What impressions of Shahid do you gather from the piece?
The following impressions can be drawn from the piece
1) There was always a festive mode in Shahid’s house, which says that he was a gregarious personality.
2) The reply given by him to the customs officer at the airport tells us that he has a great sense of humor.
3) Shahid wanted to die in his home town, which means his patriotic levels were high.
4) He knew that he was going to die but he never let that detail to stop him from writing beautiful poems, which tells us that he was a brave person.
How do Shahid and the writer react to the knowledge that Shahid is going to die?
Shahid at first, was really tensed but immediately revealed from that and asked Amitav Ghosh to write about him after his death.
The writer was in bit of shock and didn’t understand how to respond to the situation. Later he told the traditional words “nothing will happen to you. You will be fine”.
Look up the dictionary for the meaning of the word ‘diaspora’. What do you understand of the Indian diaspora from this piece?
The word ‘diaspora’ means ‘people who come from a particular nation, or whose ancestors came from it, but now live in many different parts of the world.’
[Extracted from : Collins dictionary (google)]
This piece says that Shahid along with his brother and two sisters were living in the U.S.A. Not just they but also many Indians today move to abroad for various reasons like education, job or any other purpose. They meet each other every now and then over there. The Indian diaspora is comparatively large than any other country. In this piece, we can see that though Shahid had migrated to abroad, he spends every summer in Srinagar, which means that they love their mother-land and never forgot it.