ISC CLASS XII — ENGLISH LITERATURE (PAPER 2)

PRISM: A COLLECTION OF ISC SHORT STORIES

Story: ATITHI (THE GUEST) — Rabindranath Tagore
Question Bank: Long Answer (10 Marks) & Short Answer (5 Marks) | Aligned to ISC PYQ Pattern

Instructions: Answer in the word limit prescribed. Do not exceed the word limit. Marks are indicated in brackets.
Answers must be analytical and incorporate textual evidence from the story.

SECTION A — LONG ANSWER QUESTIONS (10 Marks Each) | Word Limit:

200–250 Words

Q1.
Tarapada is described as a boy of rare charm, talent, and restlessness. Drawing on the story
'Atithi,' write a detailed character sketch of Tarapada. Answer in 200–250 words incorporating the
following details:
* Tarapada's physical appearance and first impression
* His artistic and musical gifts
* His spirit of wanderlust and freedom
* His inability to be bound by love or domestic ties
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Tarapada is one of Tagore's most memorably drawn characters — a boy who seems less like a
person and more like a force of nature. He is introduced as strikingly handsome: his appearance is
bright and arresting, with a quality that draws everyone toward him immediately. He is perhaps
twelve or thirteen years old, yet there is something ageless about him, as if the usual rules of
childhood and growing up do not quite apply.

Tarapada is extraordinarily gifted. He plays the flute with a skill that seems beyond his years, and he
sings and performs in theatrical entertainments with natural ease. He is also an excellent swimmer
and boatman. These gifts are not the result of training or discipline — they appear to spring from an
innate harmony with life that most people never achieve.

Yet at the very centre of Tarapada's character is his restlessness. He is a wanderer by nature, not
by circumstance. He has run away from his own family — not out of unhappiness but out of an
irresistible compulsion to move, to experience, to remain free. His charm wins him warmth and
affection wherever he goes, but he cannot be kept. When Motilal Babu's family takes him in, treats
him as a son, and even arranges his marriage to their daughter Charushashi, Tarapada disappears
on the night before the wedding without a word.

Tarapada is not cruel — he simply cannot be domesticated. He is Tagore's portrait of pure,

uncompromising freedom: beautiful, gifted, irresistible, and ultimately belonging to no one.
Q2.
The theme of wanderlust versus domesticity is central to 'Atithi.' Critically examine how Tagore
develops this conflict through the story. Answer in 200–250 words incorporating the following
details:
* What domesticity represents in the story — the Motilal household
* What Tarapada's wandering represents — freedom and the open world
* The conflict between these two forces in Tarapada
* Tagore's own attitude toward this conflict as suggested by the ending
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

The central tension of 'Atithi' is the ancient human conflict between the pull of home and the pull of
the open world. Tagore frames these two forces with great clarity, and refuses to pass simple moral
judgement on either.

Domesticity in the story is represented by the Motilal household — warm, welcoming, and genuinely
loving. Motilal Babu is a wealthy and kindly landlord; his wife becomes deeply attached to Tarapada,
treating him as a beloved son; their daughter Charushashi develops a tender, innocent love for the
boy. The home they offer is not oppressive — it is genuinely gracious. This is important: Tagore
does not make domesticity ugly or stifling in order to justify Tarapada's flight. The home is good; and
Tarapada still cannot stay.

Tarapada's wandering represents something that cannot be contained by goodness or love alone:
the need for absolute freedom. He has already left his own loving family. He is not running from
something bad — he is running toward something indefinable. The open river, the moving boat, the
changing landscape — these are his true home.

The conflict within Tarapada is real: he is not indifferent to the warmth he receives. He clearly enjoys
the family's company, participates in their life, and accepts their affection. Yet when the moment of
permanent commitment arrives — the wedding — he vanishes.

Tagore's attitude is suggestive rather than didactic. The ending is melancholy but not
condemnatory. Tarapada's flight implies that some souls are simply constitutionally incapable of
belonging to one place, one family, one life — and that this, while painful for those left behind, is
simply who they are.

Q3.
Describe the role of the Motilal Babu household in the story 'Atithi.' How does the family's
response to Tarapada reflect the story's themes? Answer in 200–250 words incorporating the
following details:
* Motilal Babu's character and his initial response to Tarapada
* The response of the women of the household, particularly his wife
* Charushashi's relationship with Tarapada
* What the family's love for Tarapada reveals about the nature of attachment
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 The Motilal household is the story's anchor — the stable, loving world against which Tarapada's
restlessness is measured. Motilal Babu is a wealthy and generous landlord who first encounters
Tarapada when the boy seeks passage on his boat. He is immediately charmed by Tarapada's
appearance and gifts, and in a characteristic act of warm impulsiveness, takes him home.

