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Vocation
Rabindranath Tagore
About Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-194l) was a famous Indian educator and poet. He wrote and composed the national anthems ol two countries-India and Bangladesh. He started writing perms at the age of eight. In 1901, he moved to Santiniketan to start a school, which is now the famous Visva-Bharati University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his collection of poems, Gitanjali, in 1913.
When the gong sounds ten in the morning and
I walk to school by our lane,
Every day I meet the hawker crying,
'Bangles. crystal bangles!'
There is nothing to hurry him on,
there is no road he must take,
no place he must go to,
no time when he must come home.
I wish were a hawker,
spending my day in the toad,
crying, 'Bangles, crystal bangles!'
When at four in the afternoon
I come back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house
the gardener digging the ground.
He does what he likes with his spade,
he soils his clothes with dust,
nobody takes him to task if he
gets baked in the sun or gets wet.
I wish I were a gardener
digging away at the garden
with nobody to stop me from digging.
June as it gets dark in the evening
and my mother sends me to bed,
I can see through my open window
the watchman walking up and down.
The lane is dark and lonely,
and the street-lamp stands like a giant
with one red eye in its head.
The watchman swings his lantern
and walks with his shadow at his side,
and never once goes to bed in his life.
I wish I were a watchman
walking the streets all night,
chasing the shadows with my lantern.
Available Answers
- 1.
Every day I meet the hawker crying,
'Bangles, crystal bangles!'
There is nothing to hurry him on,- At what time did the persona meet the hawker every day?
- Why do you think the hawker was not in a hurry?
- Was the persona in a hurry? How do you know?
- 2.
He does what he likes with his spade.
he soils his clothes with dust,
nobody takes him to task if he
gets baked in the sun or gets wet.- Who was the persona talking about?
- Explain the expression 'baked in the sun'.
- Did the persona envy or pity the person he/she was speaking about? Give a reason for your answer.
- 3.
Just as it gets dark in the evening
and my mother sends me to bed,
I can see through my open window
the watchman walking up and down.- What could he see from his window?
- Do you think the persona wanted to go to bed? Why?
- What do you think the persona felt about the watchman's job?
- 4.
What are the different professions mentioned in the poem? Why do you think the persona would like to take up one of these, instead of going to school?
- 5.
A perspective is a point of view. The persona envied the people he met every day. If these people were to describe the persona's life from their perspective, what would thet say?