The Ball Poem Important Questions Class 10 First Flight English
Very Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. Do you think the boy has lost anything earlier? Pick out the words that suggest the answer.
Answer
No, it seems that the boy has not lost anything earlier. The words that suggest so are, “senses first responsibility in a world of possessions”.
Question 2. Why are the boy’s eyes desperate?
Answer
His eyes are desperate because he has lost his ball.
Question 3. How was the boy’s hall lost?
Answer
The boy was playing with his ball. The ball bounced and it went down the street. From the street the ball fell into the water. This is how the boy lost this ball.
Question 4. Do you think the boy has lost something earlier?
Answer
Yes, he has lost something earlier.
Question 5. What was the reaction of the boy at the loss of his ball?
Answer
The boy was sad and troubled at the loss of his ball.
Question 6. What has the boy lost in the water?
Answer
He has lost his ball in the water of the sea.
Question 7. Where was the boy staring down?
Answer
The boy was staring down the harbour where his ball had gone.
Question 8. What lesson does the boy learn?
Answer
He learns the lesson that gains and losses are part and parcel of life.
Question 9. Where did the ball land finally?
Answer
The ball landed finally in the water.
Question 10. What does ‘in the world of possessions’ means?
Answer
It means the world of materialistic things.
Question 11. What is the boy learning from the loss of the ball?
Answer
The boy is learning the nature of loss in this materialistic world. He has learnt that loss is part and parcel of human life.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1. How is the boy learning the ‘epistemology of loss’ from the loss of his ball? What he has to learn?
Answer
The boy has to understand the nature of the loss. He has to understand what it means to lose something. Gain and loss are the two sides of the same coin. The boy has to learn how to move forward forgetting everything about the losses he has suffered in the past.
Question 2. Why is it important for everyone to experience loss to stand up after it?
Answer
The poet believes that nothing is eternal. Everyone must experience the loss to help him bear it. It also teaches him how to recover from it and stand up. It will remind him to protect and preserve his possessions.
Question 3. What does the poet notice at the beginning of the poem?
Answer
The poet sees a boy playing near a harbour with a ball. The poet saw his ball bouncing. It bounced and fell into the water of the harbour. The boy lost his ball. He became very sad.
Question 4. How did the boy react after losing the ball?
Answer
The boy was very much upset after losing the ball. He was filled with sadness, which affected him greatly. Stunningly he stood in a stiff manner, overpowered with grief, trembling and staring down where his ball was lost.
Question 5. How did the poet witness the whole scene of the boy losing his ball?
Answer
The poet saw the boy playing with his ball. While he was playing with it, the ball bounced down the street ‘merrily’. And then the most unexpected thing happened. Rolling down the street and after taking a few bounces, finally, the ball fell down in the water of the harbour below.
Question 6. How does the boy ‘Senses first responsibility?
Answer
The boy loses his ball and gets upset. This was his first lesson in sensing first responsibility. He has the experience of losing something and learning how to cope up with the loss. He understands the nature of loss or what it means to lose something. He now will be more responsible and vigilant to avoid losing something in future.
Question 7. What was the effect of the loss of ball on the bay?
Answer
The poet sees the boy whose ball has fallen into the harbour. He describes the effect of the loss on the boy. The boy is shaken with grief. He trembles and stares down the harbour. His past days come alive in his mind.
Question 8. How can the boy stand up again? What every man must know one day?
Answer
The boy has to understand the epistemology of loss — the knowledge and nature of the loss. This is not the problem of the boy alone. Everyone has to know it sooner or later that it is useless to weep over the loss of our dearest childhood days. One should move ahead forgetting all such losses. Life has to be lived only by moving ahead in it.
Question 9. Why doesn’t the poet want to intrude on ‘him’? What does he consider the safest course?
Answer
The poet doesn’t want to intrude on the inconsolable boy. There is no gain in telling him that the ball he has lost costs almost nothing. He can buy a new ball easily in a dime. Instead of sermonising, the poet leaves it on the boy to develop a new sense of responsibility. It will help him in bearing the loss.
Question 10. Why does the poet say that ‘Money is external’?
Answer
The poet believes that money cannot buy each and everything. It can bring just external happiness by buying us possessions but it cannot make a boy recover from his unhappiness due to loss of a loved one or valued thing.
Question 11. What is the theme of the poem 'The Ball Poem'?
Answer
In this world sometimes we lose things which we love and are attached to. We must not feel disheartened, dejected and desperate but try to stand up and bear the loss through self-understanding as the boy who lost the ball he loved was trying to learn.
Question 12. What shows that the ball was valuable for the boy?
Answer
The ball was valuable for the boy is obvious (clear) from the way he reacts after losing it He was shocked, remained fixed, trembled with grief staring at the place where the ball had fallen. All this shows that he loved the ball and it was valuable for him.
Question 13. Why does the poet not offer to buy the boy another ball?
Answer
The poet does not offer to buy the boy another ball because the new ball would not console him. The reason is that he had a great attachment to the lost ball. ‘He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes’.
Question 14. Why does the poet say, “I would not intrude on him’? Why doesn’t he offer him money to buy another ball?
Answer
The poet wants the boy to experience the loss. He should learn that it is the part of life. That is why the poet does not want to interfere and wants the boy to be strong and handle the situation himself and does not want to offer him money to buy another ball.
Question 15. Express your views on the title of the poem, ‘The Ball Poem’.
