Important Questions: The Portrait of a Lady | English Class 11 PDF Download

Very Short Answer Questions 

Q1: “In the evening a change came over her.” What change came over the grandmother?
Ans: Grandmother was overjoyed when Khushwant Singh returned. In the evening she did not sing her prayers instead she gathered the neighbourhood women and started to sing songs of the homecoming of warriors along with playing a dilapidated drum.

Q2: How does the grandfather look in the portrait?
Ans: In the portrait that hung above the mantelpiece in the drawing, the grandfather wore a big turban and loose-fitting clothes. His long, white beard covered the best part of his chest and made him look at least a hundred years old.

Q3: Write the meaning of the given words.
(i) Revolting
Ans: Rebelling

(ii) Serenity
Ans: Calmness

(iii) Seclusion
Ans: Aloofness

(iv) Veritable
Ans: Genuine

Q4: What two activities does the grandmother do every day?
Ans: When Khushwant Singh went to the university and was given a room of his own, Grandmother accepted her seclusion with resignation. She rarely left her spinning wheel. She realized for a while in the afternoon while feeding sparrows bread crumbs.

Q5: The story “The Portrait of a Lady” is about which lady?
Ans: In the story “The Portrait of a Lady”, Khushwant Singh describes the pen picture of his grandmother who raised him in his early childhood.

Short Answer Type Questions

Q6: How did the grandmother utilise her time in the city home?
Ans: After the author got a room of his own in the city home his grandmother accepted her detachment calmly. She recited prayers and worked on her spinning wheel the entire day. In the afternoon, she would take a half-hour break to rest and feed the birds bread crumbs in the veranda.

Q7: How were the author and grandmother connected and how did it break?
Ans: The author was raised by his grandmother in early childhood. They were constantly together. She brushed, bathed, dressed, and accompanied him to school. It chanced when they shifted to the city where he went to the school with a motor bus and studied subjects grandmother could not comprehend. Their relationship saw a steeper turn when he was given a room of his own in the university and the common link of their friendship broke.

Q8: Give a pen picture of the narrator’s grandfather as he appeared in the portrait?
Ans: The grandfather in the portrait had the appearance of a man who would neither have a wife nor children. His beard, turban and loose-fitted clothes made him look like a person who could only have lots and lots of grandchildren.

Q9: How does grandmother feel about English education and music lessons at school?
Ans: Grandmother did not approve of the education Khushwant received in school. She did not believe in the things taught and was baffled to know that there was no teaching about God or scriptures. She was very disturbed to know about the music lessons because her music had filthy associations. It was meant for harlots and beggars, not decent people.

Q10: Why does the author say that at the age of her grandmother, one could never tell? What was one could never tell?
Ans: The author had to go foreign for his higher studies. Grandmother was remarkably old and at her age, one could never tell when she would breathe her last. The fact that he would be gone for five years made him fear losing his grandmother more.

Q11: How did the grandmother utilise her time in the city home?
Ans: After the author got a room of his own in the city home his grandmother accepted her detachment calmly. She recited prayers and worked on her spinning wheel the entire day. In the afternoon, she would take a half-hour break to rest and feed the birds bread crumbs in the veranda.

Q12: How were the author and grandmother connected and how did it break?
Ans: The author was raised by his grandmother in early childhood. They were constantly together. She brushed, bathed, dressed, and accompanied him to school. It chanced when they shifted to the city where he went to the school with a motor bus and studied subjects grandmother could not comprehend. Their relationship saw a steeper turn when he was given a room of his own in the university and the common link of their friendship broke.

Q13: Give a pen picture of the narrator’s grandfather as he appeared in the portrait?
Ans: Grandfather in the portrait had the appearance of a man who would neither have a wife nor children. His beard, turban and loose-fitted clothes made him look like a person who could only have lots and lots of grandchildren.

Q14: How does grandmother feel about English education and music lessons at school?
Ans: Grandmother did not approve of the education Khushwant received in school. She did not believe in the things taught and was baffled to know that there was no teaching about God or scriptures. She was very disturbed to know about the music lessons because her music had filthy associations. It was meant for harlots and beggars, not decent people.

Q15: Why does the author say that at the age of her grandmother, one could never tell? What was one could never tell?
Ans: The author had to go foreign for his higher studies. Grandmother was remarkably old and at her age, one could never tell when she would breathe her last. The fact that he would be gone for five years made him fear losing his grandmother more.

Long Answer Type Questions

Q16: How the grandmother was interested in the education of the author.
Ans: Grandmother had no formal education but she was serious about the education of her grandson. She helped him with his lessons in the village. She would wash and plaster wooden slate. She also accompanied him to the school. In the city, she could not do either of them as the author went to an English medium school and on a motor bus. Even after this gap, she asked the author regularly about his school lessons, even though she did not approve of them. She believed that the music is for beggars and harlots and they should be given religious knowledge instead of sciences. Her concept of the right education was different but still, she accepted and encouraged him for further studies. She never dragged him down morally or questioned him for his decisions.

Q17: “Some twenty-thirty -years later She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty And Dolly,” she’d say, - and look how they Dressed us for the beach.” The sea holiday
Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”
Give line by line explanation of the stanza from the poem “A Photograph.”
Ans: The photograph of the poet's mother and her cousins capture a fond memory, some twenty-thirty years old. On being shown the photograph, the mother laughed at the way she, Betty, and Dolly dress for the sea holiday. The sea holiday and the photograph were a blissful memory for the mother while her laughter on seeing the photograph is a warm memory for the daughter who has lost her mother for nearly as many years as the girl in the photograph had lived.

Q18: Give a sketch of the author’s grandmother according to the chapter “The Portrait of a Lady”.
Ans: Khushwant Singh’s grandmother, like every other grandmother, was old, wrinkled and had white silver locks. She had a serene appearance and looked like snow-covered mountains. She always murmured inaudible prayers and while telling her beads of the rosary. She was adaptable as when they shifted to the city, a place and environment that was foreign to her she found peace in spinning, praying, and feeding the sparrows that visited her. She showed keen interest during the early education of the author and never dragged him down for doing things she did not approve of. She gradually felt more secluded when the author grew up but she accepted it with resignation.

Q19: What type of bond did the grandmother share with dogs and sparrows?
Ans: Grandmother was accustomed to living in the village. She raised the author during his early childhood in the village when his parents were trying to figure out their lives in the city. She was a spiritual person and close to nature. She loved the rustic living in the village and made sure to carry stale chapatis for the dogs and fed them when she and the author returned from the temple. In the city she lost touch with the life she was fond of but her love for nature still flourished. She made sure to feed bread crumbs to the sparrows every day. She never shooed them away when they perched on her shoulder and head. When she passed away, they mourned her death and sat in the veranda where the body lay, without chirping or feeding on the crumbs that were given to them.

Q20: Write the summary of the poem “A Photograph.”
Ans: The poem ‘A Photograph’ talks about the transient nature of mortals being compared with the eternal state of nature which appears to change less with time. The poet starts by describing a snapshot, on a piece of cardboard, of her mother and cousins. Her mother was the eldest one out of the three in the photograph. When asked upon the mother laughed remembering her cousins, Betty and Dolly making fun of the way they dressed for the beach holiday. The poet also beautifully adds how the immortal sea washes away the imprints of the mortals who walk on the sand, leaving no trace of their visit there.
As of the present, the poet describes the mother's laughter on seeing the picture as a memory as she is dead. It brought her immense sorrow and the line “Its silence silences” reflects her remorseful state of mind.