The women of the household take to Tarapada with even greater warmth. Motilal's wife essentially
adopts him, lavishing on him the maternal care that Tarapada's own wandering has long deprived
him of. She feeds him, clothes him, and integrates him into the domestic rhythm as a beloved son.
Her attachment is the deepest and most unconditional in the story, and it is therefore she who is
most silently hurt by his eventual disappearance.

Charushashi, the daughter, develops a delicate, innocent love for Tarapada. It is the unstated, shy
love of a child — expressed not in words but in proximity and attention. The arranged marriage
between them is, in some ways, the family's attempt to formalise and secure a bond that already
exists emotionally. But Tarapada cannot be formalised.

The family's response reveals one of the story's deepest truths: love, however genuine and
generous, cannot hold a person whose nature is to be free. The household offers everything a home
can offer, and it is not enough. Tagore uses the family not to condemn them but to show that some
forms of loss have no remedy and no fault.

Q4.
Tagore uses nature imagery extensively in 'Atithi' to deepen the story's themes. Examine the
significance of nature — particularly the river — in the narrative. Answer in 200–250 words
incorporating the following details:
* The river as a symbol of freedom and movement
* How nature reflects Tarapada's character
* The contrast between the river and the domestic household
* Tagore's broader use of the natural world as a thematic vehicle
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 Nature occupies a central symbolic position in 'Atithi,' and nowhere more so than in the figure of the
river. The story begins on a river — Tarapada is found on a boat, seeking a passage upstream —
and it is on the river that his true identity is most clearly expressed. The river is the element in which
he is most at home, most himself: he swims in it with ease, manages boats with skill, and seems
instinctively oriented toward its flowing, changeable, unconfined nature.

The river as symbol is inseparable from the story's central theme. A river, by its very nature, cannot
be held still. It flows past every bank, touches every village, and belongs to none of them. This is
Tarapada's condition exactly: he passes through lives, touches them with his light and his gifts, and
moves on. To ask the river to stop is as futile as asking Tarapada to stay.

The contrast between the river and the Motilal household is quietly sustained throughout the
narrative. The household represents everything fixed and rooted — property, family, routine,
obligation. The river represents everything fluid and free — motion, change, possibility. Tarapada is
of the river; the household, try as it might, cannot become his natural habitat.

Tagore uses this nature imagery not decoratively but philosophically. In much of his work, nature —
especially water — functions as a reminder that the deepest human freedoms are not social
constructions but elemental facts. Tarapada's disappearance is, in this light, less a betrayal than a
return to his native element.

Q5.
Critically examine the ending of 'Atithi.' Why does Tarapada disappear on the eve of his wedding,
and what does this ending reveal about the story's central concerns? Answer in 200–250 words
incorporating the following details:
* The circumstances leading up to the wedding
* The significance of Tarapada's choice to leave at this particular moment
* The effect of the ending on the characters left behind
* What the ending reveals about Tagore's view of freedom and human nature
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 The ending of 'Atithi' is the story's most concentrated and revealing moment. Tarapada has lived
with Motilal Babu's family for some time, been treated as a son, and been betrothed to Charushashi
— a match arranged with genuine warmth and, one suspects, with Tarapada's tacit acceptance. And
yet, on the eve of the wedding, he is gone.

The timing is crucial. Tarapada does not run away during a moment of hardship or mistreatment. He
runs away at the precise moment when he is about to be permanently integrated into the domestic
world — when freedom would be formally surrendered for belonging. The wedding represents not a
threat but a threshold, and it is the threshold itself, not what lies beyond it, that he cannot cross. He
flees not from unhappiness but from permanence.

The effect on those left behind is one of quiet devastation. Charushashi loses a betrothed; Motilal's
wife loses a son; the household is left to absorb an absence that came without warning or
explanation. There is no anger in the story's ending — only the particular sorrow of loving someone
who cannot be kept.

What the ending reveals about Tagore's thinking is profound. He does not moralise over Tarapada's
choice. He presents it as the inevitable expression of a particular kind of nature — one that is
incapable of the compromise that all permanent human ties require. For Tagore, this is neither
heroic nor villainous; it is simply, and sadly, what some people are.

