Class 10 English Chapter 1 Question Answers - First Flight

Short Answer Questions

Q1: No use to say ‘O there are other balls’
What do the words in inverted commas mean? Why does the poet think that it is useless to give this suggestion to the boy?
Ans: These words suggest that the loss of the ball is not important enough to worry about. The poet knows that the boy is sad and grieved over the loss of his ball and knows it is useless to make the boy understand how unimportant the loss of the ball is.

Q2: What is the boy learning from the loss of the ball? 
Ans: The boy is learning the epistemology of loss from the loss of the ball. He is understanding what it means to lose something he greatly admires.

Q3: “And no one buys a ball back. Money is external”. What does the poet imply by this expression?
Ans: Through this expression the poet implies that a lost ball cannot be bought back even with money. Money can only be used to buy valuable things but not to restore or compensate for a thing that is lost.

Q4: ‘He senses first responsibility’—What responsibility is referred to here?
Ans: The responsibility referred to here is of losing a ball by a little boy and how he learns to grow up. The ball is a much loved possession and the boy experiences grief at the loss of his ball which personifies his young and happy innocent days. The losing of the ball is losing his innocence and he is forced to grow up, and become responsible.

Q5: Why does the poet say that he will not offer the boy money to buy another ball?
Or
Why does the poet say, ‘I would not intrude on him? Why doesn’t he offer him money to buy another ball?
Ans: The poet says that he will not offer the boy money to buy another ball because balls are anyway worthless and also because he wants the boy to understand what it means and how it feels to lose something.

Q6: A ball is an easily available, inexpensive thing. Then, why is the boy so sad to lose it?
Ans: No doubt the ball is an easily available and inexpensive item but the ball the boy has lost is valuable for him. His memories of younger days are associated with it because he had been playing with it for a long time. It was not ordinary but a special ball for him. No other ball could take its place. Hence, the boy is sad to lose it.

Q7: Express your views on the title of the poem, ‘The Ball Poem’.
Ans: When one reads the title ‘The Ball Poem’, one assumes that the poem may be a light-hearted one but perhaps about the joys of childhood. But, the poem is about how we must not feel disheartened, dejected and desperate but try to stand up and bear the loss through self-understanding.

Q8: How did the boy react after his ball fell into the water of the harbour?
Ans: The falling of the ball in the water was quite sudden. Actually, it was an unexpected loss. The boy was completely shaken but couldn’t even move a step. He stood there fixed to the ground like a statue. He constantly continued staring at the point where his ball fell into the harbour. It seemed as if he was thinking of his childhood days which had disappeared forever like the lost ball.

Q9: Does the lost ball stand for the metaphor of the boy’s lost childhood? How?
Ans: The boy has lost his ball. It has fallen down into the harbour. It will not be found back again. However, through the metaphor of the lost ball, the poet wants to highlight a bigger loss. It is the loss of his childhood. Like the lost ball, the childhood days which he cherishes still now, have been lost forever. This makes the loss inconsolable.

Q10: What is the general rule of this ‘world of possessions’?
Ans: Getting something and losing it is a natural cycle. Many more boys before him bought and lost their balls. This process will go on forever. However, no amount of money can buy back the same ball that has been lost forever. Money is external and has its own limitations. Wealth can’t compensate for such emotional losses such as the loss of one’s childhood days.

Long Answer Questions
Q11: Should the boy be allowed to grieve for his ball? If his loss is irreparable or irretrievable then how should one handle it? What lessons can be learnt?
Ans: Yes, the child should be permitted to mourn the loss of his ball because he owned it for a very long period. He had a lot of distant memories from his early years associated with it. Furthermore, one should not interrupt or bother someone who is struggling to deal with their grief on their own because doing so could cause them to lose their train of thought and become agitated.
One should have self-consolation, and self -understanding in order to bear the loss. Self-realization and understanding are more effective and lasting than when it is done by an external agency or a person.

Q12: How did the boy really react to the loss of the ball or was he fearful of something or someone ……..? Can our attention be directed toward his family and other people? Are there any lessons to be learnt?
Ans:  (i) The boy was not fearful of anyone, in fact, he was really upset about the loss of the ball. The ball was valuable for him. He was shocked, remained fixed, trembled with grief staring at the place where the ball had fallen. His family must not have been affected by the loss as a ball is an easily available and inexpensive item.
(ii) The loss of the ball teaches a lesson to us. Money is external in the sense that it can give you only outer happiness or pleasure not inner. Money cannot buy the emotions and heavenly virtues. It cannot be linked with old memories. Moreover, self-consolation, realization or understanding is more effective and lasting than done by an external agency or a person.

Q13: How is the lost ball, the metaphor of the lost childhood of the boy? Why doesn’t the poet want to ‘intrude on’ the boy by offering him money to buy another ball?
Ans: The boy has a ball. Perhaps he has been keeping it for a long time. He must have developed a lot of attachment and love with the ball. Suddenly while he is playing, the ball bounces down the street. And after a few bounces, it falls down into the harbour. It is lost forever. The boy stands there shocked and fixed to the ground. He constantly goes on staring at the spot where his ball fell down into the water. Outwardly, the loss seems to be quite small. The boy seems to be making a fuss over the loss. Many boys have lost such balls and will lose so in future. A new ball can be easily bought in a dime.
The metaphor of the lost ball is beautifully linked to the loss of sweet childhood. No amount of money can buy the ball back that has been lost forever. Similarly, no worldly wealth can buy back the lost childhood. The poet doesn’t want to sermonise on this issue. The boy himself has to learn epistemology or the nature of the loss. He has to move ahead in life forgetting all the losses he has suffered in the past.

Q4: What is the epistemology of loss in this world of possessions? How has the child learned to stand up in life?
Ans: Gain and loss are the two sides of the same coin. Getting, spending and losing things form a natural cycle of life. The boy is inconsolable at the loss of his ball. Actually, it is not the ordinary ball but his long association and attachment with it that makes the loss so unbearable. It is like the good sweet days of childhood that the boy cherishes so much but are lost and gone forever. They will never come back again.
So, what is the remedy? He can bear this loss by understanding the epistemology or nature of the loss. In this world of material wealth and possessions, it seems that money can buy anything. However, it is a false conception. Money has its own limitations. Its nature is external. It cannot compensate for the losses that a person suffers emotionally or internally. No wealth can buy back the ball that has been lost forever. Similarly, no wealth can buy back the lost childhood. The child will have to move ahead and stand up in life. He has to stop weeping over his past losses and start living life as it should be lived.

Q5: If the Buddha were to summarise the life lesson of “The Ball Poem’, what would that sermon be? Think and create this address for people of your age.
Ans:  Losses are an integral part of life. We must look at them in totality. First of all, we must always keep in mind that life’s each and everything is God’s gift for which we must be thankful. The things which God has given can be taken back anything. We must not be attached to these gifts. Once these attached gifts are taken away, we become sad. We feel the lost thing is irreplaceable with any other things. The lost ball stands for the general losses a human being suffers as he grows old. The losses may be the loss of a personal possession or the death of a dear one or separation from a beloved one. As long as there is life, there will be many types of losses; what each one has to learn is bearing those losses.