Read the given passage and answer the four questions that follow:-
Maya sat by the window of her apartment in Boston, watching the snowfall coat the streets in silence. The winter here was nothing like the winters she had known as a child in Kolkata, where the chill in the air was softened by the warmth of family gatherings. She thought of her mother's kitchen, the scent of frying luchis and the distant hum of the morning news on the radio. Here, the mornings were different—quiet, lonely, and marked by the distant sound of car engines outside.
The phone rang, jolting her from her thoughts. It was her father, calling from India. "When are you coming to visit us?" he asked, his voice tinged with both hope and sadness. Maya hesitated. It had been two years since her last trip home and with each passing year, the distance seemed to grow—not just geographically but emotionally.
She glanced at the bookshelves in her living room, filled with English novels and photographs of friends from college. Somewhere between these shelves and the memories of her childhood, Maya felt split in two, as if she belonged fully to neither world.
Later that evening, as she prepared dinner, she tried recreating one of her mother's recipes. The spices didn't taste the same, the aroma felt incomplete. But as she sat down to eat, she felt a fleeting connection to home, as if she had carried a piece of it with her despite the miles.
The contrast between Maya's present surroundings and her memories of Kolkata highlights:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → The struggle of maintaining one's cultural identity while adapting to a different place.
The passage sets Maya's quiet, lonely mornings in Boston against the warm family winters of Kolkata. She feels split in two, "as if she belonged fully to neither world", and she tries to keep home alive by cooking her mother's recipe. This is the struggle of holding on to one's cultural identity while living in a new place.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: The inevitability of cultural assimilation in a new and foreign environment. — Incorrect. Contradicted: assimilation means becoming fully absorbed into a new culture, and inevitability means that something is certain to happen. Maya has not become absorbed into Boston life. She belongs fully to neither world.
Example: The assimilation of the new students into the school took a few months.
Option 3: The insignificance of nostalgia in shaping one's present in alien and different surroundings. — Incorrect. Contradicted: her nostalgia (longing for the past) shapes her present, from her thoughts at the window to the meal she cooks.
Option 4: Maya’s preference for her new life in Boston over her childhood in Kolkata. — Incorrect. Contradicted: Boston mornings are described as quiet and lonely, and she longs for Kolkata. She does not prefer her new life.
Note: In the original NTA paper, Option 4 read "The ease with which one can recreate the essence of home in a foreign land". NTA accepted this option as a correct answer as well. To leave only one correct answer and avoid confusion for students, it has been changed here to "Maya’s preference for her new life in Boston over her childhood in Kolkata".
Advice for the exam: In the real exam, mark the answer that is grammatically or factually correct. If NTA’s provisional answer key marks a different option, challenge it during the answer-key challenge window and give the reason in one or two lines.