I Cannot Remember My Mother Class 9- Summary & NCERT Solutions

Back to Class 9 English Notes

At a Glance

Poet	Rabindranath Tagore
Genre	Lyric poem — free verse, reflective and personal
Form	Three stanzas of free verse, unrhymed, built around a repeated refrain
Speaker	A grown or growing narrator recalling a mother who died when he was very young
Central Theme	The persistence of a mother’s presence through sensory memory, despite the absence of conscious recollection
Tone	Wistful, tender, nostalgic, and quietly reverent
Central Message	Love and connection can survive even where direct memory fails, carried instead through sound, scent, and feeling

NCERT Solutions

Reflect and Respond

I. Work in pairs. Discuss the memories from your childhood that you remember. List them and share with your classmates and teacher.

 Students may list two or three genuine early memories —

for example, a favourite lullaby, a family outing, or a particular smell or place associated with comfort — and discuss with a partner why these particular memories have remained vivid over time.

II. Discuss how children’s relationship with their mother can influence their emotions and memories.

A mother’s presence during early childhood often shapes a child’s earliest sense of security, comfort, and emotional regulation, even before the child is old enough to form lasting conscious memories. As the poem illustrates, such early bonds can be encoded not as clear visual memories but as sensory impressions — sounds, smells, and feelings — that continue to evoke comfort and attachment throughout life, shaping emotional responses long after the specific events themselves have been forgotten.

III. Match the words in Column 1 with their meanings in Column 2.

1. hover — (v) linger or remain near a place.

2. hum — (i) sing a tune with your lips closed.

3. cradle — (vi) a small bed for a baby.

 4. shiuli — (ii) a type of flower (coral jasmine).

5. morning service — (iv) rituals conducted in a temple.

6. gaze — (iii) look steadily for a long time.

Check Your Understanding

I. Fill in the blanks with appropriate words.

Stanza 1

1. The poet remembers his mother while he plays with his playthings.

2. The poet remembers the tune (of a song she used to hum) but not the mother (herself, directly).

 Setting: indoor (the poet is at play among his playthings, suggesting a nursery or home setting).

Stanza 2

1. The poet remembers his mother in the autumn season.

2. The poet remembers his mother by the smell of the shiuli flowers.

 Setting: outdoor (an early autumn morning, with flowers and the scent of the temple’s morning service floating in the open air).

Stanza 3

1. The poet feels that his mother gazes steadily at him from the sky.

Setting: indoor, looking outward (the poet is at his bedroom window, sending his eyes out into the distant blue sky).

II. Sensory references in the poem.

Stanza	Lines from the Poem (Paraphrased)	Sense
1	A tune seems to hover over the poet’s playthings — the tune of a song his mother used to hum while rocking his cradle.	Auditory
2	The scent of the shiuli flowers floating in the air, recalling the scent of the morning temple service, comes to the poet as the scent of his mother.	Olfactory
3	The poet sends his eyes into the blue of the distant sky and feels the stillness of his mother’s gaze spread all over it.	Visual

III. Read the poem silently once again and complete the following.

1. Two examples of alliteration from the poem are…

Two clear examples are: (i) the repeated ‘s’ sound in ‘only sometimes… seems to’ in Stanza 1, and (ii) the repeated ‘m’ sound in ‘the scent of the morning service… comes to me… as the scent of my mother’ in Stanza 2.

2. An example of onomatopoeia is…

The word ‘hum’ is an example of onomatopoeia, as it imitates the very sound it describes — a low, continuous murmuring tune sung with the lips closed.

3. The poem uses imagery extensively. Explain.

The poem draws on multiple senses to build its imagery: auditory imagery in the half-remembered hummed tune, olfactory imagery in the scent of shiuli flowers and temple incense, and visual imagery in the description of the wide blue sky at dusk. Together, these layered sensory images allow the poet to suggest his mother’s presence indirectly, without relying on a single, direct visual memory of her.

4. Although the poem does not have a rhyme scheme, it is enjoyable because…

It is enjoyable because of its gentle, musical rhythm, its vivid and layered sensory imagery, and the emotional resonance created by the repeated refrain, all of which give the free verse a natural, song-like quality despite the absence of end rhyme.

5. What is the tone of the poet? Why do you say so?

The tone of the poet is wistful, tender, and nostalgic. This is evident from the gentle, longing quality of phrases describing a tune that ‘seems to hover’, a scent that ‘floats in the air’, and a gaze whose ‘stillness’ spreads across the sky — all of which convey quiet yearning rather than open grief.

