Comprehension:
Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:
The Mysore City Corporation building stood close to the palace and Janani and Vinod had been taken to the palace on the very day of their arrival, Sesha Uncle hurrying them along as if royalty itself were under threat and some fairy godmother had warned that come midnight, the palace would turn into a pumpkin. It was in the hope of tracing the official records of a writer’s house that they had come to the corporation that morning. The corporation was housed in an ornate building with domes that resembled those of the palace. The exterior was painted the colour of egg yolk – pale yellow, with cornices in white. The crown molding was a cheery mix of red and maroon that matched the colour on the domes. It was hard to tell if the people who thronged the external corridors and the inner hallways were employees or members of the public.
Sesha Uncle and his entourage wandered around the labyrinthine hallways, peering into a honeycomb maze of dusty offices. Janani was glad Sesha Uncle and Rukmini Aunty had insisted on coming with her and Vinod. She was thrilled at the prospect of entering a den of intrigue. The reality was more banal: a cavernous room where sunlight filtered weakly through cracked glass, dust drifting lazily in the air. Clerks sat behind desks, some glued to their phones, others chatting. Files lay in precarious towers, abandoned mid-fall, as though the building itself had given up on order.
Sesha Uncle found a clerk. Leaning in conspiratorially, he launched into a winding comparison between Mysore and Hannibal, Missouri. If Americans could preserve Mark Twain’s house, he argued, surely Mysore could honour its greatest writer too. Sesha Uncle then asked about the ownership of R.K. Narayan’s house, only to be redirected to another desk, empty because the responsible official was on personal leave for a festival. Mustering up whatever dignity he had left, Sesha Uncle hustled everyone out of the office. On the way home, he unleashed a torrent of abuse at the bureaucracy and its indifference to writers, and by the time they reached the house, Rukmini Aunty declared the subject finished and insisted on eating her lunch in peace.
In the given passage, the comparison is made about a fairy godmother and the palace turning into a pumpkin. What does this suggest?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → The tone is that of exaggerated urgency and comic seriousness.
The fairy godmother and the palace turning into a pumpkin at midnight come from the Cinderella story. The writer uses them to make fun of Sesha Uncle's hurry: he rushes the children to the palace "as if royalty itself were under threat", though there is no real danger. The comparison is a humorous exaggeration.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Sesha Uncle believed strongly in fairy tales and magic. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the comparison is the writer's joke about his haste; nothing says he believed in magic.
Option 2: Everybody feared that the palace would actually be destroyed. — Incorrect. Contradicted: the words "as if" show the danger was imagined; nobody feared any real harm to the palace.
Option 4: It was holiday season and the entire town would be at the Mysore city cooperation building. — Incorrect. Wrong link: a festival is mentioned only as the reason the official was on leave; it has nothing to do with the fairy-tale comparison.