Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The municipality’s notice had been on the electric pole for three weeks, and the rain had washed most of it away. Only the date was still clear. The road below the bus stand was to be widened, and the tea stall that had stood on that bend for forty-one years would come down in the morning.
Nimmi had planned the evening for days. A board in chalk, a free glass for every regular, perhaps a few words from her grandfather. He heard her out and then said no to all of it. “People come here for tea,” he said. “Not for a funeral.”
So she did what she did every summer evening. She rinsed the glasses in the bucket, crushed ginger with the flat of the knife and counted the change into the biscuit tin. Tonight she made the tea herself. The postman came at five and grumbled, as always, that the tea was too sweet. Two taxi drivers argued about a run-out. A hostel boy bought one rusk with one-rupee coins. Her grandfather served them all with a studied calm, took every coin and gave back the exact change. Nobody said a word about tomorrow. Nimmi found she was angry with all of them, and could not have said why.
At seven the cloud came down over the ridge and the last bus left. Her grandfather put out the stove and wiped the counter, all the way into the corners. Then he stood looking at the empty bench.
“You made it too strong today,” he said at last. “Just as your grandmother used to.”
He took down the dented saucepan and put it in her hands. It was still warm. She did not trust herself to answer.
The word ‘studied’ in “Her grandfather served them all with a studied calm” means
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → carefully kept up rather than freely felt
Here studied means done on purpose and with effort, not natural. A studied calm is a calm that a person works to keep up.
- The grandfather is losing his stall of forty-one years the next morning.
- He still serves everyone as usual. But at the end he stares at the empty bench and speaks of his wife. So his calm was held in place with effort. Example: Riya answered the angry customer with a studied politeness.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: learned through long years of practice at the stall — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This takes “studied” as “learned by study or practice”. Example: She studied music for ten years.
Option 2: watched closely by the people around him — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: This takes “studied” as “looked at carefully”. Example: The boy studied the map before the trek.
Option 3: cold and distant towards his customers — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: “Studied” never means unfriendly. Example: The new neighbour gave us a cold nod and shut the door.