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Trains
Humayun Kabir
About Humayun Kabir
Humayun Kabir (1906 - 1969) was a poet, novelist, educational, and politician. Born in Bangladesh, he studied at Calcutta University and was a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied the 'Modern Greats'--- Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics. He served as the Chairman of the University Grants Commission in Delhi and the Education Minister of India, twice. He was also the Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. He edited Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's biography India wins Freedom and was one of the co-drafters of the UNESCO 1950 statement titled 'The Race Question'.
Mother, I sit by window for hours on end
And watch the long trains rumble past.
Some are dark and journey tediously
No doors, no windows, no shining lamps.
Slowly they move: like huge elephants
That move like shadows in the shadowy dark.
Sometimes a train comes flashing past
With many windows lit by lamps
That dance and whirl with movement swift.
A marriage procession with music loud,
Shrill whistles that rise above the din
Or the rhythmic beat of wheels revolving fast.
On hot afternoons you go to sleep
And with dizzy heat swoons all the world,
Even the crows doze and forget to caw,
The dog lies in the shade with hanging tongue,
I watch for hours and still the tireless rains
March on and on along their Iron road.
Sometimes at night in my sleep I hear
The low distant rumble of the train;
I rub my eyes and sit upon my bed
And beneath the light of the flickering moon
Moves the long shadowy outline far away
Like a huge serpent crawling through the night.
Where do all those trains go day and night?
You say they bore their way through the hills,
They roar over bridges across mighty streams,
They crash through forests and vast plains,
But as the end of their restless journeying
Where do they go and finally rest?
Available Answers
- 1.
Are the following statements about the poem you read, true or false?
- The dark trains do not have windows and shining lamps.
- When the train comes flashing past, people dance and whirl swiftly.
- On hot afternoons when mother sleeps, the child watches the trains.
- Sometimes at night, the child hears the roar of lion in his sleep.
- The child compares the train to a huge insect crawling into the night.
- The child wonders when and where the trains get to rest.
- 2.
"Mother, I sit by my window for hours on end."
- Why is the child sitting by his window?
- What kinds of train has the child described in the first stanza of the poem?
- How is the train described in the second stanza different from the first stanza?
- 3.
"Where do all those trains go day and night?"
- What is the mother's reply to this question?
- The child describes the train journeys 'restlessly'. Why do you think he says so?
- What is the final question the child asks his mother?
- 4.
The child is concerned about the tireless spirit of the trains and wonders when and where they rest. What do you think causes him to feel like this?
- 5.
In the poem, the child describes trains as objects that 'move', 'dance', 'whirl', 'sleep' and rest like living beings. Have you also felt that trains have a certain life of their own and stories to unfold as well? Are there other objects that may be described in the same way?
- 6.
A simile is a figure of speech where a direct comparison of two unlike things is made that have at least one common feature using, "as" and "like". Identify and explain two similes from the poem.
3 more answer(s) available.