Question

Why does the poet look outside? What does she see happening outside?

Answer 1

Hint: It is a beautiful creation of the poet. In this poem, the poet describes the affection of a daughter for her aged mother. She tries to represent the bond of mother and daughter and states that ageing is a natural process. No one can stop it.

Complete answer:
This is a poem named My Mother at sixty-six written by “Kamala Das”. The poet tells us that she is going to Cochin. She stated that her mother whose age is sixty-six is also accompanying her to the airport to see her off.

According to the question we need to tell the reason why the poet is looking outside and describe the scenes of the outside. When the poet looked at her mother, she was dozing with opened mouth open. Her mother looks like a dead body as she was looking pale and ashen. Seeing her mother in this condition causes an ache in the poet’s heart. She felt too heavy inside. The thought that her mother’s end is near haunts her. Therefore, she decided to look outside for distraction and diversion.
When she looked outside, she saw a large number of children coming out of their houses merrily and happily, and trees were also spreading and running fast as they were sprinting.

Note: The poet describes the process of ageing and decay in a very perfect manner. She compared the ageing with the late winter’s moon. In the late winter’s moon appears hazy as it doesn’t have shine and power similarly at old age people look pale and ashen. They don’t have any of the shine and strength of the youth now.