Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
The attic smelt of mothballs and old rain. Meera had brought masking tape and a marker, and by noon every carton carried one word: KEEP, KABADI or ASK. The taxi to Kalka was booked for four. She did not mean to miss it.
Tara was slower. She held each thing up to the skylight as if it might explain itself: a cracked thermos, a brass school bell, a cardigan darned at both elbows in three different colours of wool.
“Bua could have bought a new one,” Meera said. “She had a pension. She just didn’t like spending it.”
Everyone in the family said so. Kamla Bua was close with money. One crisp five-rupee note in every Diwali card, for forty years.
Under the eaves stood a tin trunk. Inside were letters, hundreds of them, tied in bundles with rubber bands that snapped at a touch.
“Love letters,” Tara breathed.
“Kabadi,” said Meera, and reached for the tape.
Tara had already opened one. Respected Madam, I have passed my B.Ed. The fee you sent for the last term… She opened another, and another. A nurse in Solan. A bank clerk in Mandi. A teacher in Rampur. Each one thanked her for a term’s fees, a hostel bill, a set of books. Many began by saying sorry for writing at all: I know you said thanks are a waste of a stamp.
Meera sat down on the KABADI carton. She read four letters without a word. Outside, a monkey thudded across the tin roof, and neither of them looked up.
“Five rupees,” Meera said at last, to no one.
At half past three she rang the taxi and asked for six o’clock. Then she peeled the label off the trunk.
According to the passage, what did the letters in the tin trunk turn out to be?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Notes of thanks from people whose studies or training Bua had helped to pay for
The letters come from a nurse, a bank clerk, a teacher and others. “Each one thanked her for a term’s fees, a hostel bill, a set of books.”
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 2: Love letters that Bua had kept hidden from the rest of the family all her life — Incorrect. Misread: This is only Tara’s first guess. The letters she opens are all thank-you letters.
Option 3: Requests from young people asking Bua to lend them money for their fees — Incorrect. Misread: The writers are not asking for money. They thank her for money she had already sent.
Option 4: Letters that Bua had written to her former pupils but had never posted — Incorrect. Contradicted: The letters were written to Bua, not by her. One begins “Respected Madam”.