Q6.
'Atithi' explores the transient nature of human connections. How does Tagore develop this theme
through the relationships Tarapada forms during the story? Answer in 200–250 words
incorporating the following details:
* The nature of Tarapada's connection with the travelling performers
* His bond with the Motilal household — real but incomplete
* The relationship between Charushashi and Tarapada
* What all these relationships reveal about the limits of human attachment
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 One of the story's most persistent preoccupations is the transience of human connection — the way
relationships can be genuine, warm, and meaningful, and yet ultimately impermanent when one
party belongs to the open world rather than to any fixed community.

Before the story begins, Tarapada has already passed through a series of transient connections. He
travelled with a troupe of theatrical performers for a time, performing with them, absorbing their arts,
and then moving on. He took from each encounter what it had to offer — skills, experiences, warmth
— and left when the encounter was exhausted. This is the established pattern of his life.

His bond with the Motilal household is more prolonged and more emotionally complex. It is not a
casual connection: the family genuinely loves him, and Tarapada genuinely responds to that love.
He lives with them, plays with Charushashi, allows himself to be integrated into their rhythms. The
connection is real — but it is not, for Tarapada, a foundation. It is an episode, however precious.

Charushashi's relationship with Tarapada is perhaps the story's most delicate thread. Hers is a
childhood love, unstated but felt deeply. That Tarapada is aware of it and still leaves makes his
departure the more poignant — he is not unfeeling, merely unconfinable.

Together, these relationships illustrate Tagore's central insight: some connections, however tender,
are necessarily temporary — not because love fails, but because the freedom of one person is
simply incompatible with the belonging that love requires.

Q7.
How does Tagore present the concept of the 'free spirit' in 'Atithi'? Is Tarapada a hero, a victim, or
something else entirely? Answer in 200–250 words incorporating the following details:
* What constitutes a 'free spirit' in Tarapada's characterisation
* The costs of his freedom — to himself and to others
* Whether Tagore endorses or critiques Tarapada's way of living
* The moral complexity of Tarapada as a literary figure
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 Tarapada is Tagore's most fully realised portrait of the free spirit — the person for whom the call of
freedom is not a choice but a constitutional fact, as fundamental as breathing. He does not choose
wandering over home in any deliberate or reflective sense; he simply cannot be still. The quality of
freedom in him is pre-rational — it precedes and overrides all other considerations.

The costs of his freedom are real and borne by others. Charushashi is left on the eve of her
wedding, her girlhood love abandoned without explanation. Motilal's wife loses the son she had
remade him into. These are genuine wounds, and Tagore does not gloss over them. The story
acknowledges the collateral damage of radical freedom.

Yet Tagore does not position Tarapada as a villain. His freedom is not selfishness in the usual
sense — there is no calculation in his departure, no cruelty intended. He simply follows the deepest
impulse of his nature, as instinctively as a bird follows the migratory season.

Is he a hero? Not exactly — heroes act for others, or at least with awareness of others. Is he a
victim? Not that either — he is not trapped or coerced. He is something rarer and harder to
categorise: a being whose deepest truth happens to be incompatible with the deepest needs of
those who love him.

Tagore's moral complexity is precisely here: he presents Tarapada with empathy and without
condemnation, but he does not exempt him from the consequences of what his freedom costs. The
story neither celebrates nor punishes; it simply, and honestly, observes.

Q8.
Examine the social and cultural context of 'Atithi.' How does Tagore use the rural Bengal setting
to explore questions of class, community, and belonging? Answer in 200–250 words
incorporating the following details:
* The significance of the feudal landlord system represented by Motilal Babu
* Tarapada's position as someone outside fixed social categories
* The cultural significance of the arranged marriage
* How the rural Bengal setting shapes the story's mood and themes
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 'Atithi' is deeply rooted in the social fabric of rural colonial Bengal, and Tagore uses this setting not
as mere backdrop but as a living context that shapes every aspect of the story's meaning.

Motilal Babu is a zamindar — a landlord of the feudal system — and his household embodies the
established social order: hierarchical, propertied, benevolent within its own sphere. His ability to take
Tarapada in, feed him, educate him, and then arrange his marriage is an expression of this
patriarchal generosity. The household is the social world in miniature.

Tarapada's position in this social order is deliberately unclassifiable. He comes from a respectable
family but has abandoned it. He is educated but not scholarly. He performs with theatrical troupes —
a socially marginal activity — but carries himself with a natural dignity that transcends such
categories. He is neither quite high-caste nor low, neither quite urban nor rural, neither quite settled
nor entirely vagrant. This ambiguity is part of his mystery and his appeal.

