NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Hindi Aroh Chapter 16 Namak

Solutions to Ch 16 Hindi Class 12 Aroh are available in PDF format at Vedantu. Having all the questions answered in a simple and comprehensible manner makes it extremely easy for students to do a quick revision of any topic. They can access this PDF online and download it for referencing it as and when needed.

Chapter 16 – Razia Sajjad Zahir

NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Hindi Chapter 16

Razia Sajjad Zahir was born on February 15, 1917, in Ajmer (Rajasthan), India. She was an Urdu writer and has earnt many awards and accolades like the Urdu Academy Award, Soviet Land Nehru Award, and few others. She attained B.A degree by studying at home then after her marriage went on to complete her masters in Urdu from Allahabad university. In 1965, she was appointed in the Soviet information centre.

She has written both stories and novels and has carved an important place for herself in Urdu literature. Apart from original writings, she has also translated many books in different languages to Urdu. Her language is simple and full of idioms. Many of her stories have been translated into Devanagari as well. Her writings depict social empathy, religious tolerance, and changing family values with the modern context.

Amongst her prominent work is a collection of Urdu stories called “Zard Gulab” (Yellow rose). She believed that her determination was her strength and writing kept her alive. She breathed her last on December 18, 1979.

In the Namak Class 12 story, she has expressed the emotional turmoil of people who got rehabilitated after the India Pakistan division. She has raised many questions on many established views about what country to call your own. She says that dividing a country cannot divide the emotions of a person who is tied to the land where he was brought up.

Class 12 Hindi Chapter 16 Namak is the story of Safia and a Sikh older woman. When they met, Safia was drawn to the woman as she resembled her dead mother in many ways. When the Sikh lady enquired about Safia, she learned that Safia’s family was in Lahore, Pakistan and she was going there to meet her brothers the next day. The lady got very excited about hearing this and shared her own beautiful experiences of Lahore city, its food, and lively atmosphere as she too belonged to Lahore. She confides in Safia that though her life in India is well-settled and happy, she misses Lahore a lot and requests her if she can get some salt of her land when she comes back.

Salt was not a permissible material to cross the India-Pakistan border hence when Safia told her brothers that she needed to carry it back to India, they objected vehemently. But Safia believed that a small amount of salt cannot cause any harm to anyone. She says that law is not everything but humanity, love for others, and grace also count. Her brothers finally give up and tell her to do as she pleases.

She devises a way of hiding the salt packet under a bowl of fruits to carry it across the border. But when she reaches the platform and about to cross the customs zone, she feels that such betrayal does not do justice to this gift of love. She told the customs officer that she was carrying salt as a token of love for a lady in India. The officer belonged to New Delhi and let the salt pouch pass through the customs with a message to the Sikh lady “Lahore is still her country and Delhi mine and gradually everything will be alright”.

When she reached Amritsar, India, she had to again go through customs. This time the officer was originally from Dhaka, Bangladesh and he reminisced about his childhood spent in his motherland along with works of writers of that Land Tagore, and Nazrul. After such experiences at customs, Safia was left wondering if the borders define your country or it is defined by where your heart lies.