Question 8
Read the following passage and answer the given subquestions:
The young man slumps against a lamp post.
A buzzing aura of insects around his face.
Some spiral down to their deaths, scorched by the heat of the lamp. Rasping, they fall on his chest, arms and legs. He doesn’t throw them off. Or make an attempt to move away. He lies, staring at the makeshift shop in front of him.
The shop: a broken cot with a board nailed to it. Small, fat mangoes heaped in a corner. Bottles of sticky boiled sweets sitting uncertainly on the edge. From a distance, they look filled with colour. Like a palm fan, the old cot-shop woman’s thin hand, laden with bangles, flaps this way and that, trying to keep the flies away.
Peanuts heaped in a cone. He stares intently at them. A still mess of tiny worms, glistening in the lamplight. He feels a mad desire. Brush that thin waving hand out of the way. Grab the peanuts and run. But to do this, he must get up. He knows he cannot. His legs have gone to sleep. Heavy, wooden.
He looks around him. Dead insects on both sides of his body. What if his body goes stiff forever? He tries to swallow the thick gob of saliva pushing at the walls of his cheeks. It is an effort. In the end, the saliva stays stuck to the roof of his mouth. He tightens his lips into a stitch.
A massive back cuts his line of vision and hides the cot-shop. He feels relieved, even thankful. He closes his eyes.
His stomach, worn thin like a cotton rag, pulls into a spasm. His limbs feel like straw. He must find something to eat. How long can this go on? But then, get up—and do what? Maybe he should stretch out and go to sleep.
A hoarse, loud voice startles the evening, shattering its twilight calm. A song. From the film showing in the theatre outside which he lies. The hairs on his forearms rise. His body jerks into tremors. It’s a while before it dies down, accepting the blare that hits it.
(From Current Show by Perumal Murugan, translated by V. Geetha)
Why did the young man want to run away with the peanuts?
To sell them
To plant them
To satisfy his hunger
All of these