The arranged marriage carries enormous cultural weight. In the context of this society, it represents
the ultimate absorption of an individual into the social fabric — the formalisation of one's place in the
community. That Tarapada runs from this is, in the social context, a profound act of refusal.

The rural Bengal landscape — the rivers, the villages, the monsoon skies — suffuses the story with
a lyrical melancholy perfectly suited to Tagore's themes of beauty, transience, and loss.

Q9.
How does Tagore use the title 'Atithi' (meaning 'Guest') to frame the story's central argument?
Analyse the significance of the title in relation to the story's themes and characters. Answer in
200–250 words incorporating the following details:
* The traditional Indian concept of Atithi Devo Bhava
* How the household fulfils the duty of hospitality toward Tarapada
* The irony of the title — Tarapada as permanent guest who never becomes family
* What the title suggests about the nature of human relationships in the story
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 The title 'Atithi' — meaning 'Guest' — is one of Tagore's most quietly resonant choices. In Indian
cultural tradition, the concept of Atithi Devo Bhava — 'the guest is God' — enshrines hospitality as a
sacred duty. A guest is to be welcomed, fed, honoured, and made comfortable without question or
qualification. The host's duty is unconditional.

The Motilal household fulfils this duty magnificently. They receive Tarapada without background
checks, without suspicion, and with genuine warmth. They give him a room, a family, an education,
and ultimately a bride. Their hospitality goes far beyond the conventional meaning of the word —
they attempt to turn the guest into a son.

And yet the title contains a profound irony. A guest, by definition, does not stay permanently. The
word 'Atithi' itself is thought by some scholars to derive from 'a-tithi,' meaning 'one who comes
without a fixed date' — someone whose arrival and departure cannot be predicted or scheduled. In
this sense, Tarapada is the perfect Atithi: he arrives without announcement and departs without
warning. He is always, structurally, a guest — even when offered a permanent home.

The title thus frames the story's central tragedy. The household's love is genuine; Tarapada's
presence is genuine; but the fundamental category error — treating a guest as if he were family — is
what makes the eventual departure so painful. Some people, Tagore implies, are constitutionally
guests in every house they enter, however welcome they are made to feel.

Q10.
'Atithi' is ultimately a story about the impossibility of possessing what we love most. Critically
evaluate this reading of the story. Answer in 200–250 words incorporating the following details:
* How each character who loves Tarapada attempts to possess or secure him
* Why these attempts inevitably fail
* What Tagore suggests about the nature of love and freedom
* The story's emotional legacy — what the reader is left with at the close
[10 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
'Atithi' is, at its deepest level, a meditation on the futility of possessing what we love — a theme that
runs through much of Tagore's writing and gives 'Atithi' its particular emotional gravity.

Each character who loves Tarapada makes an attempt, in their own way, to secure him. Motilal
Babu takes him home — a practical act of possession that feels like generosity. His wife remakes
Tarapada into a son — an emotional act of possession through love and care. Charushashi, in her
quiet, childlike way, claims him as her world — the betrothal is the formal expression of this claim.
And yet all three forms of possession — practical, emotional, and contractual — fail.

They fail because Tarapada is not possessable. This is not a statement about his character so much
as about the nature of freedom itself: genuine freedom, of the kind Tarapada embodies, cannot be
transferred or traded for even the warmest affection. The attempts to possess him do not diminish
him — they simply reveal, in their failure, the limits of possession as a strategy for love.

What Tagore suggests about love is subtle and unsentimental: love that seeks to hold may be
genuine, but it cannot overcome a nature that is constitutionally unconfined. The truest love,
perhaps, would be to let the guest go without grief — but Tagore knows that human beings are
rarely capable of this.

The reader is left not with resolution but with a tender, unresolved sorrow — the ache of something
beautiful that passed through and could not be kept.
 SECTION B — SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS (5 Marks Each) | Word Limit:
100–150 Words

Q1.
Who is Tarapada and how is he first introduced in the story 'Atithi'? Answer in 100–150 words
incorporating the following details:
* The circumstances in which Motilal Babu meets Tarapada
* Tarapada's background and early life as a wanderer
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Tarapada is a young boy of remarkable beauty and talent who is first encountered by the wealthy
landlord Motilal Babu at a river ghat. Tarapada is seeking a lift on Motilal's boat, and Motilal,
immediately struck by the boy's striking appearance and natural charm, takes him aboard without
hesitation. As the journey continues, Motilal learns Tarapada's story: he is a boy from a respectable
family who, at a very young age, was seized by an irresistible urge to wander and simply left home
one day without looking back. Since then, he has been travelling from place to place — sometimes
with theatrical troupes, sometimes alone — sustaining himself through his gifts as a performer and
his natural ability to charm everyone he meets. He is a boy who has traded the security of family life
for the freedom of the open road.

