Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
By the time the covers came on, Shankar’s Modern Hair Cutting Saloon held eleven men and two chairs. India needed thirty-four from twenty-six balls. On the old transistor, the commentator, shouting a minute earlier, began sadly to describe the clouds.
Shankar went back to the first chair, where Pillai sir had sat half-shaved for twenty minutes. Coming in, the retired teacher had told the shop that cricket wasted a nation’s afternoons. He had repeated this at every boundary.
“Finish it, Shankar,” he said now. “There is nothing to wait for.”
But when the razor came near his chin, he lifted one finger, and Shankar stopped. The radio said the groundsmen had begun sweeping water off the covers.
On the bench, the boys argued over the rain rule. The tea boy from next door, sent for the empty glasses, had not gone back. Two weather apps on two phones disagreed: heavy rain at the ground, said one; clear skies, said the other. The phones passed from hand to hand, as if one might yet be talked round.
Pillai sir gave an affected yawn. “In my day, men watched the sky for their crops,” he said. Then, in the same bored voice, he asked who was at the crease.
“Your old student, sir,” said Shankar. “The one you made stand on the bench for playing cricket in the corridor.”
Pillai sir looked into the mirror. “He could never do fractions,” he said at last. “But he always knew when to run.”
At six the umpires walked out. Shankar picked up the razor. Pillai sir pushed his hand gently away and turned his chair to face the radio. “Leave the other side,” he said. “I will come back for it.”
Which of the following statements are suggested by the passage?
(A) A shared moment of suspense can draw a whole small community into one room.
(B) Waiting for news together can make people cling to the smallest sign of hope.
(C) A teacher’s fondness for a pupil can outlast the faults he once found in him.
(D) Modern gadgets settle the arguments that people cannot settle among themselves.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (A), (B) and (C) only
Each statement is checked against the passage.
(A) A shared moment of suspense can draw a whole small community into one room. — Correct.
- The shop holds “eleven men and two chairs”, and even the tea boy sent for the glasses stays on to hear the match.
(B) Waiting for news together can make people cling to the smallest sign of hope. — Correct.
- Pillai sir stops the razor when the radio says the covers are being swept, and the men pass the phones round “as if one might yet be talked round”.
(C) A teacher’s fondness for a pupil can outlast the faults he once found in him. — Correct.
- He once punished the boy and says he “could never do fractions”.
- Still, he praises him: “he always knew when to run.”
(D) Modern gadgets settle the arguments that people cannot settle among themselves. — Incorrect.
- The two weather apps “disagreed”, so the phones settle nothing.