Passage Based Questions: English - 8 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
Exactly one year ago, in May 2019, we in Kolkata were preparing for Cyclone Fani. I was in conversation with Ruskin Bond for an event in Kolkata. He was supposed to fly back to Dehradun the next day, but we cancelled his return ticket in anticipation of the cyclone. I stayed with him and his adopted grandson, Rakesh, in their hotel suite the whole day, bracing for a storm that never came. The weather gods had wreaked havoc on Kolkata. Bond didn’t spare me, though, teasing me relentlessly for being an “overprotective mother hen” who wouldn’t let him go home!
By 5 p.m. on Wednesday, as the wind picked up and the rain pelted down, I began to wish I had stocked up on more candles. Outside, it felt like an evil djinn of ginormous proportions was throwing itself at our homes repeatedly, relentlessly, trying to force its way in to destroy everything we held dear. I spent the next hour running around the flat shutting windows against the wind and rain—it felt like a losing game of tag with the howling monster. You secure the bedroom and it attacks the living room; you shut the pesky bathroom window and fasten it with a travelling lock, and it targets the openings through the blades of the exhaust fan, streaming in water and leaves and debris.
The storm passed four hours after it started. The calm that suddenly descended was unnerving. Power was restored in my flat later that night, and other than some rainwater and filth, I had escaped the worst of it. Over the next two days, we learnt that the cyclone had uprooted over 4,500 trees in Kolkata alone, and felled 2,500 electric poles, snapped phone and internet lines and destroyed old buildings. And the scenes of devastation I witnessed across Kolkata when a colleague and I drove down to our office on Thursday to check for damage broke my heart. We couldn’t get through to many of our loved ones, and worried ourselves sick through Wednesday night, especially for our elderly relatives and those who live alone.
Across Bengal, 80 people have died in the storm—of them 19 in Kolkata alone. I cannot imagine if those of us who live in secure pucca houses were so rattled, what has become of those far less fortunate. The images flashing across social media give us a sense of just how damaged we are. The coronavirus robbed us of everything and confined us to our homes. We adapted. But the cyclone robbed us of even that last bit of luxury—the luxury of sharing our grief.