Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The fog had come down so thick that Imran could not see his own front wheel. He did not need to. Two winters of forty newspapers in Nishatganj had taught him the lanes by ear: the Mishras’ dog, which barked at everything and bit nothing; the hum of the transformer; the pothole after it, which he swerved round without seeing. The air was raw. It crept through his sweater.
He threw the papers over the gates, counting. Thirty-nine. The fortieth went two lanes out of his way, to old Rastogi ji, who had told the agency he would pay nothing extra and had got his way. Imran grumbled about those two lanes every morning. Not once in two winters had he missed them.
A torch beam wobbled out of the grey. Rastogi ji stood at his gate in a monkey cap and two shawls.
“Eleven minutes late.”
“Fog, uncle.”
“There was fog in 1962 also. The paper came at six.” He did not hold out his hand. “What does it say?”
Imran read under the torch: dense fog to continue, forty trains running late. Rastogi ji snorted, as if the fog were a guest who had stayed too long. On the verandah chair behind him lay the tablet his son had sent from Pune, a thin film of dust on its dark screen.
“And the cricket?”
Imran read that too, slowly, to the last run.
“Tomorrow, if it is like this, don’t come,” the old man said brusquely. “I will read it on that machine.”
“Ji, uncle.”
Neither of them believed it. At the corner Imran looked back. The torch was still pointed down the lane, lighting the fog for him until he turned.
How does Imran find his way through the fog?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → He knows the route so well that familiar sounds and spots guide him.
The passage says two winters on the round “had taught him the lanes by ear”. He cannot see even his own front wheel.
- He knows where he is from the Mishras’ dog and the hum of the transformer.
- He even swerves round the pothole after the transformer “without seeing” it.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: He follows the light of the streetlamps from one lane to the next. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: No streetlamps are spoken of. He finds the lanes by sound, not by any light.
Option 3: He counts the gates as he throws the papers over them. — Incorrect. Wrong link: He counts the papers he has thrown (“Thirty-nine”). The counting keeps track of the papers, not of the way.
Option 4: He waits for Rastogi ji’s torch to show him each turning. — Incorrect. Too narrow: The torch appears only at the last house. He has found thirty-nine houses before he sees it.