The photo was taken when the poet’s mother was a child of around 12 years or so. The Photograph shows poet’s mother and her two cousin sisters Betty and Dolly holding her hand in the beach.

The expression from the poem “A Photograph” by Shirley Toulson mean the death or loss of poet’s mother and the poet’s inability to express her grief and sorrow. “Its silence” here refers to death of poet’s mother and “silences” refers to the poet’s silence or sorrow because of it.

On seeing the photograph, the poet feels nostalgic because it reminds her of her mother who is dead. The photograph visualises the time when her mother was a child. She remembers how her mother used to look at one of her old photograph, where she posed in a beach with her cousins Betty and Dolly with a smile.

The poet’s mother laughed while recalling a moment of her past captured in the photograph. She looks back at her childhood days with nostalgia and recollects her innocent joys. Looking at the picture, years later, brings in her minds the fond memories. She laughs at the way they were dressed up for the beach holiday.

Gone are the childhood days of the poet’s mother and the sea holiday has become her past, the photograph flashes her back to the scene that was captured around 30 years ago. Gone is the carefree laughter of her mother which was love at one time. But now, the laughter of her mother has eventually become a thing of the past for the poet. She has silently resigned herself to the fate.

In the phrase “terribly transient feet” the word ‘feet’ is used to describe human beings and transient means short-lived or temporary. The phrase as a whole means that human life is impermanent. Human beings are mortal and have to die one day or the other but the sea is permanent and will remain the same even after our death.

Both the poet’s mother and the poet suffer a sense of loss. The mother has lost her childlike innocence and joyful spirit that the photograph captured years ago. For the poet, the smile of her mother has become a thing of the past. Ironically, both labour to bear this loss with ease.

‘this circumstance’ refers to the painful memory of the death of poet’s mother. The happy and carefree girl seen in the photograph is no more. The poetess could not help being sorry and sad to think of her mother as an objected person.

The poet’s mother was a happy and carefree girl. She enjoyed her childhood days with her cousins, which is evident in the photograph of the sea holiday that they had once enjoyed. The memory of the holiday also made her laugh.

The poet’s mother along with her cousin sisters Betty and Dolly had gone to the beach for a picnic during summer holidays and so, were posing for a photograph which was being taken by there uncle who was there with them, the girls.

The author Khushwant Singh says it was hard for him to believe that his grandmother was once young and pretty because he has seen her the same old and wrinkled for the last twenty years he had known her. This shows that the author has become so used to the old wrinkled appearance of the grandmother that he finds it difficult to believe that she was once young and pretty.

The author’s grandfather’s portrait hung above the mantelpiece in the drawing room. His grandfather wore a big turban and loose-fitting clothes. His long, white beard covered the best part of his chest and he looked atleast a hundred years old. He didn’t look the sort of person who would have a wife or children. He looked as if he could only have lots of children.

The author portrays his grandmother as an old and wrinkled woman. He describes her physical appearance as short, fat and slightly bent. He also tells that she is terribly old and could never have been pretty; but she was always beautiful. She had curly white hair, puckered face and her lips constantly moved in inaudible prayer. However, her beauty is compared to the winter landscape in the mountains , an expanse of pure white serenity breathing peace and contentment.

The expression “the thought was almost revolting” means that it is hard for the author to believe that once her grandmother was young and pretty as the author had always seen her as a old and wrinkled woman for the past twenty years he had known her.

The narrator had always seen his grandmother dressed in spotless white saree. She had curly white hair that used to spread over the pale and wrinkled face. The narrator described her to look like an expanse of pure white serenity. He also compared the mountains full of snow cover to look equally peaceful as his grandmother’s face.

The author’s grandmother often told him the games she used to play when she was a child. That seemed quite absurd and undignified on her part to the author. So, he treated it like the ‘fables’ of the prophets.

The writer’s grandmother used to wake him up and get him ready for the school. She would fetch the school materials such as the wooden slate, ink pot, and a red pen, tie them all in a bundle and hand it over to him. She used to prepare breakfast for him and then take him to the school. Both of them shared a very special bond with each other.

The narrator’s grandmother always went to the school with him because the school was attached to a temple. While the children sat in rows on either side of the verandah singing the alphabet or the prayer in a chorus, the grandmother sat inside reading the scriptures. This also shows that the grandmother was very religious.

The narrator’s grandmother was a very kind hearted and loving person. While going to school with the narrator, she used to carry several stale chapattis with her for the village dogs. While returning back, the village dogs would meet them at their home growling and fighting with each other for the chapattis they threw at them.

When the narrator’s parents were comfortably settled in the city, they were sent for them. This shift from village to city was a turning point in the friendship of the narrator with her grandmother. Although they both share the same room, his grandmother no longer came with him to school as the narrator used to go to an English School in a motor bus.

The lesson at the school distressed the grandmother as it had no teaching about God and the scriptures. It taught about the western science and learning and had no connection to spirituality or religion. The author’s grandmother could not understand the the western language and hence did not believe in it.

When the author went to university, he was given a room of his own. Both the grandmother and the grandson got separated. The long lived common link of friendship between them got snapped. But the grandmother accepted the seclusion with resignation.

The grandmother accepted her seclusion with resignation. She rarely her spinning wheel to talk to anyone. From the sunrise to the sunset, she sat by her wheel, spinning and reciting prayers. The afternoon was her only time of relaxation as she fed the sparrows in the verandah by breaking the bread into little bits.

The afternoon was her only time of relaxation for the grandmother. While sitting on the verandah, she used to break the bread into little pieces and fed them to the sparrows. Hundreds of little birds collected round her and made the chirupping sound. Some perched on her legs, on the shoulders and some even on her head. She smiled and never shooed them away. These were the happiest moments of the day for the grandmother.

