NCERT Solutions for Class 6 English - Honeysuckle Textbook (Poetry)- Chapter 8: Whatif

Check NCERT Solutions for Chapter 8 of the English subject. Class 6th students can study the answers provided here to score well in school as well as Class 6th exams. The NCERT solutions have been provided after a detailed analysis of the marking scheme of CBSE by the English subject expert. 

Summary of the Poem:

Whatif

The narrator is a young girl. Her mind is sometimes filled with doubts and fears. At night such unpleasant situations haunt her.

She wonders what will happen if she loses her power to speak, or if the school closes the swimming pool, or if she gets beaten up, or if somebody puts poison in her cup. It is also possible that she may get sick and die, or fail in the examination, or stop growing in height, or is hit by lightning. The other such bad situations are that the wind may tear up the kite, or a war breaks out, or her teeth grow irregularly, or she may never learn to dance. When she wakes up the next morning, everything looks fine and normal. But her fears return at night again.

NCERT Solutions for Class 6 English - Honeysuckle Textbook (Prose)- All Chapters

NCERT Solutions for Class 6 English - Honeysuckle Textbook (Poetry)- Chapter 8

Ques: (i) Who is the speaker in the poem?

(ii) With your partner list out the happenings, the speaker is worried about it.

(iii) Why do you think she/he has these worries? Can you think of ways to get rid of such worries?

Answer: (i) The speaker in the poem is a child who has his fears, doubts, whims, and fancies.

(ii) The speaker is worried if he was dumb in school, if they had closed the swimming pool, if he got beaten up, if there was poison in his cup, if he started to cry, if he got sick and died, if he flunked that test, if green hair grew on his chest, if nobody liked him, if a bolt of lightning struck him, if he did not grow taller, if his head started getting smaller, if the fish would not bite, if the wind tore up his kite, if they started a war, if his parents got divorced, if the bus was late, if his teeth did not grow in straight, if he tore his pants, if he never learned to dance. Hence, everything seemed negative and depressing to him.

(iii) The child has these worries because it was night time and thus, he was not doing anything, but lying in his bed. It brought him depressing thoughts that otherwise did not bother him when he was playing with his friends or busy with his usual routine of going to school. These thoughts started occurring to him and he started imagining what if the worst struck. He wondered certain probable things such as what would happen if he failed in his test or if his teeth did not grow straight. However, his mind also wondered about many unlikely things such as green hair growing on his chest or if his head started getting smaller. As is said that “an empty mind is a devil’s workshop”, the child thinks of such fearful things, which makes him wonder what if such a dangerous thing struck him.

Ques: Read the following line.

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

Can words crawl into your ear? This is an image. The poet is trying to make an image of what she/he experiences. Now with your partner try and list out some more images from the poem.

Answer: (i) Pranced and partied all night long

(ii) Sang their same old whatif song

(iii) Everything seems swell

(iv) The night-time Whatif strikes again!

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