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.
Which of the following statements are suggested by the passage?
(A) A daily meeting can come to matter for more than the task it seems to serve.
(B) Modern devices have taken the place of human company for the old.
(C) People may hold on to an old habit even when an easier way is at hand.
(D) The old look down on the young for falling short of the standards of the past.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → (A) and (C) only
Each statement is checked against the passage.
(A) A daily meeting can come to matter for more than the task it seems to serve. — Correct.
- Rastogi ji “did not hold out his hand” for the paper.
- He has it read aloud to him at the gate, so the meeting means more than getting the news.
(B) Modern devices have taken the place of human company for the old. — Incorrect.
- The tablet from his son lies unused.
- It has “a thin film of dust on its dark screen”.
(C) People may hold on to an old habit even when an easier way is at hand. — Correct.
- He could read the paper on the tablet.
- Still he waits at the gate in the fog every morning, and his threat to use “that machine” is not believed.
(D) The old look down on the young for falling short of the standards of the past. — Incorrect.
- The remark about 1962 is only a gruff tease.
- He lights the boy’s way home with his torch.