6. What impact does the title of the poem have on the overall mood of the poem?

The title immediately establishes a mood of poignant loss, since it openly admits the poet’s inability to recall his mother directly. This creates a bittersweet contrast with the rest of the poem, in which fragments of sensory memory paradoxically keep her presence alive, deepening the overall emotional impact.

7. The poet uses ‘I cannot remember my mother’ as a refrain because…

The refrain emphasises the central paradox of the poem — that although the poet lacks any conscious, direct memory of his mother, traces of her continue to surface through sound, scent, and feeling. Its repetition reinforces both the persistence of loss and the quiet comfort of her lingering presence.

8. The poet uses symbolism to indicate the memory of his mother’s presence. Identify the symbols used in the poem.

The key symbols are: the hummed tune, symbolising the mother’s nurturing lullaby and early comfort; the shiuli flowers and the scent of the temple’s morning service, symbolising purity, spirituality, and gentle care; and the vast blue sky, symbolising the boundless, ever-present, and watchful nature of a mother’s love.

Critical Reflection

I. Extract-Based Questions —

 Extract 1

I cannot remember my mother / only sometimes in the midst of my play / a tune seems to hover over my playthings,

(i) Complete the sentence: The poet is reminded of his mother during his…

The poet is reminded of his mother during his playtime, when a half-remembered tune seems to hover faintly over his playthings.

(ii) What is the primary emotion conveyed by the line ‘a tune seems to hover over my playthings’?

C. It activates memories of the mother.

(The hovering tune functions as a delicate trigger that stirs an unconscious, fragmentary memory of his mother even though the poet cannot consciously recall her.)

(iii) In the context of the poem, what role does the hovering tune play during the speaker’s playtime?

The hovering tune acts as an emotional undercurrent to the speaker’s play, gently linking his present activity to his mother’s past presence. It does not disrupt his play but quietly enriches it with a faint, comforting sense of connection to her, even though he cannot identify the memory consciously.

(iv) State whether the sentence ‘The poet experiences the tune lingering over playthings only occasionally during playtime’ is true or false.

True.

The poet explicitly states that this happens ‘only sometimes’, indicating that the sensation is occasional and fleeting rather than constant.

(v) How could the poet feel his mother’s presence, even though she isn’t there?

The poet feels his mother’s presence indirectly, through sensory fragments — an occasional tune, a particular scent, or a felt stillness — rather than through any direct, conscious visual memory of her, suggesting that emotional bonds can persist below the level of active recollection.

 Extract 2

I feel that the stillness of / my mother’s gaze on my face / has spread all over the sky.

(i) What does the poet suggest about the stillness of his mother’s gaze spreading over the sky?

B. The sky is a symbolic extension of the mother’s presence.

The poet is not suggesting that his mother is literally present in the sky, but rather that the vastness and calm of the sky reminds him of, and comes to represent, the quiet watchfulness of her gaze.

(ii) What emotion does the poet associate with the ‘stillness’ of his mother’s gaze?

D. a sense of serenity.

The word ‘stillness’ evokes a calm, peaceful quality, suggesting that the poet associates his mother’s remembered gaze with comfort and tranquillity rather than distress.

(iii) State whether the sentence ‘The poet suggests that the mother’s gaze has a tangible and visual effect on the sky’ is true or false.

True, in a poetic and symbolic sense. The poet describes the stillness of the gaze as having ‘spread’ over the sky, giving an abstract feeling a tangible, visual quality through metaphor, even though this is not meant literally.

(iv) What is the purpose of likening the mother’s gaze to the sky?

The comparison conveys the vastness, boundlessness, and enduring nature of a mother’s love and watchfulness, suggesting that her care envelops the poet just as the sky envelops the earth, and that her presence, though unseen, is always near.

(v) Complete the sentence: The tone of the poet in the given extract is… because…

The tone of the poet in the given extract is tender and serene, because he associates the vast, calm sky with the loving, watchful presence of his mother rather than with any sense of loss or distress.

II. Answer the Following Questions

1. What is the emotional impact of the refrain, ‘I cannot remember my mother’?

The refrain creates a poignant emotional tension between absence and presence: by repeatedly denying conscious memory, the poet paradoxically draws greater attention to the fragments of sensory experience that do keep his mother’s presence alive, evoking a bittersweet blend of loss and quiet comfort in the reader.

2. Interpret the connection between the poet’s mother and the following: (i) shiuli flowers (ii) humming tune.

(i) Shiuli flowers, with their delicate fragrance released in the early autumn morning and their association with the scent of temple rituals, come to represent the mother’s gentle, spiritual, and nurturing presence in the poet’s mind.

