A Roadside Stand
Question 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:
The lines that bring out the irritation of the passers-by are:
Or if ever aside a moment, the out of sorts
At having the landscape marred….
They complained that the disfigured paint of the stall spoilt the beauty of the landscape, the signposts pointed the wrong way and the stalls were not maintained.
Question 2.
What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
Answer:
The people of the roadside stand sat in prayer that some city traffic should stop by and buy their wares so that they could make some money to improve their life beyond mere survival.
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 the poet uses to show their double standards.
Answer:
The poet uses the word ‘greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey’ and ‘enforcing benefits that are calculated’.
Question 4.
What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it in vain?
Answer:
The poet refers to the tireless longing of the stall owners for some car to stop by and give them an opportunity to make some money. But they wait in vain because the cars just pass by without thinking of the hope and longing of the sad faces peeping from the windows. If at all they stop, it is to ask the way or to take turn.
Question 5.
Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural people?
Answer:
The lines that express the poet’s insufferable pain are:
I wonder how I should like you to come to me
And offer to put me gently out of my pain.
A Roadside Stand – Solved Question Bank
Reference-to-context Exercises
Read the extracts given below.
Question 1.
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.
Answer the following.
(a) The poor are working instead of begging for their bread. (True/False)
(b) The cash and money is flowing to the poor. (True/False)
(c) The cities are in need of some of the __________ .
(d) Besides sinking, the cities without cash flow would be __________ faint.
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) money
(d) withering
Question 2.
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
Answer the following.
(a) The polished traffic in the poem refers to posh cars only. (True/False)
(b) The posh occupants of the cars were annoyed at seeing the wayside stall. (True/False)
(c) The traffic passed by thinking of the journey __________ .
(d) They paid heed to the unsightly __________ shed for a moment.
Answer:
(a) False
(b) True
(c) ahead
(d) roadside
Question 3.
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.
Answer the following.
(a) The shed sold wild berries in wooden quarts. (True /False)
(b) The shed sold silver squashes. (True/False)
(c) The rich passers-by did not buy his wares because of their __________ .
(d) The shed owner concluded that the rich passers-by had the __________ .
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) meanness
(d) money
Question 4.
… but if you want to be mean,
Why keep your money (this crossly) and go along.
The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my complaint
So much as the trusting sorrow of what is unsaid:
Answer the following.
(a) The cross shop owner told the passer-by to keep his money. (True/False)
(b) The country folk are not hurt by the ugly sight their shed creates. (True/False)
(c) The shed owner is hurt at what is left __________ .
(d) The shed owner feels city folk are mean by __________ their money instead of sharing it.
Answer:
(a) False
(b) True
(c) unsaid
(d) keeping
Question 5.
Here 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.
Answer the following.
(a) The shed is built far from the city. (True/False)
(b) They ask for some of the city’s taxes to feel it in their hands. (True/False)
(c) The kind of life promised to the poor shed owners is one seen in __________ .
(d) By feeling the money in hand, the poor want to know if that would make their progress __________ .
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) moving pictures
(d) expand
Question 6.
It is in the news that all these pitiful kin
Are to be brought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store,
Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore.
Answer the following.
(a) The news has spread that the relatives of shed owners are being taken together. (True/False)
(b) The wayside shop owners are to be settled next to the __________ .
(c) The new settlement of the shop owners is referred to as a __________ .
(d) Through what means have the shed owners come to know about the settlement?
Answer:
(a) False
(b) theatre
(c) village
(d) news
Question 7.
While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,
Swarm 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.
Answer the following.
(a) The welfare workers are enforcing benefits on the poor settlers. (True/False)
(b) The welfare measures being introduced has deprived the poor of their resourceful ways. (True/False)
(c) The welfare measures have taught the settlers to __________ all day.
(d) By sleeping all day, the villagers’ sleep at night is __________ .
Answer:
(a) True
(b) True
(c) sleep
(d) destroyed
Question 8.
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
That waits all day in almost open prayer
For the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car,
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass.
