Literary Profile: Khushwant Singh (Author)
Literary Profile: The Grandmother
The author and his grandmother lived as close companions. She woke him up, prepared his wooden slate, dressed him, and accompanied him to the village school, which was attached to a temple. While he learned the alphabet, she sat inside reading scriptures. They returned together, feeding stale chapattis to village dogs.
The move to the city marked a major shift. Although they shared a room, the grandmother could no longer accompany him to school as he went by a motor bus to an English-medium school. She could not assist him with his lessons in western science, gravity, and geography, which distressed her. She was deeply upset by the lack of religious education and the introduction of music lessons, which she associated with lower social classes.
When the author went to university, he was given a separate room, snapping their last physical link of daily companionship. The grandmother accepted her seclusion with resignation, spending her days spinning yarn, reciting prayers, and finding joy only in the afternoon by feeding hundreds of sparrows in the courtyard.
When the author went abroad for five years, she saw him off at the railway station without showing any emotional breakdown, continuously reciting prayers. Upon his return, she met him at the station, looking not a day older, and celebrated his homecoming by feeding her sparrows with light-hearted scoldings.
In a sudden departure from her routine, she gathered neighborhood women, thumped an old dilapidated drum, and sang of returning warriors to celebrate her grandson's return. She fell ill the next morning. Sensing her imminent end, she refused to waste time talking, chose to pray silently, and passed away peacefully as her rosary fell from her lifeless fingers.
Literary Profile: Shirley Toulson (Poet)
"The cardboard shows me how it was / When the two girl cousins went paddling, / Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, / And she the big girl — some twelve years or so."
Literary Interpretation & Contextual Significance: The poet looks at an old photograph mounted on cardboard. It captures her mother at age twelve, enjoying a beach holiday with her cousins, Betty and Dolly. The image represents a lost era of innocent childhood joy, frozen in time.
"And the sea, which appears to have changed less, / Washed their terribly transient feet."
Literary Interpretation & Contextual Significance: A powerful juxtaposition of the eternal, unchanging nature of the sea with the highly mortal, short-lived, and transient existence of human beings. The feet that once walked the beach are gone, but the sea remains.
"The sea holiday / Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry / With the laboured ease of loss."
Literary Interpretation & Contextual Significance: Double layers of nostalgia and grief. The mother grieved her lost childhood (the sea holiday), while the poet now grieves her deceased mother's laughter. Both losses are accepted with a painful, paradoxical "laboured ease."
"Now she’s been dead nearly as many years / As that girl lived... / Its silence silences."
Literary Interpretation & Contextual Significance: The finality of death leaves the poet in a state of absolute speechlessness. The vacuum left by the mother's death is so profound that the silence of the circumstance completely overwhelms and silences the poet.
| Literary Device / Colloquial Phrase | Exact Textual Example / Quote | Contextual Meaning & Subtext | Pedagogical / Stylistic Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| The thought was almost revolting | "As for my grandmother being young and pretty, the thought was almost revolting." | The idea was highly improbable, shocking, and difficult for the young narrator to accept or visualize. | Highlights the innocence of childhood perception and the stark contrast of aging. |
| An expanse of pure white serenity | "She was like the winter landscape in the mountains, an expanse of pure white serenity..." | A state of absolute peace, purity, and calm, reflected in her white attire and spiritual composure. | Uses natural imagery (metaphor) to elevate the grandmother's spiritual character. |
| A turning-point | "When my parents were comfortably settled in the city... That was a turning-point in our friendship." | A critical juncture that altered the nature and closeness of their relationship. | Marks the structural transition of the narrative from rural harmony to urban distance. |
| Accepted her seclusion with resignation | "My grandmother accepted her seclusion with resignation." | Quietly and calmly accepted her isolation without any complaints, protests, or emotional outbursts. | Demonstrates her stoic character and inner spiritual strength. |
| A veritable bedlam of chirrupings | "...hundreds of little birds collected round her creating a veritable bedlam of chirrupings." | A chaotic, noisy, yet incredibly lively and joyful gathering of sparrows. | Contrasts her human isolation with her vibrant, harmonious connection to nature. |
| Frivolous rebukes | "...whom she fed longer and with frivolous rebukes." | Light-hearted, affectionate, and gentle scoldings that carry no real anger. | Reveals her tender, playful side, reserved exclusively for the sparrows. |
| The sagging skins of the dilapidated drum | "For several hours she thumped the sagging skins of the dilapidated drum..." | The loose, worn-out, and damaged surface of an old musical instrument. | Symbolizes her physical exhaustion and her desperate, final celebration of life. |
| Word / Phrase | Textual Context | Specific Meaning in Context |
|---|---|---|
| Telling the beads | "Her fingers were busy telling the beads of her rosary." | Counting the beads while reciting prayers. |
| Tell her English words | "I would tell her English words and little things..." | To communicate, inform, or explain. |
| One could never tell | "At her age one could never tell." | To be sure or to predict with certainty. |
| Told us her end was near | "She told us that her end was near." | To announce or make a fact known. |
| Took to | "...she took to feeding sparrows in the courtyard..." | To begin doing something as a regular habit. |
| Taken ill | "The next morning she was taken ill." | To suddenly become sick. |
The \text frequently employs the past perfect tense (had + past participle) to recount events in the distant past or to establish a sequence of past events where one action was completed before another began.