 (ii) The humming tune, remembered as being sung while rocking his cradle, symbolises the mother’s earliest acts of nurture and comfort, representing the deep, pre-verbal bond formed in infancy.

3. What role does nature play in the poet’s description of the memory of his mother?

Nature becomes the medium through which the poet’s fragmented, indirect memories of his mother surface. The autumn morning, the shiuli flowers, and the vast blue sky each serve as proxies for his mother’s presence, allowing the poet to feel connected to her through the natural world even in the complete absence of a direct visual memory.

4. What can be inferred about the poet’s perception of the mother–child relationship?

It can be inferred that the poet perceives the mother–child bond as something that transcends conscious memory. Even without an explicit recollection of his mother’s face or voice, the emotional connection between them remains alive through sensory and symbolic traces, suggesting an enduring, almost spiritual relationship that persists regardless of memory’s limitations.

Vocabulary and Structures in Context

I. Classifying Sensory Words

The sensory words provided are classified below under Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, and Tactile categories.

Visual	Auditory	Olfactory	Tactile
glowing	hiss	aroma	sticky
gigantic	rustle	stale	rough
minuscule	sizzle	scent	chilled
gloomy	deafening	pungent	fluffy
vibrant	squeaky	stinky	smooth
crimson	ear-splitting	fragrant	slimy
			hairy

II. Fill in the Blanks — Sarojini Naidu Passage

The passage describing an exquisite March morning is completed as follows, using words from the given box (two words — ‘shrill’ and ‘sizzle’ — remain unused, as instructed):

• 1. scarlet   2. perfumes   3. sweetness   4. flaming   5. scents   6. essence   7. smooth

III. Matching Pictures with Sensorial Phrases

Based on the sensory associations described, the pictures are matched with their phrases as follows:

Picture	Matching Phrase
Tabla (drums)	1. beats of music echo in air
Incense stick	2. melody of soothing scent, dancing in the air
Flowers in hand	3. fragrant breeze of blooming buds
Cradle with mother	4. gentle lullaby, a soft melody
Kites in the sky	5. colourful sky, painting a lively sight
Sunset over water	6. attractive canvas painting the horizon

Listen and Respond

Answers:

1 – (iv)
2 – (i)
3 – Not used
4 – (ii)
5 – (iii)
6 – Not used

Speaking Activity

My Grandmother’s Shawl

During my childhood, I fondly remember my grandmother’s old shawl. It was soft, warm and light brown, with a simple floral border. It had a familiar fragrance that always reminded me of her.

I have a clear memory of sitting beside my grandmother on winter evenings, wrapped in the shawl while she told me stories from her childhood. The warmth of the shawl, the sound of her gentle voice and the quiet evenings made those moments very special.

Growing up, I realised that the shawl was more than just a piece of clothing. It became a symbol of my grandmother’s love, care and presence in my life. Whenever I see it, I remember the comfort and security I felt beside her.

This memory is meaningful even now because the shawl connects me with a beautiful part of my childhood. It reminds me to value family, cherish simple moments and appreciate the people who make us feel loved.

Writing Task

Learning Beyond the Text

I. Unique Flowers of India

Flower	Key Features
Shiuli (also known as Parijat, Parijata, or Harsingar)	Revered in Indian tradition and used for ceremonial purposes; releases a sweet fragrance; associated with numerous Indian legends; blooms exclusively during the night, with flowers falling by morning.
Neelakurinji (Kurinji)	Found in the Western Ghats, particularly the Nilgiri and Palni hills; famous for blooming only once every twelve years, transforming hillsides into a striking blue-purple carpet; holds cultural and ecological significance in the region.

II. Comparative Reading: ‘I Remember, I Remember’ by Thomas Hood

How does ‘I Remember, I Remember’ connect thematically with ‘I Cannot Remember My Mother’?

Both poems explore the workings of childhood memory through vivid sensory and natural imagery — Hood recalls the house of his birth, a particular window, and specific flowers and trees with clear, fond precision, while Tagore’s speaker recalls his mother only through indirect, fragmentary sensations. The two poems offer a meaningful contrast: Hood’s speaker possesses clear, treasured memories yet expresses a wistful longing for the innocence and lightness of the past, whereas Tagore’s speaker has no direct memory at all, yet still finds his mother’s presence surviving through touch, scent, and sound. Together, the poems suggest that memory can be either a vivid, treasured possession or an elusive, sensory trace — and that both forms carry deep emotional significance.

