NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 A Funny Man — Let us think and reflect

He uses ‘Your Highness' as an exaggerated, mock-royal courtesy — the way a courtier would speak to a king or queen.

• It fits the rest of his manner. The poem has already told us “His manners were polite”, and he raised his shoe in greeting as another man would raise his hat.
• It is deliberately too grand for the occasion. The poet is an ordinary person standing in an ordinary street, and what follows is not a jewel but a currant bun.
• That gap between the lofty words and the silly gift is exactly where the humour lies.

The phrase is “Allow me to present”.

It is a formal, courteous way of asking permission before giving something — far more polite than “Take this” or “Here you are”.

The correct option is A. Image 1.

A currant bun is a small, round, plain-topped sweet bread roll with dried currants baked inside it, so the dark fruit shows as little bumps and spots through the golden crust. That is exactly what Image 1 on page 62 shows.

‘Well!' is a one-word reaction. She has just been offered a bun to smell, by a man wearing a shoe on his head, and for a moment she cannot think of anything else to say.

The line is “You never heard in all your life” (completed by “Such a funny feeling sound.”).

The words never … in all your life mean that in your whole lifetime you have not once come across anything like it. That is the strongest possible way of saying the sound was one of a kind.

She is not, in fact, his friend at all; they have only just met in the street. But he has been polite to her — he smiled, raised his shoe, and offered her a gift — so she answers his courtesy with courtesy of her own.

He does not answer at all — “He turned the other way about, / And hopped home on his head.” That silence tells us a great deal:

• He owes nobody an explanation. To him there is nothing to explain: hats belong on feet and shoes on heads, and that is that.
• He is completely unselfconscious. A person who felt awkward would blush, laugh, or make an excuse. He simply leaves — in the most extraordinary way possible.
• He is unpredictable to the very end. His exit is stranger than his entrance, so the poem finishes on a bigger laugh than it began with.
• He is harmless and cheerful. He does not take offence at a personal question; he just turns “the other way about” and goes.

The correct option is D. cheerful.

The last line — “And hopped home on his head” — is the funniest picture in the whole poem. It is light, absurd and completely harmless, so the reader closes the poem smiling.

The trait I found most appealing is his unfailing politeness.

Everything else about him is upside down, but his manners never slip. He raises his shoe in greeting instead of a hat; he smiles at a stranger; he says, “Allow me to present Your Highness with a rose”; and when asked an awkward question he does not snap back — he simply goes away. The poem says it plainly: “His manners were polite.”

His unusual actions keep the mood light, playful and cheerful from the first line to the last, and they build it up steadily.

Because nothing he does is unkind or dangerous, the reader is never uneasy. The mood stays nonsensical and warm — we are laughing with the situation, not at a victim.

My suggestion: “The Upside-Down Gentleman”.

Reasons:

• Upside-down catches the one idea that runs through every stanza — shoe on head, hats on feet, a bun for a rose, a smell you can look at, and a man who walks on his head.
• Gentleman keeps the other half of the joke: his manners are perfect throughout.
• It is short, it is curious, and it does not give the ending away.

The dialogues do four jobs at once:

1. They make the scene live. Instead of being told about a strange man, we hear him speak: “Allow me to present Your Highness with a rose.” We are standing in that street.
2. They reveal character without description. His one speech shows his elaborate courtesy; the poet's reply — “I never saw a rose with such / A funny looking smell” — shows that she is quick-witted and ready to play along.
3. They deliver the jokes. The two funniest moments in the poem are both spoken lines. Humour lands better in direct speech than in reported speech.
4. They turn a description into a story. Because both of them speak, there is an exchange — greeting, gift, reply, question, and a wordless answer at the end.

The poem is nonsense verse, so it does not preach a moral — but three ideas do come through clearly.

• Being different is not the same as being bad. The funny man harms nobody. He is odd, and he is also the politest person in the poem.
• Laughter is the best response to strangeness. The poet is startled — she staggers against a wall — yet she does not mock him or run away. She answers him in his own style, and the meeting ends happily for both.
• Imagination need not obey rules. If a bun can be a rose and a smell can be looked at, then the world is a larger and funnier place than the rule-book allows.