1. A Letter to God

(i) In addition to the sender, the form has to be signed by the ______.

In addition to the sender, the form has to be signed by the receiver (payee).

(ii) The ‘Acknowledgement’ section of the form is sent back by the post office to the ______ after the ______ signs it.

The ‘Acknowledgement’ section is sent back by the post office to the sender after the receiver signs it.

(iii) The ‘Space for Communication’ section is used for ______.

It is used for writing a short message to the receiver.

(iv) The form has six sections. The sender needs to fill out ______ sections and the receiver ______.

The sender needs to fill out three sections and the receiver one.

Lencho hoped for rain. His field of ripe corn needed a downpour or at least a shower.

The rain would help his corn crop to grow well. A good harvest would bring him money. So he said the big drops were ten-cent pieces and the little ones were fives.

A strong wind began to blow. Very large hailstones began to fall along with the rain. For an hour the hail fell on the whole valley. The corn was totally destroyed and the flowers were gone. The field looked white, as if covered with salt.

Lencho’s soul was filled with sadness. He said that even a plague of locusts would have left more than this. He was worried that his family would go hungry that year.

Lencho had complete faith in God. He wrote a letter to God asking for a hundred pesos. He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope and posted it.

First a postman read the address and laughed. Then the postmaster opened the letter and read it.

The postmaster decided to answer the letter so that Lencho’s faith in God would not be shaken. He collected money from his employees and friends and gave a part of his own salary. He sent a little more than half the amount to Lencho, with a letter signed ‘God’.

No, he showed not the slightest surprise. He was sure that God would send him the money.

He counted the money and found only seventy pesos instead of a hundred. This made him angry. He thought the post office employees had stolen the rest.

Lencho has complete faith in God. These sentences show it:

• “But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope: help from God.”
• “All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience.”
• “Lencho showed not the slightest surprise on seeing the money; such was his confidence.”
• “God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.”

The postmaster was moved by Lencho’s faith. He did not want that faith to be shaken. So he collected money and sent it to Lencho. He signed the letter ‘God’ so that Lencho would believe that God had answered his letter.

No, he did not. He was sure that God himself had sent the money. So there was no question of finding out.

Lencho thinks that the post office employees have taken the rest of the money. He calls them ‘a bunch of crooks’.

The irony is that the post office employees are the very people who collected and sent the money. They tried to help him, but he calls them thieves. The man who helped him is blamed for robbing him.

Yes, there are simple people like Lencho in the real world. They have deep faith in God.

Lencho is a hard-working farmer. He is naive and has unquestioning faith in God. He is also a little ungrateful, because he calls the helpful postal employees crooks.

Humans and nature: Lencho works hard and hopes for a good harvest. But a hailstorm destroys his whole crop. Nature ruins his hopes.

Humans themselves: The postmaster and his staff help Lencho with money. But Lencho thinks they have stolen part of it and calls them crooks. This is a conflict between Lencho and the people who helped him.

1. A violent tropical storm in which strong winds move in a circle — cyclone
2. An extremely strong wind — gale
3. A violent tropical storm with very strong winds — typhoon
4. A violent storm whose centre is a cloud in the shape of a funnel — tornado
5. A violent storm with very strong winds, especially in the western Atlantic Ocean — hurricane
6. A very strong wind that moves very fast in a spinning movement and causes a lot of damage — whirlwind

1. I often go to Mumbai, which is the commercial capital of India.
2. My mother, who cooks very well, is going to host a TV show on cooking.
3. These sportspersons, whose performance has been excellent, are going to meet the President.
4. Lencho prayed to God, whose eyes see into our minds.
5. This man, whom I trusted, cheated me.

1. The trees lost all their leaves.

“Not a leaf remained on the trees.”

2. The letter was addressed to God himself.

“It was nothing less than a letter to God.”

3. The postman saw this address for the first time in his career.

“Never in his career as a postman had he known that address.”

A “dust of snow” means very small particles of snow, light like dust.

A crow on a hemlock tree shook down this dust of snow on the poet. This changed his mood.

Earlier he was sad and regretful. After this small event he felt happy. He felt that a part of his day was saved.

(i) What are the birds that are usually named in poems? Do you think a crow is often mentioned in poems? What images come to your mind when you think of a crow?

Poets usually write about birds like the nightingale, cuckoo, peacock, skylark and swan. A crow is not often mentioned in poems. A crow is black and harsh-voiced. It is often linked with bad luck, sorrow or death.

(ii) Again, what is “a hemlock tree”? Why doesn’t the poet write about a more ‘beautiful’ tree such as a maple, or an oak, or a pine?

A hemlock is a poisonous tree with small white flowers. The poet chose it on purpose. He wants to show that even a gloomy thing like a hemlock tree can bring joy.

(iii) What do the ‘crow’ and ‘hemlock’ represent — joy or sorrow? What does the dust of snow that the crow shakes off a hemlock tree stand for?

The crow and the hemlock represent sorrow. The dust of snow stands for joy and hope. The poet shows that happiness can come even from things that usually mean sorrow.

Yes, the world may end some day. If the sun got so hot that it burst, everything on the earth would burn. If the sun grew colder and colder, the earth would freeze. No life could survive in either case.

Fire stands for desire. It includes greed, avarice, lust, conflict and fury.

Ice stands for hatred. It includes cruelty, intolerance, rigidity, insensitivity, coldness and indifference.

The rhyme scheme is aba abc bcb.

The rhymes connect the two opposite ideas. ‘Fire’ rhymes with ‘desire’, and ‘ice’ rhymes with ‘twice’ and ‘suffice’. The changing rhymes bring fire and ice together. This shows that both desire and hatred are equally able to destroy the world.