Short Chapter Summary

‘I Cannot Remember My Mother’ is a short, reflective lyric in which the poet, who has no direct conscious memory of his mother, describes how her presence nonetheless lingers in fragments of sensory experience. In the first stanza, a half-remembered tune sometimes seems to hover over his playthings during play — the same song his mother once hummed while rocking his cradle. In the second stanza, the fragrance of shiuli flowers on an early autumn morning, mingled with the scent of a temple’s morning service, reaches him as though it were the very scent of his mother. In the third and final stanza, as the poet gazes from his bedroom window into the wide blue sky, he feels that the quiet stillness of his mother’s remembered gaze has spread across the entire sky. Each stanza begins with the same wistful refrain, ‘I cannot remember my mother’, creating a poignant tension between the poet’s admitted forgetfulness and the persistent, tender traces of his mother’s presence that continue to surface through sound, scent, and sight.

Author Biography & Literary Style

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, and philosopher, widely regarded as one of the most influential literary figures of modern India. In 1913, he became the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, largely on the strength of his collection ‘Gitanjali’. Tagore’s body of work spans poetry, short stories, novels, songs, and essays, and he also founded Visva-Bharati University, reflecting his lifelong commitment to education and cultural exchange. Many of his poems, including ‘I Cannot Remember My Mother’, originally appeared in his collection ‘The Crescent Moon’ (Shishu Bhōlanath), which explores childhood, family, and the inner world of the child with great tenderness and psychological insight.

Style and Tone

The poem is written in free verse, without a fixed rhyme scheme or regular metre, allowing its rhythm to arise instead from the repeated refrain and the natural cadence of its sentences. This structural looseness mirrors the poem’s subject matter — the fragmentary, elusive nature of memory itself, which does not arrive in neat, ordered stanzas but in fleeting, sensory glimpses. The overall tone is wistful, tender, and quietly reverent, never tipping into overt sorrow or sentimentality. Tagore’s characteristic use of natural imagery is evident throughout, as each stanza turns to a different element of the natural world — sound, scent, and sky — to carry the emotional weight of the poem, creating a meditative, almost prayer-like quality by its close.

Detailed Explanation — Stanza 1

I cannot remember my mother

only sometimes in the midst of my play

a tune seems to hover over my playthings,

the tune of some song that she used to

hum while rocking my cradle.

The poem opens with its central refrain, immediately establishing the poet’s admitted inability to recall his mother directly — a striking and poignant confession for the very first line of the poem. Rather than dwelling on this absence with sorrow, however, the poet quickly shifts to a gentler, more hopeful observation: that during ordinary moments of childhood play, a faint, half-remembered tune sometimes seems to ‘hover’ over his playthings. The verb ‘hover’ is carefully chosen, suggesting something delicate, uncertain, and only just perceptible, much like the fragile nature of the memory itself.

The final two lines reveal the source of this tune: it is the song his mother once hummed while rocking his cradle, an image that evokes the deep, pre-verbal bond formed between mother and infant long before conscious memory could take hold. This opening stanza establishes the poem’s central technique — using indirect, sensory traces rather than direct recollection to suggest the mother’s continuing emotional presence — and sets an auditory frame that will be echoed and expanded by the olfactory and visual imagery of the stanzas that follow.

Word Meanings — Stanza 1

Word/Phrase	Meaning as Used in the Poem
hover	to linger or remain suspended near a place, without moving decisively away
midst	the middle part of; in the process of
playthings	toys or objects used for play
hum	to sing a tune softly with the lips closed, without forming words
cradle	a small bed for a baby, often designed to be gently rocked

Literary Devices & Terms — Stanza 1

Device	Example / Explanation
Refrain	The line ‘I cannot remember my mother’ opens the stanza and is repeated at the start of each subsequent stanza, unifying the poem and reinforcing its central paradox.
Personification	The tune is described as though it were capable of independent movement — it ‘seems to hover’ — lending it a gentle, almost living presence.
Auditory Imagery	The entire stanza is built around a half-remembered sound, drawing the reader into the poet’s sensory experience of memory through hearing.
Enjambment	The sentence describing the tune of the song flows across several lines without a full stop, mirroring the continuous, drifting quality of the half-remembered melody.
Tone	Wistful and tender, established from the very first line and sustained through the gentle, nostalgic imagery of the cradle and lullaby.

Detailed Explanation — Stanza 2

I cannot remember my mother  

but when in the early autumn morning  

the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air  

the scent of the morning service in the temple  

comes to me as the scent of my mother.

The second stanza repeats the poem’s central refrain before shifting from sound to smell as the medium of memory. The setting moves outdoors, to an early autumn morning, a seasonal detail that carries particular resonance in Bengal, where the blooming of shiuli flowers traditionally marks the arrival of autumn and, culturally, the festive season of Durga Puja. This connects the poet’s personal memory of his mother to a wider cultural and seasonal rhythm, suggesting that her presence is felt not only in private, intimate moments but also within the broader cycle of nature and tradition.

