NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 Somebody's Mother — Let us think and reflect

Book page 74 & 75 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Read the given extract and answer the question that follows. “The woman was old and ragged and grey / And bent with the chill of the Winter's day. / The street was wet with a recent snow / And the woman's feet were aged and slow.” — What does the phrase ‘ragged and grey’ refer to? A. the woman's emotional state that day B. the woman's old and worn-out appearance C. the weather conditions of the particular day D. the colour of the street and the surroundings

Answer

B. the woman's old and worn-out appearance

Why: both words describe what you would see if you looked at her. Ragged = torn, shabby clothes; grey = white or greying hair. They are joined to “old” in the same list, so all three belong to the same subject — the woman herself, not the day and not the street. Option C is the trap, because the very next line does describe the weather; but that line is separate.

Q2.

Complete the following sentence with a suitable reason: The woman was ‘bent’ with the chill of the Winter's day because she was _______________________.

Answer

… because she was old and frail, and the bitter cold made her draw herself in and stoop, so that her body could no longer stand upright against it.

Why “bent” is doing two jobs. Read literally, it is what cold does to a body: we hunch our shoulders and bend forward when we are freezing. Read a second time, it also describes what age does — a permanently stooped back. The poet has chosen a word that carries the temporary and the permanent at once, so that one glance at the woman tells us both about the day and about her life.

Note the capital W in “Winter”. Giving the season a capital letter makes it almost a person — something that acts upon her and bends her. That is a small touch of personification.

Q3.

Identify the fact and opinion from the following sentences: A. The street was wet with recent snow. ____________ B. The woman was too weak to cross the street on her own. ____________

Answer

A. Fact B. Opinion

Sentence	Fact or opinion	Test
A. The street was wet with recent snow.	Fact	Anyone standing there could see the wet street and check it. It can be proved true or false.
B. The woman was too weak to cross on her own.	Opinion	“Too weak” is a judgement about what she could or could not have managed. She never tried, so nobody knows.

The useful test: could two honest people who saw the same scene disagree? About the wet street, no. About whether she could have crossed alone, yes — she is old, slow and afraid, but the poem never says she was incapable. Words like too, best, should, beautiful are the usual signals of an opinion.

Did you know? This fact-and-opinion idea comes back in the third piece of this unit, where Dr. Kurien's letter is sorted the same way. The book is teaching one skill across two texts.

Q4.

Why do you think the woman's feet were described as ‘aged and slow’?

Answer

Because the poet wants us to see her difficulty rather than be told about it — and feet are the part of her that the whole problem depends on.

It is precise. Crossing a street is a matter of speed. Between two carriages there is only a gap of a few seconds; feet that are “slow” cannot use that gap.
It is physical, not emotional. The poet never writes “she was weak” or “she was pitiable”. She gives us the feet and lets us conclude the rest.
It sets up the contrasts that follow. These slow feet are answered a few lines later by children who “hastened”, and finally by the boy who is “Proud that his own were firm and strong”. Feet are the poem's measuring stick.

The technique has a name. Using a part to stand for the whole person is called synecdoche. The poem does it repeatedly — “aged and slow” feet, “anxious eyes”, “aged hand”, “trembling feet”, “strong young arm”. We are shown pieces of two bodies, and from those pieces we build both people.

Q5.

Read the given extract and answer the question that follows. “He guided the trembling feet along, / Proud that his own were firm and strong. / Then back again to his friends he went, / His young heart happy and well content.” — What does the contrast between the ‘trembling feet’ of the old woman and the ‘firm and strong’ feet of the boy emphasise?

Answer

It emphasises that strength has no value in itself — it acquires value only when it is used for someone who has none.

The two descriptions sit in a single sentence, joined by the word “Proud”. The poet does not describe her feet in one place and his in another; she puts them side by side so that the reader cannot see one without the other.
The contrast marks the distance between youth and age — the same distance every one of us will one day cross from the boy's side to the woman's.
It redefines what the boy is proud of. He is not proud that his feet are firm — anyone's feet may be firm. He is proud that they were firm at the moment when hers were not.

Why this is the poem's key line: the other boys in the troop also had firm, strong feet, and it did them no credit at all. The difference between them and him is not physical. It is what he chose to do with an advantage he did not earn.

