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English–I

Notes them. She helped him in his lessons also .It was her domain and she was the queen of her
kingdom. In this period she was the sole unchallenged guardian, mentor and creator of the
child Khushwant.
The turning point came in their relationship when they came to city to stay with Khushwant’s
parents. In city Khushwant joined an English School and started to go to school in a motor
bus. Here the role of his grandmother in his bringing up was curtailed a little bit. Now she
could not accompany him to the school. Despite taking lot of interest in his studies she could
not help him in his lessons because he was learning English, law of gravity, Archimedes’
principle and many more such things which she could not understand and this made her
unhappy. She found herself at loss.

One more thing which disturbed her a lot was that the kids were not learning about God and
scriptures in the school instead they were given music lessons which was not an honorable
thing in her opinion. To her music was not meant for gentlefolk. It was meant for beggars and
prostitutes only. She highly disapproved this and as she could not change it she was dismayed
and withdrew herself to some extent. Perhaps she had realized that in the makeover of the
child her role was finished and this very thought saddened her most.

After finishing school Khushwant went to university. He was given a separate room. The
common link of their friendship was snapped. His grandmother confined herself to a self
imposed seclusion. She spent most of her time in reciting prayers and by sitting beside her
spinning wheel. She rarely talked to anyone. The only recreation for her was in the afternoon
when she relaxed for a while to feed the sparrows. A kind hearted person, in village she used
to feed street dogs, here in city she focused on birds and they too became very friendly with
her. This was the phase when she found herself totally isolated and aloof but she braved this
isolation with grace and dignity.
Khushwant’s grandmother was a strong person. Whatever she went through in her heart she
always restrained herself from demonstrating her emotions. He recalls that when he went
abroad for further studies his grandmother was there to see him off on railway station quite
calm busy telling the beads of her rosary and reciting prayers as always. When he came back
after five years he found her more and more religious and more and more self contained. She
spent still more time in prayers and spinning the wheel.
Feeding the birds was her only happy pastime. But just the day before her death for the first
time she broke this routine and gave up her prayers. That day she sang the songs of the
homecoming of the warriors on a withered drum along with the ladies of neighbourhood in
order to celebrate her grandson’s return from abroad. Next morning she got ill. Although
the doctor said it was a mild fever and would go away she could foresee that her end was
near. She was upset that she omitted her prayers just before the final departure from the
world.
She did not want to waste any more time talking to anybody. She lay peacefully in bed
praying and telling the beads till her lips stopped moving and rosary fell from her lifeless
fingers. To mourn her death thousands of sparrows flew in and sat scattered around her body
in utter silence.They even ignored the breadcrumbs thrown for them by Khushwant’s mother.
They only flew away after the corpse was carried away for last rites.
So this was the charismatic grandmother of Khushwant Singh.

Task Write the role of Khushwant Singh is grandmother in ‘The Portrait of a Lady’.

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