The stanza draws a striking connection between the fragrance of the shiuli flowers and the scent of a temple’s morning service, blending natural and spiritual imagery into a single, unified sensory impression, which the poet then directly identifies as ‘the scent of my mother’. This layering suggests that his mother’s memory carries an almost sacred, devotional quality for the poet — associated with purity, ritual, and quiet reverence rather than any specific, concrete visual detail. As in the first stanza, memory arrives here indirectly, filtered through an external, natural sensation rather than any direct recollection of the mother herself.

Word Meanings — Stanza 2

Word/Phrase	Meaning as Used in the Poem
shiuli	a type of fragrant white-and-orange flower (also called coral jasmine), traditionally associated with early autumn in Bengal
floats	moves gently and lightly through the air
morning service	rituals or prayers conducted in a temple, typically at daybreak
scent	a distinctive smell, particularly a pleasant one

Literary Devices & Terms — Stanza 2

Device	Example / Explanation
Refrain	The stanza again opens with ‘I cannot remember my mother’, maintaining the poem’s structural and emotional unity.
Olfactory Imagery	The stanza is built entirely around the scent of shiuli flowers and temple incense, appealing directly to the reader’s sense of smell.
Symbolism	The shiuli flowers and the temple’s morning service together symbolise purity, spirituality, and the mother’s gentle, nurturing presence.
Cultural Allusion	The reference to shiuli flowers blooming in ‘early autumn’ subtly alludes to the Bengali festive season associated with this flower, adding cultural depth to the personal memory.
Simile-like Comparison	The scent of the temple service is said to come to the poet ‘as the scent of my mother’, drawing an implicit comparison between spiritual devotion and maternal love.

Detailed Explanation — Stanza 3

I cannot remember my mother

only when from my bedroom window I send/

my eyes into the blue of the distant sky,

I feel that the stillness of  

my mother’s gaze on my face

has spread all over the sky.

The final stanza returns to the poem’s refrain once more before shifting to visual imagery, the most expansive and symbolically rich of the three senses explored in the poem. The poet describes sending his eyes ‘into the blue of the distant sky’ from his bedroom window, an image that suggests both physical distance and an inward, searching gaze, as though looking outward into the sky is also a way of looking inward into memory.

The central image of the stanza — the ‘stillness’ of his mother’s gaze appearing to have ‘spread all over the sky’ — is the poem’s most powerful and expansive metaphor. Rather than locating his mother’s presence in any single, bounded space, the poet imagines it extending across the entire visible sky, suggesting something vast, calm, and all-encompassing. This final image elevates the mother’s presence from a fleeting sensory trace, as in the first two stanzas, to something closer to eternal and protective, closing the poem on a note of quiet serenity rather than sorrow, and completing its progression from sound, to scent, to sight.

Word Meanings — Stanza 3

Word/Phrase	Meaning as Used in the Poem
send my eyes	to direct one’s gaze or look intently towards something
distant	far away in space
stillness	the quality of being calm, motionless, and quiet
gaze	a steady, prolonged look
spread	extended gradually to cover a wider area

Literary Devices & Terms — Stanza 3

Device	Example / Explanation
Refrain	The stanza opens once more with ‘I cannot remember my mother’, bringing the poem’s structural pattern to its final close.
Visual Imagery	The vivid description of the blue, distant sky appeals directly to the reader’s sense of sight, completing the poem’s progression through the senses.
Metaphor	The stillness of the mother’s gaze is described as having ‘spread all over the sky’, a metaphor that transforms an abstract feeling into a vast, visible presence.
Symbolism	The sky itself becomes a symbol of the mother’s boundless, ever-present, and protective love, extending far beyond any single memory or moment.
Climactic Structure	As the final stanza, this passage represents the emotional and imaginative climax of the poem, moving from the intimate and fleeting (a tune, a scent) to the vast and enduring (the entire sky).

Important Exam Questions (NEP 2020 Aligned)

Section A: Extract-Based Questions

Extract 1

I cannot remember my mother

 but when in the early autumn morning

 the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air

(a) Which season does the poet associate with this memory, and what natural detail marks it?

(b) Identify the sense being appealed to in this extract.

(c) Choose the correct option: The mood created in this extract is best described as —

(i) fearful

(ii) tender and reflective

(iii) angry

(iv) comic.

(d) What does the choice of the shiuli flower suggest about the cultural setting of the poem?

