NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Hornbill - Poem 1 - A Photograph

Q: Infer the meaning of the following words from the context.
Padding, transient
Now look up the dictionary to see if your inference is right.
Ans: Paddling: To move a boat by means of paddles.
Transient: Something that stays at a place for a short time-period.

Think It Out

Q1: What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Ans: ‘Cardboard’ refers to the photograph only. This word has been used because photograph it lost it colur and also clarity of its images.

Q2: What has the camera captured?
Ans: The camera has captured some happy moments from the childhood of the poet’s mother. It was a scene taken from a beach where she had gone with her cousins and her uncle for a sea holiday. The girls were paddling in the water.

Q3: What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Ans: The sea has not changed over the years. It is still the same. The sea symbolizes eternity.

Q4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
Ans: This laugh indicates her remembering her past. She looked back to her childhood with nostalgia and remembered the innocent joys of her childhood days.

Q5: What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”. 
Ans: The line refers to the sea holiday as remembered by her mother and the poet remembering her mother’s laughing face. Both these now belong to the past. Her mother is no more now.

Q6: What does “this circumstance” refer to?
Ans: ‘This circumstance’ refers to the present situation of the poet wherein the poet is absorbed in the painful memory of her dead mother. Looking at the photograph and thinking of her mother’s laughter, the poet also realises that it has been the same number of years since her mother died as her mother’s age in the photograph.

Q7: The three stanzas depict three different phases. Name them.
Ans:

• The girlhood of the poet’s mother—the period before the birth of the poet.
• Her middle age—the period during the childhood of the poet
• Period after the death of the poet’s mother.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Why does the poet feel emotional on seeing the photograph?
Ans: The poet sees happy pictures of her mother enjoying a seaside holiday. Her mother is no longer with her. She has been dead for twelve years.

Q2: Who are the people in the photograph?
Ans: A smiling girl, about twelve-year-old and two younger girls, Betty and Dolly holding her hands; the 12-year-old girl was the mother of the poet and the other two her cousins.

Q3: How has the poet expressed her sense of loss?
Ans: The poet feels a sense of loss by looking at an old photograph of her mother. She remembers her mother’s reaction to that photo later in life. These memories make her personal loss acute.