Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
By ten o’clock the terrace floor was too hot for bare feet, so Aarav stood on an old cotton sari while Dadi sat cross-legged in the one strip of shade. Between them, on a steel tray, lay the raw mangoes she had cut at dawn, each piece still holding a sliver of hard white stone.
“Write it down properly this year,” his mother had said. So Aarav had his phone out and a fresh note open.
“How much salt, Dadi?”
“Enough.”
“Enough is not a quantity.”
She laughed and pushed the bowl towards him. “Then taste and find out.”
The note did not get much longer. The fenugreek was roasted until the smell told her to stop, and the chilli went in until the colour looked right. Dadi’s measures lived in her fingertips. Aarav was moved to crow duty with a broom and spent twenty minutes losing an argument with one crow on the water tank.
The oil came last. Dadi had carried the heavy jar up two flights of stairs herself and waved away his help. Now she held it out to him. He tipped it too fast, and oil splashed onto the tray. She did not take the jar back. She only rested two fingers on his wrist, and the stream thinned to a slow gold thread.
They tied muslin over the jar and set it in the corner that got the most sun. It would cure there for a week. Aarav looked at the three lines on his screen and put the phone in his pocket. Then he pressed a finger into the spice left on the tray and tasted it, frowning, the way she did.
Which of the following best describes the tone of the passage?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Affectionate: it smiles gently at the small struggles of the day
An affectionate tone is warm and loving. The writer describes Dadi and Aarav in this way and also smiles at the little troubles of the day.
- The warmth shows in small things. Dadi laughs at his question, and she steadies his wrist without a word. At the end, Aarav tastes the spice “the way she did”.
- The humour is light and kind. Aarav argues that “Enough is not a quantity”. He spends twenty minutes “losing an argument with one crow”.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Wistful: it looks back with longing on summers that are gone — Incorrect. Not mentioned: Wistful means sadly longing for something that is past or lost. The passage stays with one morning on the terrace. It does not look back on past summers.
Option 2: Mocking: it makes fun of a boy who cannot manage without his phone — Incorrect. Misread: Mocking means making fun of someone in an unkind way. The jokes in the passage are kind. Aarav uses the phone only because his mother asked him to, and he puts it away himself.
Option 3: Solemn: it treats the making of pickle as a grave family duty — Incorrect. Contradicted: Solemn means very serious, with no lightness. The laugh, the crow and the spilt oil keep the passage light.