Read the following extract and do the given activities :
Question: 1
State whether the following statements are true or false :
(i) The narrator’s father was a rationalist —
(ii) It was summer when the incident took place —
(iii) Mother found relief after twenty hours —
(iv) Mother thanked the neighbours for sparing her children —
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Justify T/F with a phrase from the text. Quote minimally but precisely.
(i) “My father, sceptic, rationalist” — explicitly stated.
(ii) “endless rain” implies monsoon, not summer.
(iii) “After twenty hours it lost its sting” — relief after 20 hours.
(iv) She thanked God the scorpion spared her children, not the neighbours.
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Question: 2
What were the efforts taken by the father and the holy man to reduce the pain of the mother?
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Note contrasts between characters’ roles: science vs. faith, both driven by care and desperation.
Contrast: Rationalist father \emph{yet} desperate, using both folk and quasi-scientific methods (compounds, cautery). Holy man uses spiritual ritual/chant. The poem juxtaposes empirical vs. ritual responses under stress.
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Question: 3
Find out an example of ‘Antithesis’ from the extract.
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Antithesis = sharp opposition in parallel structure; look for binary opposites in one line.