Answers:

(a) The poet associates this memory with early autumn, marked by the blooming of shiuli flowers and their fragrance floating in the morning air.

(b) This extract appeals primarily to the sense of smell (olfactory imagery).

 (c) (ii) tender and reflective.

(d) The choice of the shiuli flower, traditionally linked to early autumn in Bengal and to festive and devotional occasions, situates the poem within an Indian, specifically Bengali, cultural context, and lends the mother’s memory a quietly spiritual quality.

Extract 2

only when from my bedroom window I send

my eyes into the blue of the distant sky,

 I feel that the stillness of  

my mother’s gaze on my face

 has spread all over the sky.

(a) From where does the poet observe the sky in this extract?

(b) What literary device is used in the phrase ‘has spread all over the sky’?

(c) Choose the correct option:

The overall effect of this closing image is to make the mother’s presence feel —

(i) distant and forgotten

(ii) vast and everlasting

(iii) frightening

(iv) purely imaginary and irrelevant.

(d) How does this final image differ from the sensory images used in the earlier stanzas?

Answers:

(a) The poet observes the sky from his bedroom window.

(b) The phrase uses metaphor, transforming an abstract emotional quality — stillness — into something that can visibly ‘spread’ across a physical space.

(c) (ii) vast and everlasting.

(d) Unlike the earlier stanzas, which use a fleeting sound (a tune) and a delicate scent (shiuli flowers) to suggest the mother’s presence, this final image expands to encompass the entire visible sky, marking a shift from small, intimate sensory traces to a vast, all-encompassing symbol of enduring maternal presence.

Section B: Short Answer Questions (40–50 words)

1. Why does the poet repeat the line ‘I cannot remember my mother’ at the start of each stanza?

The poet repeats this refrain to emphasise the central paradox of the poem: although he has no direct, conscious memory of his mother, fragments of sensory experience continue to evoke her presence, and the repetition reinforces both this persistent absence and the quiet comfort of what remains.

2. How is the mother’s presence suggested in the first stanza?

In the first stanza, the mother’s presence is suggested through a half-remembered tune that seems to hover over the poet’s playthings during play, recalling the song she once hummed while rocking his cradle in infancy.

3. What seasonal and cultural detail features in the second stanza, and what is its significance?

The second stanza features the early autumn blooming of shiuli flowers, traditionally associated in Bengal with the festive season, lending the poet’s personal memory of his mother a broader cultural and seasonal resonance.

4. Explain the significance of the phrase ‘the scent of the morning service in the temple’ in the poem.

This phrase links the fragrance of the shiuli flowers to the ritual scent of a temple’s morning prayers, suggesting that the poet’s memory of his mother carries a quiet, spiritual, almost sacred quality rather than a purely personal one.

5. What does the poet do at his bedroom window in the third stanza?

In the third stanza, the poet sends his eyes into the blue of the distant sky from his bedroom window, an act of gazing outward that becomes, for him, a way of sensing his mother’s remembered presence.

6. What is the effect of describing the mother’s gaze as having ‘spread all over the sky’?

This image expands the mother’s presence from a small, personal memory into something vast, boundless, and enduring, suggesting that her watchful love encompasses the poet’s entire world, much as the sky encompasses the earth.

7. Identify one example of alliteration and explain its effect in the poem.

One example is the repeated ‘m’ sound in ‘the scent of the morning service… comes to me… as the scent of my mother’, which creates a soft, musical quality that reinforces the poem’s gentle, meditative tone.

8. Why might the poet have chosen free verse rather than a fixed rhyme scheme for this poem?

Free verse allows the poem’s rhythm to arise naturally from repetition and sentence flow rather than a fixed pattern, mirroring the fragmentary, unpredictable way in which memory itself surfaces, rather than imposing an artificial, orderly structure upon it.

Section C: Long Answer Questions (120–150 words)

Extrapolation Questions

1. Imagine the poet, as an adult, finally comes across an old photograph of his mother. Write, in your own words, how this discovery might affect the feelings expressed in the poem.

Discovering an old photograph might initially overwhelm the poet with emotion, providing for the first time a direct visual anchor for a presence he has only ever known through fragments of sound, scent, and feeling. He might study the photograph intently, searching for traces of the tune, the shiuli fragrance, and the stillness of gaze he has long associated with her, half hoping and half fearing that the image might either confirm or unsettle these cherished sensory impressions. Yet it is equally possible that the photograph, however precious, could never fully replace the deeply personal, felt sense of his mother that he has built through nature and memory over the years, suggesting that emotional connection, once formed through such indirect means, may hold its own irreplaceable truth regardless of any visual record.

