Rumours of Spring

Rumours of Spring belongs to which genre?

• Biography

• Memoir

• Contemporary Fiction

• Realistic Fiction

The title Rumours of Spring means

• a perpetual but elusive longing for hope

• the loss of innocence

• the lies that people tell

• the depiction of an unfulfilled life

The setting of the book is

• The exodus of the Kashmiri pandits

• The militant conflict in 1990s Kashmir

• 1970s war against Pakistan

• Indo-Pakistan war of 1999

"Winter, on its way out, cast an unending sense of foreboding. To expect change in the season in a month’s time felt less like a reality but more like rumours of spring."

Which figures of speech can you identify in the sentences?

• Symbolism

• Personification

• Simile

• Allegory

• Metaphor

Which incident does the narrator claim to be the most significant turning point in the narrator's life?

Mother offered an esoteric explanation. ‘Maybe the birds are trying to say something. We don’t leave crumbs outside on the sill anymore in the evenings, as it is patrol time. They must be going hungry. Perhaps a bird-spirit is reminding us to feed them.’

What is the meaning of esoteric?

• clear and exact

• very unusual and understood by only a small number of people, especially those with special knowledge

• indifferent

• describing something, especially in a detailed, interesting way

"Every window in our house seemed to have been assigned a specific role, each one had numerous tales to tell."

What were they?

• to communicate with the world outside

• to observe the world outside

• to use it as an object of play/amusement

• to protect themselves from the violence outside by shutting and boarding them

• to show allegiance to the patrolling party

"...everyone had cultivated some new personal quirk around that time."

Which are the ones mentioned explicitly in the story?

• Farah's trichotillomania

• Father's OCD

• Mother's ritualistic cursing at the phone ringing in the evenings

• Bobeh stopped humming wanwun

After the incident of acid being thrown at Nuzhat, what did the narrator wish for?

What does the writer say about obituaries?

• She wanted to write her own obituary

• She wished she could bring back the dead

• She wished to be in the 'normal' obituary section when she died