Chapter 6: No Men Are Foreign

Thinking about the Poem

Question 1:

1. “Beneath all uniforms…” What uniforms do you think the poet is speaking about?
2. How does the poet suggest that all people on earth are the same?

Answer:

1. The poet speaks about the various dresses that people of various countries wear but beneath them, the human body is same.
2. The poet says that nobody is different and peculiar. No country is foreign. A single body breathes beneath all uniforms. Moreover, the land is the same everywhere.

Question 2:

In stanza 1, find five ways in which we all are alike. Pick out the words.

Answer:

In the first stanza the poet says that there is no difference between the body of a citizen of one country and the citizen of another country. We have same kind of body; we wear same kind of clothes. We walk on the same planet, and the end of each individual is the same.

Question 3:

How many common features can you find in stanza 2? Pick out the words.

Answer:

The following common features are given in the stanzas:
1) sun
2) air
3) water,
4) Peaceful harvests required for human survival
5) same hands

Question 4:

“… whenever we are told to hate our brothers….” When do you think this happens? Why? Who ‘tells’ us? Should we do as we are told at such times What does the poet say?

Answer:

Sometimes some selfish people instigate the innocent to harm others. They do it for their own benefit. The common or ordinary man does not understand their tricks and starts hating his fellow human beings. They tell them to cause riots. The poet says that one should not follow anybody’s advice without brooding over it. The poet repeatedly says that there is no difference in them and the foreigners. The people of the entire world are the same.