1. Discuss with reference to the context any four of the following passages in about 150 words each:

Then
They had pressed her down
Piling up log after log on her
A hundred tongues of all consuming flames
Have sprung into life
Villagers watch in a circle

No, I would continue to stare
at the one hundred bald pates in silence.
The fixed stare of my dead machine-gun.

The moon looked like a pancake and
The hills looked hungry; and the clouds put out
The fires in western skies. But in the east
The wood nymphs lit the moon's cooking stove

My life -flow
rolling down my eye
"She may not go now
Shh She will hear! Be silent

Do you have in your land still
those sages, who,
eating only their silences,
counsel their rulers

It's good to have some stones in your heart -the cry is then echoed back.
Since all roads are slippery the stones may be spread on them one after another.

Which character(s) do you like the most in Samskara Why

In what specific ways does the title of Bhisham Sahni's novel Tamas express the writer's thematic concern

"Muhammad Tughlaq was a synthesis of opposing extremes in his character." Do you agree? Discuss with concrete examples from the text.

Discuss the motifs of chess and disguise in Tughlaq.

4. Discuss the following in 250 words each

Point of view in the story

OR

The part that memory plays in Nirmal Verma's Birds

Title of the story 'The Empty Chest'

OR

'The Compromise' as an allegory

5. What qualities of Ismat Chughtai appeal to Manto the most?

OR

In what way is Manimahesh a personal memoir rather than an objective traveller's guide to the land and its people?