The grandmother did not pray that evening. Instead, she collected the women of her neighborhood, got an old drum and started to sing. For several hours, she thumped the sagging skin of the dilapidated drum and sang of the home-coming of warriors. This is how she celebrated her grandson’s home coming.

The next morning after the narrator came back home, the grandmother was taken ill. She had a mild fever and the doctor told that it would go. But his grandmother told them that her end was near. She laid peacefully in the bed praying and telling her beads. Even before they could suspect, her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell from her lifeless fingers. The grandmother was no more.

All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she laid dead and stiff wrapped in the red shroud, thousand of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. They did not chirrup and took no notice of the bread given to them by the author’s mother. When the grandmother’s corpse was carried away off, the sparrows flew away quietly. This shows the bond between humans and animals, Although they can’t communicate with us, they do have emotions which is clearly evident in this incident.

The narrator with his family wanted to go for a round-the-world sea voyage made 200 years ago earlier by Captain James Cook. He started from Plymouth, England, sailed towards Africa’s Capetown and then finally set towards Australia. He wanted to repeat the voyage sailed by Captain James Cook, a famous explorer, as he and his wife Mary had always dreamt of it.

The narrator planned to go on a round-the-world sea voyage on the same route as Captain James Cook had done 2000 years earlier. The narrator and his wife Mary had spent all the leisure time they got in the past 16 years to hone their seafaring skills in the British waters. They had also spent months fitting out and testing their boat Wavewalker in the roughest weather they could find.

Wavewalker was a professionally built, 23 metres long, 30 ton wooden-hulled boat. The narrator and his wife Mary had spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather they could find in the British waters.

Before heading towards east from Capetown, the narrator took two crewmen – Larry Vigil and Swiss Herb Seigler with him on board. He took them them to help himself and his wife from to tackle one of the world’s roughest seas, the Southern Indian Ocean.

The second day they left Capetown, they started encountering strong gales. 25th December found them 3,500 kilometres east of Capetown. The weather was quite hostile but they had a beautiful holiday. They celebrated Christmas with a Christmas tree.

The weather changed for worse on 2nd January. The waves were gigantic. As the ship rose to the top of each wave, they saw endless enormous seas rolling towards them. The screaming of the wind and spray was painful to he ears.

The first indication of the impending disaster came at about 6:00 PM of 2nd January. An ominous silence prevailed all around. The wind dropped and the sky immediately grew dark. Then came a growing roar. A huge vertical wave, almost twice the height of the other waves, came roaring towards the Wavewalker. These were sure indications of the impending disaster.

The ominous silence was the first indication of the impending disaster. The wind dropped and the sky immediately grew dark. The narrator saw what he thought as an enormous cloud coming towards the ship. He realised that it was not a cloud but a huge wave like no other he had ever seen in his life. It was almost twice the height of the other waves! The wave hit the boat and wrecked it. Water gushed into the boat from all sides.

A torrent of green and white water broke over the ship as a result of the tremendous explosion that shook the deck. The narrator’s head smashed into the wheel and He was himself flying overboard and sinking below the waves. He was almost dead and the whole ship turned to a wreck. Unexpectedly his head came out of water. Wave walker was almost capsizing. Her masts were almost horizontal.

One of the waves threw the ship upright. The narrator was able to reach its main boom. Subsequent waves tossed him around the deck like a rag doll. His left ribs cracked and his mouth was full of blood and broken teeth. Somehow he managed to find the wheel, lined up for the stem for the next wave and remained firm.

The narrator saw torrent of green and white breaking over the ship. His head struck the wheel. He flung over board and was sinking below the waves. He was losing sense. He accepted his approaching death without murmuring and felt quite peaceful. The Wavewalker was near capsizing.

The narrator was already struggling to save the ship from sinking. But more problem arose when their hand pumps started to block up with the debris floating around the cabins and the electric pump short-circuited. The water level rose threateningly. These were the problems the narrator was saying about.

The narrator could not leave the wheel to examine the damaged parts. Mary shouted that the decks were broken and they were sinking. Larry Vigil and Swiss Herb Seigler were pumping out water like madmen. Sue has a big bump over her eyes but the children said they were alright.

The given line was spoken by narrator’s daughter, Sue. She didn’t want to bother her father by crying over her injurie because she knew that his father is trying really hard to keep his family alive. She had hidden her pain because she could see her parents trying to fight a more severe problem. Thus, she decided to keep patience and not cry over her injuries so that her parents don’t lose hope and continue to fight. This shows the maturity and understanding of the speaker at such a young age of 7.

Jonathan called the narrator the best daddy and captain in the world because he and sue were very happy to have found the island, Ile Amsterdam. They were now safe from danger and had won the battle of survival, which was possible because of their daddy, the narrator who took all possible measures to save the family and crewmen.

Ile Amsterdam was a very small island made up of volcanic rock and had very little vegetation with only 28 inhabitants. However, the island provided them safety from the huge waves of the sea as well as opportunity to repair the damaged Wavewalker. The narrator called it “the most beautiful island in the world” because after fighting for hours for a chance of survival and losing hope; finding the island was not less than a heaven at that moment.

Suzanne’s head had a swollen bump. Her swelling increased with time and her blackened eyes narrowed to slits. Her head injury took 6 minor operation to remove a recurring blood clot between skin and skull. This shows that Sue’s injuries were serious.

The lesson “We are Not Afraid to Die… If We Can All Be Together” by Gordon Cook and Alan East portrays moral values such as courage, selflessness, optimism and human endurance. The most important lesson we learn from such hazardous experience is not to lose hope even if we are face-to-face with death. At times, life presents very dire situations but if one is optimistic about finding a solution and has the courage to overcome all odds, one will always be successful.