2. If the poet were to write a fourth stanza continuing the pattern of the poem, which sense might he explore next, and what image might he use?

Following the poem’s progression from sound, to smell, to sight, a natural next step might be touch, perhaps recalling the imagined warmth of a hand or the soft texture of a garment associated with his mother. A fourth stanza might begin, in keeping with the established refrain, ‘I cannot remember my mother, but when the evening breeze brushes gently against my cheek, I feel that the warmth of my mother’s hand has folded itself into the wind.’ Such an image would extend the poem’s central technique of locating the mother’s presence within ordinary sensory experiences of the natural world, while adding a new dimension of physical, bodily closeness that complements the auditory, olfactory, and visual imagery already present in the existing three stanzas.

Theme and Poetic-Appreciation Questions

1. Discuss how the poem ‘I Cannot Remember My Mother’ explores the idea that memory can exist beyond conscious recollection.

Throughout the poem, the poet repeatedly denies any direct, conscious memory of his mother, yet each stanza reveals that her presence persists nonetheless, surfacing through a half-remembered tune, a familiar scent, and the felt stillness of a remembered gaze. This structure suggests that emotional bonds formed in early childhood, particularly between mother and infant, can be encoded not as clear, retrievable images but as deep, sensory impressions that continue to shape a person’s inner life long after specific events have faded from conscious memory. By building the poem entirely around this paradox — declared forgetfulness paired with persistent sensory recollection — Tagore suggests that love and connection do not depend solely on the ability to consciously recall a person, but can endure quietly within the body and the senses, waiting to be triggered by an ordinary tune, scent, or view of the sky.

2. Examine how Tagore uses the natural world to convey the poem’s central emotional themes.

Nature functions as the primary vehicle through which the poet expresses his fragmented memories of his mother, with each stanza turning to a different natural element to carry its emotional weight. The tune associated with his cradle-side lullaby links memory to sound; the early-autumn blooming of shiuli flowers, alongside the scent of temple worship, links memory to fragrance and a sense of quiet spirituality; and the vast blue sky, upon which his mother’s remembered gaze appears to spread, links memory to sight and to a feeling of boundless, protective presence. This progressive use of nature — moving from a small, intimate detail to an image of vast scale — mirrors the poem’s emotional journey from fragile, fleeting traces of memory towards a settled, comforting sense that his mother’s love remains, in some enduring form, always present around him.

Section D: Case-Based Question (Competency-Based)

Read the following case and answer the questions that follow, applying your understanding of the poem ‘I Cannot Remember My Mother’.

Case: Aarav lost his father when he was only two years old and has no clear memories of him. However, whenever Aarav smells fresh sawdust, he feels an inexplicable sense of warmth and comfort, though he cannot say why. His grandmother later tells him that his father was a carpenter who used to hold him in his workshop as a baby.

(a) Which aspect of the poem does Aarav’s experience most closely resemble, and why?

(b) What does Aarav’s reaction to the smell of sawdust suggest about how memory can function, even without conscious recollection?

(c) Compare Aarav’s situation with the poet’s experience of the shiuli flowers in Stanza 2. What is the common underlying idea?

(d) Suggest one way Aarav might further explore or preserve this fragile emotional connection to his father.

Answers:

(a) Aarav’s experience closely resembles the poem’s central idea that sensory triggers, such as smell, can evoke a felt connection to a person long before conscious memory can explain why, just as the poet feels his mother’s presence through fragrance and sound despite having no direct memory of her.

(b) It suggests that early sensory experiences, particularly those linked to comfort and closeness in infancy, can be stored below the level of conscious memory and later resurface as strong, unexplained feelings when triggered by a similar sensation.

(c) Both Aarav’s response to sawdust and the poet’s response to shiuli flowers show how a specific, ordinary scent can become permanently and unconsciously linked to a lost parent, becoming a private, deeply personal symbol of their presence.

(d) Aarav might deliberately seek out similar environments, such as visiting a carpentry workshop, or ask his grandmother for more stories and details about his father, gradually building a fuller emotional picture around this powerful but fragile sensory connection, much as the poet’s memory is enriched by multiple senses across the poem’s three stanzas.

Section E: Higher-Order Thinking Questions (HOTS)

Analytical Thinking

1. Analyse the structural progression of the poem across its three stanzas and explain how this progression contributes to its overall meaning.

