NCERT Solutions Class 12 English Chapter 12 Time 2026-27

Quick reading. The poem begins as if it is about sound and time. Ramanujan lets the reader hear a city before revealing that the city also carries conflict and damage.

1. The phrase old well-managed city creates an image of order.
2. Clock towers usually stand for public time and civic routine.
3. The gongs beating round the clock make the beginning sound regular.
4. Yet each clock is slightly off the others' time.
5. This small difference keeps the opening from being perfectly calm.
6. The reader may first expect a poem about timekeeping or city rhythm.
7. The later lines change that expectation by naming quarrels, riots, bombs, and lightning.
8. The opening is therefore a doorway from simple clock sound to a larger public anxiety.

This answer should not ignore the first impression. The poem starts with clocks, but the clock image soon becomes a way to think about repeated disturbance in human life.

At first, the poem appears to be about clocks and city time. The deeper subject appears later, when those clocks become signs of disorder, damaged harmony, and repeated disturbance.

Structural observation. The title grows in meaning across the poem. At first, it refers to clocks being slightly out of time. In the last stanza, it refers to repeated patterns of damage.

1. The opening clock towers introduce ordinary measured time.
2. Their gongs differ slightly because each clock has a separate physical history.
3. This prepares the reader for difference inside a shared city.
4. The last stanza changes the scale of the image.
5. The phrase knocked-out clockwork means order has been violently broken.
6. Riot and time bomb bring human violence into the clock image.
7. The precise act of nature brings lightning into the same pattern.
8. The title now means that time records repeated disruptions, not only repeated hours.

So the answer can mention both stages. The title is hinted at early through gongs and clock time, but its full import arrives when broken clockwork is linked with violence and natural force.

The title's deeper force is felt in the last stanza, in the lines about knocked-out clockwork after riot, bomb, or lightning. They show time as a repeating record of disturbance.

Strategic angle. Read the clocks as objects first. Then read them as social symbols. Ramanujan moves from metal, sound, and distance to public difference among communities.

1. Alloy affects tone, so one clock sounds deeper and another lighter.
2. A maker's shaking hand suggests human imperfection inside the object.
3. Distance means the gongs reach the listener at slightly different moments.
4. A donor's whim adds personal history to a public clock.
5. These details explain why the clocks do not produce one identical sequence.
6. The comparison then shifts to the city itself.
7. Communities also carry inherited differences.
8. Their alliances and quarrels may be seasonal, historical, and repeated.
9. The clock towers therefore become a compact image of plural urban life.

The poem does not say difference is wrong by itself. The trouble begins when difference turns into feud or violence. The clocks can sound different and still belong to one city.

Different materials, makers, distances, and donor histories create different clock sounds. The poem compares this with social difference among communities that share a city but often live by separate memories and tensions.

Picture-first. The image is visual: a clock tower has lost its face, and a zigzag sky is visible through the broken mechanism. The word precise fits that clean, sharp destruction.

1. Clockwork is a symbol of measurement and exact order.
2. Lightning is also exact in its own way because it strikes a point.
3. When lightning damages the clock, one precise force breaks another precise system.
4. The result is not slow decay.
5. It is a sudden, visible break in civic order.
6. The zigzag sky through the clockwork makes the strike feel sharply cut.
7. The poet sets this beside riot and a time bomb.
8. So nature's fury is not gentle, but it is not confused either.

This answer should avoid saying nature is morally better than people. The poem only suggests that nature acts with an exact power that humans cannot control.

Nature's act is precise because lightning damages the clockwork with exact, sudden force. The image shows an impersonal strike that breaks a carefully measured object.

Quick reading. The option must match the poem's moral pressure. Ramanujan does not write a soft lament only. He exposes the repeated ugliness of communal conflict.

1. Helpless acceptance would mean the poet simply gives in to the situation.
2. The poem does not do that because its images are pointed and disturbing.
3. Wistful lament would mean a tender, nostalgic sadness.
4. The tone here is sharper than nostalgia.
5. Critical condemnation fits the references to feuds, quarrels, riot, and bomb.
6. The damaged clock tower becomes a public sign of disorder.
7. The poem criticises the way repeated disharmony interrupts common civic life.
8. Its restraint makes the criticism stronger, not weaker.

The answer should still stay balanced. The poem is not a slogan. It uses city images to condemn the recurring violence that unsettles shared time and public peace.

Option (i), Critical condemnation, best reflects the poet's attitude. The poem's images show firm criticism of communal conflict and its repeated damage to shared public life.

Strategic angle. The question asks for a public response, not only a private reading. Ramanujan's city stands for shared Indian life, where diversity, conflict, and natural force are all familiar.

1. The poem names different religious communities in one urban space.
2. This makes communal disharmony a public Indian concern.
3. The speaker's criticism of feuds and riots reflects a widely felt discomfort.
4. Most people do not see human violence as fate.
5. They see it as avoidable damage caused by human choices.
6. Nature's fury feels different because it does not come from human hatred.
7. Lightning can destroy, but it is impersonal.
8. The phrase precise act of nature gives it power without moral blame.
9. The poem therefore holds two attitudes together: protest against violence and awe before nature.

This makes the poem representative without making it simple. It shows how public life can be wounded by people, while nature reminds people of their smaller place in a larger order.

Yes. The poem reflects a recognisable Indian feeling: human violence deserves criticism because it is chosen, while nature's fury produces fear, awe, and acceptance because it exceeds human control.