POEM 11 AN OLD WOMAN

Question 1.

‘You’ in the poem refers to

Answer:

(d) anyone.

Question 2.

What does the old woman offer to do?

OR

What does the old woman offer the speaker in return for fifty paise?

Answer:

Take the speaker to the horseshoe shrine.

Question 3.

What does the old woman demand from the tourists for her service?

OR

What does the old woman demand from the pilgrims to show ‘the horseshoe shrine’?

Answer:

A fifty paise coin.

Question 4.

The lines, ‘You turn around and face her with an air of finality’ suggest that he

decided to

Answer:

(c) end the farce.

Question 5.

The old woman’s eyes are compared to _____

bullet holes.

Question 6.

‘You are reduced

to so much small change

in her hand.’

Here, the speaker is suggesting that

Answer:

(a) one is reduced to an insignificant position.

II Question 1.

How is the plight of the old woman depicted in the poem?

Answer:

The old woman depicts all those who live below the poverty line in India. If this is a

common problem of many because of the problem of unemployment, the woman’s

age is an indicator to the fact that the problem is more pronounced in the case of the

old. When young they might have done more productive work and earned money.

But in their old age, with their physical fitness reduced, they are reduced to the level

of forcing themselves upon tourists who want to get rid of them. This can be a very

painful experience for the people who have lived with dignity all along but are

suddenly reduced to the status of being considered burr.

Arun Kolatkar wants to take up this social problem. He takes up the question of

caring to be shown to the old. When the speaker has this realisation, he has a

changed perspective and he finds himself reduced to the position of being a person

of insignificance – a cheap person like the small coins in the hands of the old

woman. Her suffering is indicated by the description that she has two bullet holes in
the place of eyes. Eyes are normally taken as the indicator of life, but the old

woman’s eyes are lifeless bullet holes.

Thus, Kolatkar takes up a social problem with a special focus on the aged and tries

to awaken in us a sense of responsibility towards our fellow brethren.

Question 2.

The old woman in the poem is a self-appointed tourist guide, not a beggar. Do you

agree? Give reasons.

Answer:

Certainly, the woman is a self-appointed tourist guide because she pesters the

speaker to avail of her services even when his intention is to get rid of her. Her

persistence is seen in the fact that she hobbles after him and goes to the extent of

stopping him by tightening her grip on his shirt. The speaker is more and more

annoyed and he wants to get rid of her by being firm in refusing her offer. If we

compare the interaction between the speaker and the old woman, we see that it isn’t

much different from the transaction that takes place between a tourist and a beggar.

The beggars also follow people around pestering them with a demand for alms. But

the difference is that if the tour guides offer their service, the beggars don’t. This

immediately introduces a world of difference between the two categories of people. It

shows that even if the tour guides can be as annoying as the beggars, they are

people with self-respect.

Question 3.

How does the speaker’s attitude undergo a change?

Answer:

The speaker’s attitude undergoes a change because he is posed a question. The old

woman’s question, “What else can an old woman do on hills as wretched as these?’
makes him realise the wretched life of the old woman. The word ‘wretched’ used with

reference to a pilgrim centre makes it clear that places of worship will have no value

if people at such places suffer. The question stumps the speaker and he is filled with

admiration for the woman who has remained on the wretched hill resolutely. Though

ugly and old, she is shatterproof. At this point, there is a sudden reversal of role. The

speaker, who had until then considered the old woman insignificant and worthless,

suddenly realises that it is he who is insignificant because he has not seen the kind

of struggle the old woman has witnessed in her life. Her strength and forbearance

are stronger than his.

III Question 1.

“The old woman reduces the self-esteem of the speaker and makes him feel that he

is nothing more than ‘so much small change’.” Comment.

OR

How do the stature of the old woman and that of the narrator change at the end?

Answer:

Arun Kolatkar’s poem, ‘An Old Woman’, begins with a commonplace experience, but

ends in a revelation. At every tourist place, you will meet a self-appointed tourist

guide like the old woman in the poem. They need the money and will pester you.

They even promise to give you some service in lieu of the money you give them.

Generally, tourists give them something to get rid of them. But a few are firmer and

refuse to be influenced by the persuasive attempts of the guides. But what is to be

understood is that they do what they do because they have no other means of

earning their livelihood. If they don’t do what they do, perhaps the only option left for

them is to beg. The very fact that they don’t beg, but offer their services shows that

somewhere deep within them there is some self-respect and hence treating them as
burr is inappropriate. Though they are irritating, one should remember that it is the

circumstance that has reduced them to this.

Especially in the case of an old woman like the one found on the hills, what else

would you expect them to do for their living? When the speaker realises that he has

no answer for the question posed by the woman, “What else can an old woman do

on hills as wretched as these?’, his perception of the old woman undergoes a

sudden change. Her eyes which are like bullet holes become a sign of her suffering.

The cracks on her face become symbolic of the cracks in a society which do not care

for the old and the meek. That is why the speaker says that her cracks extend

beyond her skin, and the hills, temples and the sky crack. In other words, everything

around her indicates the cracks in the life of such helpless-people. Yet she stands

shatterproof, continuing with life doggedly whereas many others would have cracked

under the blows of poverty.

Suddenly the speaker has a new-found respect for the old woman. She becomes a

sign of her heritage – the land from which she comes. It is people who dismiss her

with a fifty paise coin or shoo her away without giving even that who become as

cheap as the fifty paise coin. Kolatkar describes this transformation in a tourist by

placing before the readers the tourist’s experience at a pilgrim centre.

Question 3. How do you relate the ‘cracks around her eyes’ to the cracking of hills

and temples?

OR

Bring out the significance of the phrase ‘cracks around her eyes’ in relation to the

description of the woman as ‘shatter-proof crone’.

Answer: Cracks around the eyes are ordinarily signs of old age. But in the case of

the old woman, they signify much more than mere physical features. The old
woman’s eyes are just two gaping holes filled with empty air, with the hills and the

sky. Then the cracks begin around her eyes, spreading beyond her skin and then the

hills crack, the temples crack and the sky cracks and the sky finally shatters and falls

like plate-glass. The old woman herself is shatterproof and nothing happens to her.

Only you get instantly reduced to a small change in her hand. It is you who shatter

because her eyes are already bullet-holes which are formed with the cracks around

the holes. You are shattered with the realisation that the whole system which is guilty

of testing the grit and determination of an old woman is full of cracks; people who

look at the old woman as a pest are full of cracks; monuments themselves crack in

the face of the tenacity of the old woman. Thus the old woman, despite the cracks

around her eyes, is actually the only one who is shatterproof.