11th Eng Hornbill Ch-1 The Portrait Of A LADY, Summary, Questions and answers

A Portrait of a Lady by Khushwant Singh

               INTRODUCTION.

The Portrait of a Lady describes a special bond between grandmother and grandson. Khushwant Singh narrates how the relationship develops over the years, and changes as the grandson grows up and the grandmother grows older. Solitude and silence fill the grandmother's days as she distances herself from the real world.. It also shows how love and emotion is experienced not only by human beings but animals and birds too.

Solitude- एकांत

Bond-प्यार का बंधन

Narrates- वर्णन करना

Summary 

Khushwant Singh is one of the eminent Indian writers .The Portrait of a Lady describes a special bond between grandmother and grandson. Khushwant Singh narrates how the relationship develops over the years, and changes as the grandson grows up and the grandmother grows older.

She is a saintly woman, quite religious and kind. This characteristics can be observed throughout the lesson, where the grandmother spends all her time in chanting prayers. She is very kind-hearted which is clearly seen from the instances where she feeds stale chapatis to dogs and crumbled bread to the sparrows. She was not physically attractive. She was old, fat and short with a stoop and hobbled about the house with her hand supporting waist, reciting her prayers and keeps on telling her beads of her rosary.

  During their long stay in village, the grandmother used to wake up the narrator in the morning and accompanied him to school. She took care of all small things and continued her regular prayers and reading of scriptures. On the way back home she fed stray dogs with stale chapatis. Shifting to city home was a turning point as it increased distances in their relationship. Now, the author was going to a city school and studying all modern day subjects. The grandmother was not able to help the author in his studies and she felt disturbed as there was no teaching of God and scriptures.

The grandmother devoted her time in praying, spinning and feeding sparrows. She did not get disturbed when the author was leaving for abroad and saw him off maintaining her peace and calm. Seeing her old age, the narrator thought that it could be his last meeting with his loving grandmother. But, contrary to his thinking after a span of five years the grandmother was there to receive him. She celebrated her grandson's home coming in an usual way by beating a drum and singing. She had a peaceful end and everyone including sparrows got aggrieved at the demise of a bold, religious, practical, responsible and loving person.At last we can say that Grandmother is a very loving, religious and caring lady.

Open this link 

https://youtu.be/Ea3HAPF1Qac?si=8DWKFAqWcKA2sVOS

Ch-1 

Summary 

https://englishscholarhubclgautam.blogspot.com/2024/04/11th-enghornbill-ch-1-portrait-of-lady.html