Answer
When one reads the title ‘The Ball Poem’, one assumes that the poem may be a light-hearted one but perhaps about the joys of childhood. We must not feel disheartened, dejected and desperate but try to stand up and bear the loss through self-understanding.
Question 16. Why does the poet decide not to give money to the boy or he buy another ball for him?
Answer
The poet says that he will not intrude upon the boy because he must learn to tolerate loss. The poet emphasises this loss. He thinks that money cannot compensate for the sense of loss. So he doesn’t give the boy money or buy another ball for him.
Question 17. Does the lost ball stand for the metaphor of the boy’s lost childhood? How?
Answer
The boy has lost his ball. It has fallen down into the harbour. It will not be found back again. However, through the metaphor of the lost ball, the poet wants to highlight a bigger loss. It is the loss of his childhood. Like the lost ball, the childhood days which he cherishes still now, have been lost forever. This makes the loss inconsolable.
Question 18. Why did the poet not console the boy?
Answer
The poet did not console the boy for two reasons:
Firstly, the boy was too shocked and grief-stricken to listen to any sense.
Secondly, the poet also observed that the boy was trying to stand up or bear the loss on his own through self-understanding which is much more reflective and lasting. The poet’s or anybody else’s consoling would not be that effective.
Long Answer Type Questions
Question 1. Why is it important for everyone to experience loss and to stand up after it?
Answer
Everyone experiences a loss at some point in one’s life. It might be the loss of a beloved, or a parent or a close relative or even a pet. Humans have a tendency of getting attached to things and the loss of things or people close to heart causes grievance. But one must not let that pull us down. Loss is an essential and significant experience of one’s life. And one must learn to deal with it and move on.
If we keep thinking about it or grieve over that loss, we can never come out of it. It will only affect us psychologically and can have severe consequences. Brooding over a loss will never help in bringing things back to normal. Loss is inevitable sometimes. Once a loss occurs, one must grieve, but only for a short while. Thereafter one must get over it and move on in life.
Question 2. What is the epistemology of loss in this world of possessions? How has the child learned to stand up in life?
Answer
Gain and loss are the two sides of the same coin. Getting, spending and losing things form a natural cycle of life. The boy is inconsolable at the loss of his ball. Actually, it is not the ordinary ball but his long association and attachment with it that makes the loss so unbearable. It is like the good sweet days of childhood that the boy cherishes so much but are lost and gone forever. They will never come back again.
So, what is the remedy? He can bear this loss by understanding the epistemology or nature of the loss. In this world of material wealth and possessions, it seems that money can buy anything. However, it is a false conception. Money has its own limitations. Its nature is external. It cannot compensate for the losses that a person suffers emotionally or internally. No wealth can buy back the ball that has been lost forever. Similarly, no wealth can buy back the lost childhood. The child will have to move ahead and stand up in life. He has to stop weeping over his past losses and start living life as it should be lived.
Question 3. What does the poet say the boy is learning from the loss of the ball? Try to explain this in your own words.
Answer
The boy has lost his ball while playing. The poet says that from this loss, the boy will learn in his years, what it means to lose something. Thus he will understand the nature of loss or how to face and cope up with losses one suffers in life. This experience of losing something will enable him to learn to be self- reliant and to stand up on his feet in the life where losses do occur, though they might not be important enough to worry about.
Question 4. How is the lost ball, the metaphor of the lost childhood of the boy? Why doesn’t the poet want to ‘intrude on’ the boy by offering him money to buy another ball?
Answer
The boy has a ball. Perhaps he has been keeping it for a long time. He must have developed a lot of attachment and love with the ball. Suddenly while he is playing, the ball bounces down the street. And after a few bounces, it falls down into the harbour. It is lost forever. The boy stands there shocked and fixed to the ground. He constantly goes on staring at the spot where his ball fell down into the water. Outwardly, the loss seems to be quite small. The boy seems to be making a fuss over the loss. Many boys have lost such balls and will lose so in future. A new ball can be easily bought in a dime.
The metaphor of the lost ball is beautifully linked to the loss of sweet childhood. No amount of money can buy the ball back that has been lost forever. Similarly, no worldly wealth can buy back the lost childhood. The poet doesn’t want to sermonise on this issue. The boy himself has to learn epistemology or the nature of the loss. He has to move ahead in life forgetting all the losses he has suffered in the past.
Question 5. Why does the poet say, ‘I would not intrude on him?’ Why doesn’t he offer him money to buy another ball?
Answer
When a person is trying to come over his grief on his own, he is busy making himself understand certain things if then, someone intrudes or disturbs, and his chain of thoughts is broken. It makes him irritated. Moreover, self-consolation, realization or understanding is more effective and lasting than when it is done by an external agency or a person. The poet knows it. So he does not intrude on him.
His offer of money to buy another ball is useless for the boy wants the same ball he is attached to and has been playing for a long time. No other ball will be able to take its place.
Question 6. Should the boy be allowed to grieve for his ball? If his loss is irreparable or irretrievable then how should one handle it? What lessons can be learnt?
Answer
Yes, the boy should be allowed to grieve for his ball, as he had that ball for a long time. He had many old memories associated with it since his childhood. Moreover, when a person is trying to overcome his grief on his own, then one should not intrude or disturb him as it may break his chain of thoughts and may irritate him.
One should have self-consolation, and self -understanding in order to bear the loss. Self-realization and understanding are more effective and lasting than when it is done by an external agency or a person.