Answer the following.
(a) The shed owners sit by their open windows sadly. (True/False)
(b) The shed owners join together in an open prayer. (True/False)
(c) What word is used for the sound of the brakes?
(d) The car owners do not stop and help the shed owners by buying their goods. The cars are dubbed as ________ .
Answer:
(a) True
(b) False
(c) squeal
(d) selfish
Question 9.
Just one to inquire what a farmer’s prices are.
And one did stop, but only to plow up grass,
In using the yard to back and turn around;
And another to ask the way to where it was bound;
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
They couldn’t (this crossly); they had none, didn’t it see?
Answer the following.
(a) One passer-by stopped and enquired about the price of farmers’ goods. (True/False)
(b) One of the cars had stopped to use the __________ to turn his car.
(c) The shed owner was cross when one of the car owners asked if he sold __________ .
(d) In which direction did the car owner ask for directions?
Answer:
(a) True
(b) yard
(c) gas
(d) his destination
Question 10.
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
They couldn’t (this crossly); they had none, didn’t it see?
Answer the following.
(a) The ‘another’ in the passage indicates another shed owner. (True/False)
(b) The amount of gas that the buyer wanted was a ton. (True/False)
(c) Though the shed owner sold gas, he had none at that time. (True/False)
(d) A passing traveller asked the settlers if they could sell him a __________ of gas.
Answer:
(a) False
(b) False
(c) False
(d) gallon
Question 11.
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 owing the great relief it would be
To put these people at one stroke out of their pain.
Answer the following.
(a) Money can never lift up spirits in the country. (True/False)
(b) The voice of the country __________ about the lack of country money.
(c) The poet wants to put the country folk out of their __________ .
(d) The country folk do not have the requisite money to lift their __________ .
Answer:
(a) False
(b) complains
(c) pain
(d) spirits
A Roadside Stand Short Questions and Answers
Question 1.
What is the untold sorrow of the owners of the roadside stand?
Answer:
The untold sorrow of the roadside stand owners is that nobody pays attention to the efforts of the country folk to make some money. The city folk just pass by their stalls without helping them to maike some money. Their lives have not progressed at all as they merely earn to survive.
Question 2.
What is the poet’s complaint in the poem?
Answer:
The poet does not complain like passers-by that the landscape has been marred. He is complaining about the lack of opportunity and encouragement to these people in the countryside. He is upset about the sorrow of those who had set up the roadside stall in the hope that people would stop by and some money would tickle into their palms.
Question 3.
Why do country people ask for money?
Answer:
The country people ask for money to improve their lives. They set up stalls on (he roadside in the hope that they would make some money by selling goods of daily use and make their life better, as they had seen in movies and as had been promised by the party in power.
Question 4.
What was the news that was doing the rounds?
Answer:
There was news that the people in power were planning to move all these rural people to the city next to the theatre and the big stores. Their lives would be secured and they would not have to worry about themselves any longer. They were promised that they would soon be pulled out of their poverty.
Question 5.
How would the innocent be soothed out of their wits?
Answer:
The selfish good-doers would outwit the simple innocent people into believing that their intentions and efforts were for their improvement, while they would be seeking their own profits from the labour of these folks.
Question 6.
Why are the cars called ‘selfish’?
Answer:
The poet has used a transferred epithet here. He actually means to call the car owners selfish as they just pass by without a thought for the plight of the owners of the roadside stands and if at all they do stop, it is either to complain or to turn their car round.
Question 7.
What is the sadness that lurks near the open window there?
Answer:
The poet is referring to the disappointed faces that wait in vain at their stall windows for someone to ask for their wares and drop some money in their palm. But their hopes for a better living are belied.
Question 8.
What is the open prayer made by the country folk?
Answer:
The country folk make an open appeal to the city dwellers that they should not be selfish. They expectantly pray for the city cars to stop at their roadside stand and help them lead a better life.
Question 9.
What is the trusting sorrow? What remains unsaid?
