A LETTER TO GOD, CBSE CLASS 10 ENGLISH BOOK- FIRST FLIGHT, PROSE - 1
( SUMMARY AND IMPORTANT QUESTIONS & ANSWERS)
Prose- 1
A LETTER TO GOD
By G. L. Fuents
Name of the Characters:-
(1) Lencho :- (A labourious farmer having a strong faith in God)
(2) Postman:- ( One who found first the letter of Lencho and made fun of it)
(3) Postmaster:- ( One who was impressed by seeing the faith of Lencho in God and decided to help him)
SUMMARY:-
The story, “A LETTER TO GOD” by G. L. Fuents is all about the faith in God and misinterpretation of a person to the people who are actually honest to him. The story starts from the fields where corns and flowers had been cultivated by a farmer named Lencho. But he was just waiting for the rain or at least for some shower. Everyday he had been waiting for the rain and suddenly in the evening the mountains of clouds were seen and big drops of the rain began to fall. The farmers as well as his all family members became very happy, but this happiness could not last long as just after a few moments the rain drops suddenly converted into very large hailstones. The rain of hailstones continued for an hour and destroyed all the crops. In the house, at the time of dinner all the family members were hopeless except Lencho as he had a great faith in God. The whole night he thought of the solution and finally in the next morning, he decided to write a letter to God. In the letter to God, he wrote about his present situation and asked the God for 100 pesos to sow the crops again. Taking the letter with him, he went to the Post office and dropped the letter in the mailbox.
The postman, who found that letter, laughingly went to the postmaster and handed it over to him. The postmaster was so shocked to see such a strong faith in God. He tried to collect that amount from the contribution of all the staffs including of him as he did not want to let such a faith be shaken. The postmaster mailed the letter with the amount but less than what was demanded as they could collect that amount only. When Lencho found that letter, he, at first counted the amount which he found 70 pesos only. Lencho became very angry as he knew that God can never commit such mistake. So, in anger he went to the counter of the post office, asked for a piece of paper and ink to write the letter again to God. He wrote that he had demanded for 100 pesos that was very essential for him but found only 70 pesos. He requested to send the rest of the amount but suggested as well not to send the amount by post this time as all the employees are a bunch of crooks according to him.
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IMPORTANT QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Q.1. What did Lencho hope for?
Answer:
Lencho hoped for rains as the only thing that his field needed was a downpour or at least a shower.
Q.2.Why did Lencho say the raindrops were like ‘new coins’?
Answer:
Lencho compared the raindrops with new coins because as a result of that rain he was about to get a good harvest. He compared the big drops as big ripe corn and rated 10 cent pieces and the little ones are fives.
Q.3. What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?
Answer :
After hail stopped, Lencho's soul was filled with sadness. He said that night was sorrowful, the work he did, resulted in nothing. He thought that he and his family would be hungry this year.
Q.4. Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do?
Answer :
Lencho had strong faith in God. He always believed that God’s eyes see everything. So he decided to write a letter to God and he mentioned in this letter that he needed a hundred pesos to sow his field again.
Q.5. What did the postmaster do ?
Answer:
The Postmaster first laughed but almost immediately he turned out serious. He decided to help the poor man. He did not want to shake his faith in God. So he collected the money from his employees, he himself gave a part of his salary and sent it to Lencho.
SUMMARY OF OTHER PROSES : CLICK HERE
NCERT SOLUTION CLASS 10 ENGLISH BOOK FIRST FLIGHT, PROSE - 1, THE LETTER TO GOD
Q.1. Who does Lencho have complete faith in? Which sentences in the story tell you this?
Answer :
Lencho had complete faith in God.
Following sentences in the story tell us about his faith in God:
(i) 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.
(ii) 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.
(iii) In his letter to God, he mentioned - “God,” he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year.”
(iv) He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and, still troubled, went to town.
(v) When he got only seventy pesos, he became angry and said - God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.
(vi) when he wrote his second letter to god, he mentioned - “God: of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much.But don't send it to me through the mail because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks.”
Q.2. Why does the postmaster send money to Lencho? Why does he sign the letter ‘God’?
Answer:
Postmaster did not want to break Lencho's faith in God. So, he decided to send him money. Moreover, the postmaster wanted the man to continue believing in God, So he did the Sign 'God'.
3. Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?
Answer:
No, Lencho did not try to find out who had sent the money to him, because he was very confident that God would help him by giving that sum of money. So he directly thought that God had helped me.
4. Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation? [Remember that the irony of a situation is an unexpected aspect of it. An ironic situation is strange or amusing because it is the opposite of what is expected.]
Answer :
Lencho thinks that the post office employees have taken the rest of the money. The irony in this situation is Lencho's claim on post office employees. Because the post office people arranged 70 poses for him but he thinks that God has sent him 100 poses and he got only 70, so the rest money was stolen by the post office employees, that was completely wrong.
5.Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select appropriate words from the box to answer the question.
Greedy, Naive, stupid, ungrateful, selfish, comical, unquestioning
Answer :
I don't think there could be any such people in the real world. Lencho is a naive person because he doesn't know how his letter will reach God without any address and he directly blamed on post office employees.He is also an ungrateful person as he didn't show his gratitude for God to get 70 poses at least.
6. There are two kinds of conflict in the story: between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. How are these conflicts illustrated?
Answer:
The conflict between humans and nature is shown by the destruction of Lencho’s field of ripe corn by the hailstorm. And because of this he started feeling sad and helpless for his livelihood. The Story also showed another conflict, between humans themselves. The postmaster and their employees arranged money for him though they did not even relate to him personally. It was an act of kindness. Yet Lencho blamed them for taking some amount of money. This shows that man does not have faith in his fellow humans and hence giving rise to this conflict.
NCERT SOLUTION CLASS 10 ENGLISH BOOK FIRST FLIGHT : CLICK HERE
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