The poem is carefully structured to move through three distinct senses in a deliberate sequence: sound in the first stanza, smell in the second, and sight in the third. This progression is not arbitrary; it builds from the most intimate and fleeting sensory trigger — a barely audible, half-remembered tune — towards the most expansive and enduring image, the mother’s gaze spreading across the entire sky. This structural movement mirrors an emotional journey from uncertain, fragmentary recollection towards a settled, comforting sense of the mother’s constant, protective presence, suggesting that the poem itself enacts a quiet process of emotional resolution, moving the reader, alongside the poet, from tentative traces of memory towards a feeling of assured, boundless connection.

Evaluation-Based Questions

1. Do you think the poem’s decision to end on the image of the sky, rather than returning to a more personal, close-up image, is an effective choice? Justify your evaluation.

This can be evaluated as a highly effective choice, since ending on the vast, all-encompassing image of the sky allows the poem to conclude on a note of expansive comfort rather than narrow, personal loss. Had the poem ended on a smaller, more intimate image, such as a single object or a close physical detail, it might have emphasised the specific absence of the mother more sharply, potentially leaving a more melancholic impression. By instead choosing an image that stretches to fill the entire visible world, Tagore suggests that the mother’s love, though unremembered in specific detail, is not confined or diminished but has instead become boundless and ever-present, which aligns naturally with the poem’s overall gentle, reassuring tone and provides a satisfying, uplifting sense of closure.

Application-Based Questions

1. Drawing on the techniques used in this poem, suggest how someone might process the memory of a loved one they cannot clearly recall.

Drawing on the poem’s central technique, a person might begin by paying close attention to sensory experiences — particular sounds, smells, or sights — that trigger an unexplained emotional response, and gently exploring the family stories or contexts behind these responses, as Aarav does with the scent of sawdust in the earlier case study. Journalling about such moments, much as this poem itself does, could help such a person articulate and process an otherwise wordless sense of connection. Rather than feeling frustrated by the absence of clear, conscious memories, they might instead learn, as the poet does, to value these fragmentary sensory traces as a valid and meaningful, if indirect, form of remembering and honouring a loved one.

Assertion-Reason Questions

Question 1

Assertion (A): The poem suggests that the poet has absolutely no emotional connection to his mother.

Reason (R): The poet repeatedly states that he cannot remember his mother at the start of each stanza.

(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.

(b) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.

(c) A is false, but R is true.

(d) Both A and R are false.

Answer: (c) A is false, but R is true.

 Although the poet does repeatedly state that he cannot remember his mother, this does not mean he lacks an emotional connection to her; on the contrary, the poem demonstrates that a deep emotional bond persists through sensory experiences of sound, scent, and sight, even in the complete absence of conscious memory.

Question 2

Assertion (A): The final stanza’s image of the mother’s gaze spreading over the sky suggests a sense of boundless, enduring maternal presence.

Reason (R): The poet directly states that he can see his mother physically present within the clouds.

(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.

(b) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.

(c) A is true, but R is false.

(d) Both A and R are false.

Answer: (c) A is true, but R is false.

The poet does not claim any literal, physical sighting of his mother; rather, he uses the sky metaphorically to express the felt stillness and vastness of her remembered gaze, making the image symbolic rather than literal.

Section F: Language and Literature (Competency-Based)

1. Identify the part of speech of the word ‘hover’ as used in the poem, and use it in a sentence of your own.

‘Hover’ is used as a verb in the poem. Example sentence: The bird seemed to hover motionlessly above the still lake before diving suddenly towards the water.

2. Rewrite the following line in your own words, retaining its meaning: ‘a tune seems to hover over my playthings’.

A faint, half-remembered melody appears to linger gently around the objects I once played with as a child.

3. Identify the tense used in the refrain ‘I cannot remember my mother’, and explain why this tense is appropriate here.

The refrain uses the simple present tense. This is appropriate because the poet is describing an ongoing, continuing state — his present inability to consciously recall his mother — rather than a single completed action confined to the past.

4. Using vocabulary from the poem, write one original sentence each using the words ‘stillness’ and ‘fragrant’ in a context different from the poem.

Sample sentences: A deep stillness settled over the valley as the last light of evening faded. The fragrant aroma of freshly baked bread filled the small kitchen.

5. Convert the following line into a question that could logically prompt this response as an answer: ‘I feel that the stillness of my mother’s gaze on my face has spread all over the sky.’

A suitable question might be: What do you feel when you look at the sky from your bedroom window?

6. Identify one metaphor and one instance of imagery from the poem, and briefly explain each in your own words.

Metaphor: ‘the stillness of my mother’s gaze… has spread all over the sky’ — this directly equates an abstract feeling with a vast, tangible expanse, without using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Imagery: the description of ‘the smell of the shiuli flowers’ floating in the morning air creates vivid olfactory imagery, allowing the reader to imagine the scent alongside the poet.

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