NOTES FOR CBSE / ICSE

  My mother at sixty-six (CBSE CLASS -XII) ( Kamala Das) "My Mother at Sixty-six" is a poignant poem by the renowned Indian poet Kamala Das (also known as Kamala Surayya). It captures the emotion and vulnerability of a daughter witnessing her aging mother's fragility during a journey. Here's the poem: Driving from my parent's home to Cochin last Friday morning, I saw my mother, beside me, doze, open mouthed, her face ashen like that of a corpse and realized with pain that she was as old as she looked but soon put that thought away, and looked out at young trees sprinting, the cattle on their way to graze, the fields all muddled up with young green crops, and felt that old childhood sinking and all my tall self dissolve in pity for that immense loneliness of her's, thinking of her had been the one comfort of my difficult years, and now, well, if anything happened to her? As at the time of my father

  It Couldn’t Be Done Edgar Albert Guest.   Somebody said that it couldn’t be done But he with a chuckle replied That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried. So, he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried, he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it!   Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that; At least no one ever has done it;” But he took off his coat and he took off his hat And the first thing we knew he’d begun it. With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, Without any doubting or quiddit, He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn’t be done, and he did it.   There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure, There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat