My Mother At Sixty-Six
Think-as-you-read Questions
Question 1.
What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?
Answer:
Whenever the poet looks at the colourless and pale face of her mother, her old familiar pain surfaces realising that her mother was ageing and would die soon.
Question 2.
Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?
Answer:
The young trees are described as “sprinting” because when we look at them from a moving car, they
seem to be running fast in the opposite direction.
Question 3.
Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of these home’?
Answer:
The image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their home’ suggests the idea of youth and beauty in contrast to the ashen-like pale wan face of the ageing mother of the poet. This image emphasises the fact that the old mother has lost vitality, energy, charm, beauty and youth.
Question 4.
Why has the mother been compared to the late winter’s moon?
Answer:
The mother has been compared to the late winter’s moon as she is very old and her face is ashen,
pale and withered. She looks very dull and lifeless like the late winter’s moon.
Question 5.
What do the parting words of the poet and her smile signify?
Answer:
The parting words express the poet’s optimism. These words console the mother that she would soon visit her again. She smiles to conceal her fear and pain of separation from her mother and gives her ageing mother an assurance of survival.
My Mother At Sixty-Six – Solved Question Bank
Reference-to-context Exercises
Read the extracts given below.
Question 1.
Driving from my parent’s
home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother,
beside me,
doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with
pain
Answer the following.
(a) The poet was driving from her parents’ home to Cochin. (True/False)
(b) The poet was dozing beside her mother, open-mouthed. (True/False)
(c) On which day did the incident of the poem take place?
(d) What colour, according to the poet, describes the colour of a corpse?
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) Friday morning
(d) ashen
Question 2.
…I saw my mother,
beside me,
doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with
pain…
Answer the following.
(a) The poet saw her mother sitting beside her, open mouthed. (True/False)
(b) Her mother’s face looked ashen, as her mother was a corpse. (True/False)
(c) The poet’s mother was sitting beside her and ___________ .
(d) Seeing her mother beside her, brought home to the poet a painful___________ .
Answer:
(a) False
(b) False
(c) dozing
(d) realisation
Question 3.
…that she thought away, and
looked but soon
put that thought away, and
looked out at Young
Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes, …
Answer the following.
(a) The poet put aside the thought of being with her mother. (True/False)
(b) The young trees seemed to be___________ .
(c) The merry children were___________ out of their homes.
(d) The poet put away___________ during the journey?
Answer:
(a) False
(b) sprinting
(c) spilling
(d) her thought
Question 4.
…I looked again at her, wan,
pale
as a late winter’s moon and felt that
old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear.
Answer the following.
(a) When the poet looked at her mother she looked wan and pale. (True/False)
(b) What kind of ache rose in the poet’s mind due to a childish fear?
(c) The poet’s mother’s face looked pale as the ___________ moon.
(d) The reference to a fear is traced to the poet’s ___________ .
Answer:
(a) True
(b) Childish
(c) winter’s
(d) childhood
Question 5.
old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear, [Delhi 2016]
but all I said was, see you soon,
Anima,
all I did was smile and smile and
smile…
Answer the following.
(a) The poet uses the words ‘old familiar ache’ to describe a painful, persistent thought. (True/False)
(b) The familiar ache in the poet’s mind went forward to a childish fear. (True/False)
(c) The parting words of the poet to her mother were: ‘see you ___________, Amma’.
(d) What did the poet do, when she parted from her mother?
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) soon
(d) smile
Question 6.
…and felt that
old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was, see you soon,
Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile…
(a) The parting words of the poet suggest passion. (True/False)
(b) The poet smiled in order to conceal a childhood ___________ .
(c) The ‘familiar ache’ had been haunting the poet since her ___________ .
(d) What familiar thing did the poet feel?
Answer:
(a) False
(b) fear
(c) childhood
(d) ache
My Mother At Sixty-Six Short Questions and Answers
Question 1.
What were the poet’s feelings at the airport? How did she hide them?
Answer:
The poet was full of pain and fear of being separated from her ageing mother. The fear of losing her mother gripped her. But she bade her mother goodbye with a smile to give her hope of survival and meeting again.
Question 2.
Why are the youngsters described as springing?
Answer:
Youngsters are described as springing because they are full of energy and vitality. They represent the vibrant youth. The poet is trying to bring in the contrast of her old and ageing mother with the energetic youth.
Question 3.
What was Kamala Das’ fear as a child? Why does it surface when she is going to airport?
Answer:
As a child, the poet always had a fear of getting separated from her mother. There was a sense of insecurity and fear of losing her mother. The childhood fear reappeared when, while going to the airport, she looked at the pale and withered face of her mother. She realised that her mother was ageing and she might lose her soon.
Question 4.
What does the poet’s smile in the poem, ‘My Mother at Sixty-six’ show?
Answer:
The poet was in reality very sad. But she did not want to show her fears to her mother so she was smiling. Her smile was just a facade. She had fears of losing her mother soon.
Question 5.
How does Kamala Das try to put away the thoughts of her ageing mother?
Answer:
In order to put away the thoughts of her ageing mother, the poet starts looking out of the window of the car 2d young trees sprinting, the merry children spilling out of their homes.
Question 6.
Having looked at her mother, why does Kamala Das look at the young children?
Answer:
Kamala Das looked at her mother and painfully realized that she had aged and was inching towards death. To distract herself, she started looking out of the window at the young children playing.
Question 7.
What was Kamala Das’s childhood fear?
Answer:
Kamala Das’s childhood fear was that one day she would lose her mother and seeing her aged face, she was pained at the thought of separation.
Question 8.
In the last line of the poem, ‘My Mother at Sixty-six’, why does the poet use the word ‘smile’ repeatedly?
Answer:
The poet has used the word ‘Smile’ in the last line repeatedly to hide her emotions. She tries to give hope to her ageing mother by saying that they will meet again.
