The Portrait of a Lady — Class 11 English

Khushwant Singh's autobiographical prose sketch traces the changing bond between the narrator and his grandmother across three phases. In the village, the two are inseparable: she wakes him, dresses him, walks him to the temple school, reads scriptures while he learns the alphabet, and feeds the village dogs on the way home. When the family moves to the city, the friendship loosens; she can no longer accompany him to the English school, cannot help with western lessons in science and gravity, and is quietly distressed by the absence of religious teaching and by his music lessons. At university he gets a separate room and the common link snaps; she withdraws to her spinning-wheel and prayers, her happiest half-hour spent feeding sparrows. She shows no sentiment when he leaves for five years abroad, and meets him calmly on his return. On the eve of her death she breaks routine, gathering neighbourhood women to sing of warriors' homecoming. Falling mildly ill the next day, she declares her end is near, stops talking, and dies peacefully telling her beads. At the funeral, thousands of silent sparrows gather around her body, refusing the crumbs offered, and fly away only when she is carried off — a moving image of mute mourning that closes the portrait.