Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The night before I left for the hostel, my father decided that my trunk had been packed wrongly. It had not. My mother and I had spent the whole afternoon on it, rolling the dupattas tight and tucking the pickle jar between two towels. But after dinner he knelt on the floor of the front room, lifted everything out and began again.
I sat on the divan and watched. He worked slowly, with the care he had once given to the railway ledgers he kept for thirty-one years, smoothing each fold with his palm. Now and then he held something up to the tube light, a sweater, a steel tumbler, my old geometry box, as if checking it for some fault only he could see. The geometry box he put back in twice.
My mother brought him tea and left it on the window sill. It went cold. Neither of them mentioned it.
Around eleven he started on the lock. It was a heavy brass one from the bazaar, and it worked perfectly. He oiled it anyway. He turned the key one way and then the other, listening, his head bent so low I could not see his face. I wanted to tell him to go to sleep, and that I would write every Sunday. I said neither, because I understood, with a strange tightening in my throat, that he was not really packing a trunk at all.
When he finally stood up, his knees cracked. He told me the woollens were at the bottom and that I must not open the trunk on the train. Then he went to bed without looking at me, and the light in his room stayed on till late.
Which of the following best describes the father’s state of mind as he repacks the trunk?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Troubled: he keeps his sadness at the parting in check by keeping his hands busy
The father is sad that his daughter is leaving, but he does not say so. He keeps busy with the trunk instead.
- The trunk was already packed well. The narrator says it “had not” been packed wrongly. So the repacking is not really about the trunk.
- He works slowly, holds things up to the light and puts the geometry box back in twice. He is finding ways to stay with her things a little longer.
- The narrator sees that “he was not really packing a trunk at all”. Keeping sadness in check means keeping it under control so that it does not show.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Dissatisfied: he believes the trunk was packed carelessly and must be set right — Incorrect. Misread: He acts as if the packing was wrong. But the narrator says it “had not” been packed wrongly. The fault-finding only covers his real feeling.
Option 3: Resentful: he is quietly angry that his daughter has chosen to study away from home — Incorrect. Not mentioned: Resentful means bitter and angry about something that seems unfair. Nothing in the passage shows anger. He handles her things with great care.
Option 4: Anxious: he fears that the trunk and its lock will not last the long journey — Incorrect. Only partly true: He does oil and test the lock. But the lock “worked perfectly”, and the narrator sees that his real worry is not the trunk.