🌩️ Soft Storm
📖 Understanding the Text
a. When does the speaker grow soft? Enlist the occasions when he grows soft.
=> Answer: The speaker becomes tender-hearted when different disturbing and painful experiences attract his attention. He feels soft on the following occasions:
- •He listens to the tumult of the earth.
- •He notices the sky appearing like crocuses.
- •He watches the moon as if it were sliding downward.
- •He hears the moon singing about lampposts and gutters in the seamless city.
- •He encounters children who are poor and starving.
- •He becomes conscious of the forgotten parts of history and culture.
- •He comes across a blood-stained shirt and bruised human lips.
b. What do you understand by ‘this seamless city’?
=> Answer: “This seamless city” suggests an urban space in which different boundaries and divisions seem to disappear. It represents Kathmandu, where various elements of culture, history, daily life, and human experience are closely connected. The phrase may also indicate the openness of the city and the unrestricted movement of its people.
c. Describe the poor children portrayed in the poem.
=> Answer: The poet presents the children of Thamel as victims of poverty and homelessness. They live without adequate food, shelter, and other basic necessities. Their hunger makes them cry beneath the bat-bearing tree at Kesharmahal. Their miserable existence exposes the harsh reality of deprivation in contemporary society.
d. What do you understand by ‘the unwedded gardens of history’?
=> Answer: “The unwedded gardens of history” is a symbolic expression for the historical and cultural treasures of the Kathmandu Valley that have been neglected. It points toward forgotten traditions, heritage, memories, and cultural values that have not been given the protection, appreciation, and attention they deserve.
e. Why was the forlorn child wailing?
=> Answer: The lonely child was crying because he could not find his mother. His helpless search reflects the sorrow of individuals who are torn away from their loved ones in situations marked by conflict and violence.
f. What do you understand about ‘soft storm’?
=> Answer: “Soft storm” is a paradoxical phrase used to describe the speaker’s emotional turmoil. A storm normally represents destructive force and violence, whereas “soft” conveys kindness and gentleness. Together, the two words show how strongly the speaker feels the pain and disorder around him while still responding through compassion rather than aggression.
g. Why does the speaker call our time ‘mad time’?
=> Answer: The speaker labels the present age as “mad time” because the world seems to have become strange, chaotic, and unnatural. Both human society and nature appear to have moved away from their normal order.
The poem contains several extraordinary images: stones appear to grow on flowers, rhododendrons bloom in winter, the earth is filled with tumult, the moon hums songs, and history seems to move beneath lampposts. Such distorted images suggest that the natural and social order has been disturbed. For this reason, the speaker regards the age as a “mad time.”
h. What does the speaker want to do in “hard times”?
=> Answer: In “hard times,” the speaker wants to melt like a rainbow. Through this image, he expresses his wish to preserve gentleness, sympathy, and hope despite the difficulties, violence, and suffering surrounding him.
📚 Reference to the Context
a. The poet uses the word ‘soft’ with the words like ‘storm’ and ‘gale’, which generally refer to disorder and violence. What effect does the poet achieve through the use of such anomalous expressions?
=> Answer: The poet deliberately places contrasting ideas together in expressions such as “soft storm” and “softness rose like a gale.” The terms “storm” and “gale” usually create associations with force, destruction, and disturbance, whereas “soft” carries the sense of tenderness and calmness.
This unexpected combination produces a paradoxical effect. It reflects the speaker’s strong emotional disturbance while also showing that his response to suffering remains peaceful and compassionate. He is affected by the violence and disorder around him, but he does not become violent himself. Therefore, these anomalous expressions successfully reveal both his emotional struggle and his humane attitude.
b. What is the speaker’s attitude towards the time he describes in the poem?
=> Answer: The speaker looks at the period around him with disappointment, concern, and criticism. By calling it “mad time,” he emphasizes the presence of poverty, violence, suffering, disorder, and unusual changes in both society and nature.
He is also troubled by the decline of human values and the careless treatment of historical and cultural heritage. Yet his dissatisfaction does not turn into hatred. His awareness of suffering makes him compassionate, and he continues to desire a better and more humane world.
c. What is the speaker like? Is he a rebel? Why? Why not?
=> Answer: The speaker is a thoughtful, sensitive, compassionate, and socially aware person. He pays close attention to poverty, violence, neglected cultural heritage, and the disorder visible in contemporary life.
In a broad sense, he can be regarded as a rebel because he challenges social wrongs through his thoughts and observations. However, he is not a violent revolutionary who encourages physical confrontation. His form of rebellion is peaceful: he exposes injustice, corruption, inhumanity, and social disorder through emotional and critical expression. Thus, he is better described as a compassionate or gentle rebel.
d. Explain the stanza below in your own words:
I became soft
when I saw
a blood-stained shirt
speaking in the earth’s ears
with bruised human lips
in the far corner
under the moon
of history and dreams
playing hide and seek
in open museums
of human times.
=> Answer: The given stanza from “Soft Storm” describes the speaker’s reaction to the painful evidence of human violence. The bloodied shirt and injured human lips suggest a victim who has suffered greatly. Seeing such signs of suffering does not make the speaker harsh; instead, it awakens his sympathy and compassion.
The shirt is imagined as communicating with the earth, giving the impression that the victim’s suffering continues to speak even without an actual voice. The references to the moon, history, and dreams add a sense of remembrance and contemplation.
The phrase “open museums of human times” suggests that the experiences and suffering of human beings remain preserved as part of history. The stanza therefore emphasizes the lasting scars created by violence and demonstrates the speaker’s profound sensitivity toward human pain.