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CLASS 12 · KALIEDOSCOPE · CHAPTER 20

Chandalika

Original, student-friendly answers to Rabindranath Tagore's play about Prakriti, dignity, caste prejudice, desire, and release.

13 worked answersOriginal sample responses
Open the official NCERT chapter ↗← All chapters

13 worked answers · short steps first, explanations when you need them

Read and Find Out

Textbook pages

Question Read and Find Out (Act I) 1

How does Prakriti’s mother react when she hears of Prakriti’s encounter with the monk?

Steps only

Explain that the mother's alarm reflects the caste rules she has internalised.

Answer

She is startled and asks whether Ananda knew Prakriti's caste, showing how strongly she expects social exclusion.

Question Read and Find Out (Act I) 2

Will Prakriti resign herself to her lot?

Steps only

Show that Prakriti resists her assigned status, but her response later becomes possessive.

Answer

No. She resists the shame imposed on her, but her effort to bring Ananda back through magic turns into control and causes suffering.

Question Read and Find Out (Act II) 1

Will the spell work? What will happen when Ananda is made to come?

Steps only

State that the spell works but causes suffering and leads Prakriti to reject coercion.

Answer

The spell draws Ananda to her but causes great suffering. Seeing this, Prakriti asks for it to be stopped.

Thinking about the Play

Textbook pages

Question Thinking about the Play 1

Why does something so ordinary and commonplace as giving water to a wayfarer become so significant to Prakriti?

Steps only

Connect Ananda's acceptance of water with Prakriti's experience of caste-based exclusion.

Answer

Ananda accepts water from her without prejudice, making Prakriti feel recognised and challenging the shame imposed on her by caste.

Question Thinking about the Play 2

Why is the girl named Prakriti in the play? What images in the play relate to this theme?

Steps only

Explain the meaning of Prakriti and connect natural images to shared humanity and emotion.

Answer

Prakriti means nature. Water, earth, clouds, flowers, and fire suggest shared life and expose caste as an artificial division; storm imagery also shows inner turmoil.

Question Thinking about the Play 3

How does the churning of emotions bring about self-realisation in Prakriti even if at the cost of her mother’s life?

Steps only

Trace her movement from dignity, to possessive desire, to remorse and respect for Ananda's freedom.

Answer

The spell's harm makes Prakriti realise that love cannot possess another person. She asks her mother to undo it, though her mother dies in the process.

Question Thinking about the Play 4

How does the mirror reflect the turmoil experienced by the monk as a result of the working of the spell?

Steps only

Describe the mirror's changing images and how they reveal Ananda's distress.

Answer

The mirror shows fire, storm, and finally Ananda's tormented face, making his inner suffering visible to Prakriti.

Question Thinking about the Play 5

What is the role of the mother in Prakriti’s self-realisation? What are her hopes and fears for her daughter?

Steps only

Explain the mother's love, warning, fear, and final sacrifice.

Answer

She warns Prakriti but helps out of love, hoping to ease her pain and fearing the spell's cost. Undoing it helps Prakriti recognise the harm of possession.

Question Thinking about the Play 6

‘Acceptance of one’s fate is easy. Questioning the imbalance of the human social order is tumultuous.’ Discuss with reference to the play.

Steps only

Connect caste-based humiliation with Prakriti's difficult path towards dignity and respect for others.

Answer

Prakriti challenges the caste shame imposed on her, but learns that self-respect must also respect another person's freedom.

Appreciation

Textbook pages

Question Appreciation 1

How does the dramatic technique suit the theme of the play?

Steps only

Mention dialogue, song, stage directions, and the mirror as ways of making inner conflict visible.

Answer

Dialogue, song, the mirror, and vivid stage images make Prakriti's inner struggle and the spell's effects visible to the audience.

Question Appreciation 2

How does the play sensitise the audience to injustice based on birth, and highlight individual conflict against social reality?

Steps only

Show how the audience experiences caste discrimination through Prakriti's personal struggle.

Answer

By centring Prakriti, the play shows the emotional harm of caste exclusion and asks the audience to question birth-based inequality.

Question Appreciation 3

Find other examples of the interplay of opposites in the play and explain what this device conveys.

Steps only

Give contrasting feelings or images and explain how they reveal emotional conflict.

Answer

The play contrasts purity and stigma, love and possession, renunciation and desire, and care and harm. These tensions reveal the characters' inner conflict.

Question Appreciation 4

Comment on the effect of contrasting images such as ‘shadow, mist, storm’ and ‘flames, fire’.

Steps only

Explain the moods of uncertainty and intense, dangerous desire created by the images.

Answer

Shadow, mist, and storm suggest confusion and danger; fire suggests powerful desire and change, as well as possible destruction.

Questions and activities were checked against the official NCERT chapter PDF ↗. Answers are written in original wording; no literary passage or illustration is reproduced.

Learnivelle is not affiliated with NCERT.

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