Q6.

Fill in the blank given below by selecting the correct option from the brackets. The poem tells us that the boy was ‘proud’ that his feet were strong. This tells us that the boy was ________. (arrogant about being strong/grateful for his ability to help)

Answer

grateful for his ability to help

Why “proud” does not mean arrogant here. Three details rule arrogance out. He “whispered low” instead of announcing himself. He asked permission — “if you wish to go” — rather than seizing her arm. And what he says to his friends afterwards is not about himself at all but about his mother. A boastful boy would have told the story; this one gives the reason and stops.

Note the word “content” too. Content is a quiet, complete kind of satisfaction — the opposite of the excitement a show-off feels. The poet chose it carefully.

Q7.

What is the boy most likely to tell his friends on getting back? A. I'm so glad I could help her. B. I'm worried about her safety. C. I'm surprised she forgot to thank me. D. I'm thankful for all your support.

Answer

A. I'm so glad I could help her.

Why: the extract has already told us his state of mind — “His young heart happy and well content.” Option A is that feeling put into words. B is wrong because she is now safely across. C is wrong because nothing in the poem suggests he expected thanks; he had already turned away. D is wrong because his friends gave him no support at all — they walked past.

Check it against the poem: what he actually says next is “She's somebody's mother, boys, you know”. That is a gladder sentence than a proud one — he is explaining a pleasure, not claiming a prize.

Q8.

Rectify the false sentence given below. The young boy's actions were driven by a logical decision.

Answer

Corrected: The young boy's actions were driven by compassion and a spontaneous feeling of empathy, not by a logical decision.

Why the original is false. A logical decision involves weighing costs and benefits before acting. The poem gives us no such pause: “At last came one of the merry troop… He paused beside her and whispered low.” The single word “paused” is all the deliberation there is. His reasoning — “She's somebody's mother” — comes afterwards, when he is explaining himself to his friends, not before, when he was deciding.

An important distinction: saying his act was not logical does not mean it was thoughtless. It means the feeling arrived first and the reason followed. That is how most real kindness works, and it is precisely why the poem is moving.

Q9.

Answer the following questions. 1. What might be the old woman's fears as she waited for a long time at the crossing?

Answer

The poem names one fear directly and lets us infer the others.

Being knocked down. The stated fear: she is “afraid to stir / Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet / Should crowd her down in the slippery street.”
Slipping. The street is wet with melting snow and her feet are “aged and slow”. A fall at her age is not a small thing.
Not being seen. She is “amid the throng”, and nobody has “heeded the glance of her anxious eyes”. There is a particular fear in being invisible in a crowd.
Being stranded. She has already “waited long”. She may fear that the traffic will never thin, and that she will not get home before dark and deeper cold.
Being a nuisance. The words “meek” and “timid” suggest she is unwilling to ask — the fear of troubling strangers, which keeps many elderly people silent.

Why the poet gives us her eyes: “Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes” tells us she was asking — silently, with a look. The passers-by did not refuse her; they never noticed the request. That is a sharper accusation than cruelty.

Q10.

2. How does the poet show the helplessness of the old woman? Support your answer with evidence from the poem.

Answer

The poet builds her helplessness out of four separate materials, never once using the word itself.

Method	Evidence from the poem
Her body	“old and ragged and grey”, “bent with the chill”, “her feet were aged and slow”, “the trembling feet”
Her isolation in a crowd	“She stood at the crossing and waited long, / Alone, uncared for, amid the throng”
Her silence and fear	“So meek, so timid, afraid to stir / Lest the carriage wheels… Should crowd her down”
Being unnoticed	“Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes”; the children “Hastened… Nor offered a helping hand”

The strongest single line is “Alone, uncared for, amid the throng”. Loneliness in an empty place is ordinary. Loneliness in a crowd is a contradiction, and the poet packs it into six words by placing alone and throng at the two ends of the same line. Her helplessness is not caused by the weather or by her age alone; it is completed by the people around her.

Q11.

3. Why does the boy decide to help the old woman? What does this tell us about him?

Answer

Why he helps: he sees his own mother in her. He tells his friends so himself:

“She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow”,
“And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand”,
“If ever she's poor and old and grey,
When her own dear boy is far away.”