Q2.
What are Tarapada's talents and how do they contribute to his charm? Answer in 100–150 words
incorporating the following details:
* His musical and artistic abilities
* How these talents affect those around him
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Tarapada is gifted in an unusually broad range of arts. He plays the flute with a skill that seems
instinctive rather than learned, producing music that moves his listeners deeply. He sings with
natural ease and participates in theatrical performances with obvious pleasure and ability. He is also
a strong swimmer and an expert boatman, at home in the water as if it were his native element.
These talents are not merely accomplishments — they are expressions of his deeper nature. They
make him extraordinarily attractive to everyone he encounters, because they suggest a person fully
alive and fully at ease in the world. The women of the Motilal household are drawn to him partly
because of his beauty and partly because of this quality of abundant, effortless grace. His talents
make him memorable and make his eventual disappearance all the more keenly felt.

Q3.
How does Motilal Babu's wife respond to Tarapada? What does her response reveal about the
story's themes? Answer in 100–150 words incorporating the following details:
* The nature of her attachment to Tarapada
 * What her attachment reveals about the theme of love and loss
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Motilal Babu's wife develops an immediate and deep maternal attachment to Tarapada. She
receives him into the household with the warmth of a mother, taking care of his meals, his clothing,
and his comfort with total unselfconsciousness. For her, Tarapada quickly becomes not a guest but
a son — a replacement or supplement for the children she has, filling a space in her heart that she
may not have known was empty. Her attachment reveals one of the story's central themes: the
human capacity to love with complete generosity, and the vulnerability that generosity creates. She
gives without reservation; she receives nothing in return but the pleasure of his presence — and
when he disappears, she has no recourse. Her loss is perhaps the most poignant in the story,
because her love was the most unconditional.

Q4.
What is the significance of Charushashi in the story 'Atithi'? Answer in 100–150 words
incorporating the following details:
* Her relationship with Tarapada during his stay
* The significance of her betrothal to Tarapada and his departure
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Charushashi, Motilal Babu's young daughter, is one of the story's most quietly affecting characters.
During Tarapada's stay in the household, she develops a shy, tender attachment to him — the kind
of innocent childhood love that expresses itself not in words but in closeness, in following him about,
in the simple happiness of his company. Her betrothal to Tarapada is the family's attempt to
formalise and make permanent what already exists emotionally between them. In this sense, it is an
act of hope as much as social convention. But Tarapada's disappearance on the eve of the wedding
makes Charushashi's loss the most intimate in the story. She is the one who is left literally
abandoned — a bride-to-be without a groom. Tagore does not dwell on her suffering, but her
presence gives the ending its deepest emotional weight.

Q5.
What does the title 'Atithi' mean and why is it significant? Answer in 100–150 words incorporating
the following details:
* The literal meaning of the word Atithi
* How the title reflects Tarapada's nature and role in the story
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 'Atithi' is a Sanskrit word meaning 'guest.' In Indian tradition it carries sacred weight — the concept
of Atithi Devo Bhava, meaning 'the guest is God,' makes hospitality a religious duty. The title is
deeply ironic in the context of the story. The Motilal household receives Tarapada as a guest and
then tries to transform him into something more permanent — a son, and finally, a son-in-law. But
Tarapada is incapable of becoming anything other than a guest. He passes through their lives with
warmth and charm, accepts their hospitality, and then moves on — exactly as a guest does. The title
also carries an etymological nuance: 'a-tithi' can mean one who comes without a fixed date, whose
schedule is unpredictable. This is Tarapada exactly. The title thus frames his character and the
story's outcome in a single resonant word.

Q6.
How does Tagore use the river as a symbol in 'Atithi'? Answer in 100–150 words incorporating
the following details:
* What the river represents in the story
* How it mirrors Tarapada's character
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

The river is the story's most powerful natural symbol, and it is intimately connected to Tarapada's
character. The story begins on a river — it is on a boat that Motilal first meets Tarapada, and it is in
the water that Tarapada is most confident and most himself. As a swimmer and a boatman, he
moves through the river with instinctive ease. The river as a symbol functions on multiple levels.
Most directly, it represents freedom and perpetual motion — a force that cannot be held still, that
passes through every landscape without belonging to any of them. This is Tarapada's nature
precisely. The river also connects to Tagore's broader vision of the natural world as a realm of
beauty and transience. Like the river, Tarapada is beautiful, vital, and ultimately uncontainable. Both
flow through the lives they touch and pass on.

