Class 12 English Previous Year: Short Questions With Answers (Part - 2) - A Roadside Stand

(Answer the following questions in about 30-40 words each)
Q.1. The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside or the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?
Ans. The lines that tell this 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
Their complaint was that the signs with
N and S turned wrong spoiled the
Beauty of the landscape.

Q.2. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
Ans. The people who had put the roadside stand did not ask for charities. They wanted some money to improve their lot. They offered their produce for sale.

Q.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.
Ans. The so-called do gooders are selfish and greedy. They bring plans to help the poor village people. But in fact they want to grab their lands. The following words / phrases used by the poet shows their double standards:
• Pitiful kin are to be bought out
• Mercifully gathered to live in villages
• Greedy good-doers
• Beneficent beasts of prey
• Enforcing benefits
• Soothe them out of their wits

Q.4. What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it a ‘vain’
Ans. The poet is referring to the speaker’s desire to kill all the poor to put an end to their misery at one stroke. But he realizes that his desire was a vain. It was neither feasible nor desirable. It was a childish idea.

Q.5. Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?
Ans. The lines that tell us about the poet’s insufferable pain are:
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.