Answer:
The country folk trust their rich brethren in the city to come to their help but they feel sad when their trust is breached by the city people through their indifference. Although the city people have said nothing but their silence speaks volumes about their cold and indifferent attitude to the rural poor, who feel hurt by it.
Question 10.
Which things irritated those passers-by who stopped at the roadside stand?
Answer:
The passers-by got irritated by the tastelessly painted roadside stand. The thought that the artless decor of the stand was in disharmony with their surroundings and it had destroyed the scenic beauty of the landscape. Even their ‘N’ and ‘S’ on the signboards was wrongly presented. They did not approve of the things offered for sale.
Question 11.
Why did the people driving along the highway think that the landscape was marred?
Answer:
The people driving along the highway objected to the tastelessly painted roadside stand. They thought that the artless decor of the stand was in disharmony with the surroundings and had destroyed the scenic beauty of the landscape. Although the shed had been recently renovated but it could never impress the city dwellers. They were always critical and felt that these unhygienically maintained roadside stands marred the beautiful mountain scene.
Question 12.
Who actually stopped near the sheds put up by the farmers at the edges of the road?
Answer:
The poet states clearly that three cars stopped but none inquired about the prices of the farmer’s produce. One car stopped to reverse and another asked the way to where it was bound. The third foolishly asked if they could sell it a gallon of gas.
Question 13.
What would be the great relief for the poet in reference to these village folks?
Answer:
The poet says loudly that he would be happy to own the great relief if the pains of these people were removed at one stroke. Obviously, he is much moved by their pathetic plight of life. He wants something to be done to improve their lives economically.
Question 14.
What hope does the poet nurture about himself when he asks that these people should be put at one stroke out of their pain?
Answer:
The poet hopes that these people are put at one stroke out of their pain. The poet wants that the authorities should come to him and offer to put him ‘gently out of my pain’. The poet identifies himself with the village folks as far as their economic conditions are concerned.
Question 15.
What is the poet’s attitude to the good-doers and why is it so?
Answer:
The poet condemns the good-doers for they actually take away the villagers’ freedoms to think for themselves. They force benefits on them which lull them into doing nothing and destroy their peace of mind and their lives. He criticizes them for exploiting the villagers for their own gains.
Question 16.
What different attitudes do the city dwellers display to the country people?
Answer:
The city dwellers are indifferent to the plight of the country people and ignore the stands selling their goods. They get irritated with them for spoiling the landscape with their wrong signboards. They also exploit them for their selfish gains by offering them hollow charity which spoils their lives.
Question 17.
On what occasions do the country people express their anger at the city elite?
Answer:
The country people get angry with the city elite when, despite having money, they do not buy any of their goods. Again when a car stops and asks for gas which they obviously do not have, but does not ask the price of what they are actually selling.
Question 18.
What do the country people want?
Answer:
The country people want a share in the wealth enjoyed by the city people which they also have a right to, so that they can improve their conditions and lead better lives just as those promised by the movies and which the government has denied them.
Question 19.
Why are the country folks disappointed?
Answer:
The country folks have put up a roadside stand to sell their wares to the city dwellers. They desperately hope to earn some city money so that they could support their lives with it. They are disappointed because the city dwellers rush away in their polished cars with their minds focused only on their destination. If ever they pause, they are rather critical in their comments. They complain that the roadside stand had marred the scenic beauty of the landscape.
Question 20.
Bring out the contrast between the urban rich and the rural poor.
Answer:
The urban rich are on the move, they are in a hurry, they are speeding looking ahead. They have no time to inquire about the goods put up by rural poor for sale. On the other hand, the rural poor are standing and pleading for help.
Question 21.
How does the poet describe the double standards of the government and other social service agencies towards the poor rural people?
Answer:
The poet is sad that the government which came into power had many promises for the wellbeing of rural poor folks. But it and other social agencies did nothing for that. These poor rural people put up their roadside stands to sell what they produce. But no passer-by buys them. The poet feels much pain at their poor plight.
