My dear viewers and my beloved students, it is great to come back to
you with the second part of the lesson, The Portrait of a Lady. Welcome to this
session. In this session I have given the paragraph from six to thirteen, and
the meaning of difficult words from of the text.
PART TWO
PARAGRAPH 6
As the years rolled by we saw less of each other. For some
time she continued to wake me up and get me ready for school.
When I came back she would ask me what the teacher had
taught me. I would tell her English words and little things of
western science and learning, the law of gravity, Archimedes’
Principle, the world being round, etc. This made her unhappy.
She could not help me with my lessons. She did not believe in
the things they taught at the English school and was distressed
that there was no teaching about God and the scriptures. One
day I announced that we were being given music lessons. She
was very disturbed. To her music had lewd associations. It was
the monopoly of
harlots and beggars and not
meant for gentlefolk. She said nothing but her silence meant disapproval. She rarely talked
to me after that.
Word meanings:
1.
lewd associations low values
2.
monopoly complete control
3.
harlots indecent women
4.
disapproval a feeling that you don’t like an idea
PARAGRAPH 7
When I went up to University, I was given a room of my own.
The common link of friendship was snapped. My grandmother
accepted her
seclusion with resignation. She rarely left her
spinning-wheel to talk to anyone. From sunrise to sunset she
sat by her wheel spinning and reciting prayers. Only in the
afternoon she relaxed for a while to feed the sparrows. While
she sat in the verandah breaking the bread into little bits,
hundreds of little birds collected round her creating a veritable
bedlam of
chirrupings. Some came and perched on her legs,
others on her shoulders. Some even sat on her head. She smiled but
never shooed them away. It
used to be the happiest half-hour of the day for her.
Word meanings:
1. snapped broken
2. accepted her seclusion with
resignation accepted the fact to live alone
3. rarely hardly
4. a veritable bedlam of chirrupings.
perfect chaos of twittering birds
5. shooed induced
to leave
PARAGRAPH 8
When I decided to go abroad for further studies, I was sure
my grandmother would be upset. I would be away for five years, and
at her age one could never tell. But my grandmother could. She was not even sentimental. She came to leave
me at the railway station but did not talk or show any emotion. Her lips moved
in prayer, her mind was lost in prayer. Her
fingers were busy telling the beads of her rosary. Silently she kissed
my forehead, and when I left I cherished
the moist imprint as perhaps the last sign of physical contact between
us.
Word meanings:
1.
sentimental emotional
2.
Her fingers were busy telling the
beads of her rosary The
grandmother was saying the prayers; this is personification because the fingers have been personified. This can
also be synecdoche (part for whole
and whole for part). Here fingers mean the grandmother.
3.
cherished nurtured
PARAGRAPH 9
But that was not so. After five years I came back home and
was met by her at the station. She did not look a day older. She
still had no time for words, and while she clasped me in her
arms I could hear her reciting her prayers. Even on the first day
of my arrival, her happiest moments were with her sparrows
whom she fed longer and with frivolous
rebukes.
Word meanings:
1.
clasped held tightly
2.
frivolous rebukes mild scolding/ not serious scolding
PARAGRAPH 10
In the evening a change came over her. She did not pray.
She collected the women of the neighbourhood, got an old drum and
started to sing. For several hours she thumped
the sagging skins of the dilapidated drum and sang of the home-coming of
warriors. We had to persuade
her to stop to avoid
overstraining. That was the
first time since I had known her
that she did not pray.
Word meanings:
1.
thumped the sagging skins of
the dilapidated drum played
the drum which was very old and bad in condition
2.
thumped beat( a drum)
3.
sagging hanging down
4.
dilapidated old and very bad in condition
5.
persuaded convinced
6.
overstraining subject to
excessive demand on strength and ability
PARAGRAPH 11
The next morning she was taken
ill. It was a mild fever and
the doctor told us that it would go. But my grandmother thought differently.
She told us that her end was near. She said that, since only a few hours before
the close of the last chapter of her life
she had omitted to
pray, she was not going to waste any more time talking to us.
Word meanings:
1.
taken ill became sick
2.
last chapter of her life the last phase of her life( used
metaphorically)
3.
omitted stopped
PARAGRAPH 12
We protested. But she ignored our protests. She lay peacefully
in bed praying and telling
her beads. Even before we could
suspect, her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell from her
lifeless fingers. A peaceful pallor
spread on her face and we knew that she was dead.
Word meanings:
1.
telling her beads saying her prayers and counting
the beads of the rosary
2.
pallor pale colour of face
PARAGRAPH 13
We lifted her off the bed and, as is customary, laid her on
the ground and covered her with a red shroud. After a few hours of mourning we left her alone to make arrangements for her funeral. In the evening we went
to her room with a crude stretcher to
take her to be cremated. The
sun was setting and had lit her room
and verandah with a blaze of
golden light. We stopped half-way in
the courtyard. All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she lay dead and stiff wrapped in the red shroud, thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. There was
no chirruping. We felt sorry
for the birds and my mother fetched some bread for them. She broke it into
little crumbs, the way my
grandmother used to, and threw it to them. The sparrows took no notice of the
bread. When we carried my grandmother’s corpse
off, they flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper swept the bread crumbs into the dustbin.
Word meanings:
1.
customary usual
2.
shroud a piece of cloth to cover dead body
3.
mourning lamenting
4.
funeral religious ceremony before cremating (burning) a dead body
5.
crude stretcher rough frame
6.
cremated burnt(dead body)
7.
blaze bright shine
8.
wrapped covered
9.
chirruping chirping, making short high sound
10. crumbs very
small piece of food
11. corpse dead
body
12. sweeper swept the sweeper cleaned the place
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