Q7.
Why does Tarapada leave the Motilal household on the night before his wedding? What does this
moment reveal about his character? Answer in 100–150 words incorporating the following details:
* The psychological motivation behind his departure
* What this act confirms about his fundamental nature
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 Tarapada's departure on the eve of his wedding is the story's defining act, and its timing is
psychologically precise. He does not leave because he is unhappy, mistreated, or indifferent to the
family — he leaves because the wedding represents a permanent crossing of the threshold from
freedom into belonging. For a person of Tarapada's nature, this threshold is impassable. The act
confirms what the story has suggested all along: that Tarapada's wandering is not a phase or a
consequence of circumstance but a fundamental expression of his nature. He has already left one
family; leaving another on the cusp of marriage is entirely consistent with who he is. He is not cruel
— he simply cannot do what the wedding would require him to do: surrender his freedom
permanently for love. The departure is Tagore's way of showing that some natures are simply
incompatible with the compromises that domestic life demands.

Q8.
How does Tagore present the theme of beauty and transience in 'Atithi'? Answer in 100–150
words incorporating the following details:
* Tarapada's physical beauty as something fleeting and unownable
* How the story treats beautiful things that cannot be held
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

Tagore weaves the theme of beauty and transience through every aspect of 'Atithi,' making
Tarapada himself the embodiment of the beautiful thing that cannot be possessed. His physical
appearance is described as luminous and arresting — he is the kind of beauty that draws the eye
and the heart instinctively. But this beauty is not an invitation; it is a quality of his passing presence,
like the beauty of a bird or a flower. Tagore consistently associates Tarapada with natural images —
the river, the open sky, the changing seasons — all of which share the same quality: they are
beautiful precisely because they are transient. The story suggests that our deepest aesthetic and
emotional responses are often triggered by things we cannot keep. Tarapada is beautiful because
he is free; he is free because he cannot be held; and the attempt to hold him destroys the very
quality that made him so compelling.

Q9.
What does 'Atithi' suggest about the relationship between freedom and responsibility? Answer in
100–150 words incorporating the following details:
* Tarapada's absolute exercise of personal freedom
* The responsibilities he abandons in pursuing that freedom
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER
 'Atithi' raises the question of freedom and responsibility without resolving it neatly, which is part of its
moral seriousness. Tarapada exercises his freedom absolutely and without apology — he leaves his
birth family, he leaves his adopted family, he leaves on the eve of a wedding without a word of
explanation or farewell. In each case, he abandons people who love him and who have a
reasonable claim on his consideration. His mother lost a son; Motilal's wife loses an adopted child;
Charushashi is left without a husband. These are real responsibilities, real relationships, real people
with real grief. Tagore does not excuse this, but he does not condemn it either. He presents it as an
irresolvable tension: genuine freedom and genuine responsibility are, in Tarapada's case, mutually
exclusive. He can have one or the other, but not both — and he chooses freedom every time,
without hesitation.

Q10.
What is the mood of 'Atithi' and how does Tagore sustain it throughout the story? Answer in
100–150 words incorporating the following details:
* The lyrical, melancholic mood of the narrative
* How Tagore's prose style and use of natural imagery sustain this mood
[5 Marks]

MODEL ANSWER

The prevailing mood of 'Atithi' is lyrical and gently melancholic — a quality that pervades the prose
from the first encounter on the river to the wordless disappearance at the end. Tagore sustains this
mood through a combination of evocative natural imagery and a narrative voice that is tender,
observant, and unhurried. The descriptions of the river, the Bengal countryside, and the rhythms of
the Motilal household all carry a quality of beauty under the shadow of impermanence. Nothing is
strident; nothing is melodramatic. Even the ending — which could easily become sentimental or
bitter — is handled with quiet restraint. Tagore's prose style, even in translation, retains a poetic
quality that is deeply suited to the story's themes: the language itself flows and moves, like the river
it describes, and like Tarapada himself — touching everything gently and passing on.

Total: 10 x 10 = 100 Marks (Section A) + 10 x 5 = 50 Marks (Section B) = 150 Marks | All questions aligned to ISC PYQ and
specimen paper patterns.