What it tells us about him

He is imaginative. Empathy is an act of imagination — he pictures a future in which he is far away and his own mother is the one waiting at a crossing. That is a great deal for a schoolboy to see in a moment.
He is courteous. He “whispered low” and offered — “if you wish to go” — instead of taking charge of her. He treats her as a person with a will, not as a problem to be solved.
He is unselfconscious. He steps out of a noisy group of friends to do something none of them is doing, and he goes back to them without a fuss.
He is honest about his motive. He does not pretend to be nobler than he is; he says plainly that he hopes the same will be done for his mother.

The deeper point: he does not help her because she is old, or poor, or pitiful. He helps her because she is somebody's. It is a form of fairness as much as of kindness — the wish that the world should treat his mother as he is treating this stranger.

Q12.

4. How was the boy's approach towards the old woman different from that of the other boys in the group?

Answer

	The other boys	This boy
Speed	“Hastened the children on their way”	“He paused beside her”
Noise	“Down the street, with laughter and shout”	“and whispered low”
Movement	“Came the boys like a flock of sheep” — one mass	“At last came one of the merry troop” — a single person
Action	“Nor offered a helping hand to her”	“I'll help you cross, if you wish to go.”

Three differences are worth drawing out.

He noticed. This is the first and hardest step. The others were not cruel; they were absorbed in the joy of “school let out” and the fresh snow, and she was simply outside their attention.
He slowed down. Kindness almost always costs time first. Pausing is the whole of what he did that they did not.
He asked. “If you wish to go” leaves the decision with her. He helps her without taking her dignity, which is the difference between helping someone and handling them.

And notice what he is not. The poem calls him “the gayest laddie of all the group” — the merriest of them, not the most solemn. The poet is careful to keep him a boy and not turn him into a little saint, which is what makes his act believable.

Q13.

5. Justify the appropriateness of the title of the poem.

Answer

The title is exactly right, for four reasons.

It is the poem's argument in two words. The whole poem exists to make one point — that the stranger at the crossing is not nobody, she is somebody's mother — and the title states it before the poem begins.
It is the turning point of the story. The phrase is the boy's own explanation to his friends: “She's somebody's mother, boys, you know.” The title is a line of dialogue lifted out of the poem.
It keeps her anonymous, deliberately. Because she is never named, she can be any old woman on any street — including, one day, the reader's own mother. A title like “The Old Woman at the Crossing” would have shut that door.
The poem itself adopts the title as her name. In the final stanza the poet writes “And ‘somebody's mother' bowed low her head”, in inverted commas. By the end, the boy's phrase has become the woman's identity — and her prayer answers it, calling him “somebody's son”.

A test you can apply to any title: does it name the subject, or does it make a claim about it? “Somebody's Mother” makes a claim — and the poem then proves it.

Q14.

6. What does the poem suggest about the role of empathy and humanity in society?

Answer

The poem makes a modest, practical claim rather than a grand one: a society is held together less by what people are willing to do for those they know than by what they are willing to notice about those they do not.

Neglect is usually inattention, not cruelty. Nobody in the poem refuses her. The crowd simply “passed her by” and never “heeded the glance of her anxious eyes”. The poem's quiet accusation is against distraction, not malice — which makes it an accusation the reader cannot easily dismiss.
Empathy is what converts a stranger into a person. The boy does nothing that the others could not have done. What he does differently is imagine — and the moment he imagines his own mother, helping stops being an option and becomes obvious.
The cost is small and the return is large. He loses two minutes of play. She gets home safely, and that night she prays for him. The poem's arithmetic is deliberately lopsided.
Kindness travels. He hopes “some fellow will lend a hand / To help my mother”. He is not repaying a debt; he is starting one, in the belief that a society in which people help strangers is one in which his own family will be safe.

Why the poem ends with a prayer and not with thanks. A thank-you would have closed the transaction. The prayer, spoken alone in her home at night with nobody to hear it, shows that the effect of the act outlasted the act by many hours — and reached a place the boy will never know about. That is the poem's final claim about what small kindnesses actually do.

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