The lines from the poem which bring out that the city people who drove through the country hardly paid any heed to the edge stand or to the people that ran it. If in any respect they did, it absolutely was to complain are:

 "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"

According to the town folks, these stalls with anaesthetic signboards blemish the scenic great thing about the landscape.

Question 2

2. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
   
   

Answer 2

The rural people pleaded pitiably for a few customers to prevent by and obtain a number of their goods. 

Town people accustomed travel on this road and hence the agricultural people got wind of the wayside stand to draw in their attention and sell their merchandise.

Question 3

The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet uses to show their double standards.

Answer 3

The poet criticizes the double standards of the government and alternative work agencies who promise to enhance the quality of living of the poor farmers and show them the rosy facet of life. Yet, once the time involves deliver their promise, they either forget them or fulfil them keeping visible their own advantages. The writer calls them "greedy good-doers" and "beneficent beasts of prey", who "swarm over their lives". The writer says that these greedy individuals create calculated and well thought-out shrewd moves, to that the innocent, unaware farmers fall prey. These humble and easy farmers are robbed of their peace of mind by these clever individuals.

 The poet says,

"Swarms over their lives enforcing benefits
that are calculated to soothe them out of their wits,
And by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day,
Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way."

Question 4

What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it ‘vain’?

Answer 4

The writer thinks that the persons who are running the wayside stand, suffer from an immature yearning. They’re invariably expecting customers and watching for their prospective customers. They keep their windows receptive attract them. They become unhappy once nobody turns up. They’re always waiting to listen to the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car. However all their efforts get in vain.

Question 5

Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?

Answer 5

Filled with sympathy, the poet is unable involved the plight of the modest and innocent rural individuals. The lines below show his intolerable pain:
"Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
the thought of so much childish longing in vain,
the sadness that lurks near the open window there,
that waits all day in almost open prayer"