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.
Nimmi’s anger with the customers most likely comes from her feeling that
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → their ordinary talk passes over a loss that means a great deal to her
For Nimmi this is the last evening of the stall. For the customers it is just another evening.
- The postman grumbles about the sugar. The taxi drivers argue about a run-out. “Nobody said a word about tomorrow.”
- Nimmi had wanted to mark the evening. Their usual talk seems to her to ignore what is being lost.
- She “could not have said why” she was angry. So the anger comes from her hurt feelings, not from anything the customers did wrong.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: they had come only for cheap tea and cared nothing for her grandfather — Incorrect. Overstated: They are regulars who have come for years. Nothing shows that they do not care for him.
Option 2: they kept finding fault with the tea that she had made herself that evening — Incorrect. Misread: Only the postman grumbles, and he does so “as always”. It is not something new that could make her angry.
Option 4: they had done nothing to stop the municipality from pulling down the stall — Incorrect. Not mentioned: The passage never says that anyone could have stopped the road work, or that Nimmi wished they had tried.