Class 11 English · Original EZT practice
Childhood - Markus Natten (Class 11 English, Hornbill, Poem 4)
Childhood is Poem 4 of Class 11 Hornbill (pp. 41-42 by the NCERT contents page - Reprint 2025-26 front matter, whose contents list the Reprint 2026-27 front matter matched when compared on 24 Oct 2026), Markus Natten's short elegy for a lost self. Three stanzas ask 'When did my childhood go?' - was it 'the day I ceased to be eleven', or the day he found his mind 'was really mine, / To use whichever way I choose'? The close changes the question: 'Where did my childhood go? / It went to some forgotten place, / That's hidden in an infant's face'. This page reads each stage of the loss with fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 25 October 2026:
1. The poem at a glance
The refrain: 'When did my childhood go?' - asked three times, once per stage of growing up. Stage one: 'Was it the day I ceased to be eleven,' - the birthday when childhood officially ended. Stage two: 'Was it the time I realised that Hell and Heaven, / Could not be found in Geography, / And therefore could not be,'. Stage three: adults who 'talked of love and preached of love, / But did not act so lovingly,'. Stage four: 'Was it when I found my mind was really mine, / To use whichever way I choose,' - 'Producing thoughts that were not those of other people / But my own, and mine alone'. The answer: 'Where did my childhood go? / It went to some forgotten place, / That's hidden in an infant's face, / That's all I know.'
2. Key details and what they signal
'Ceased to be eleven': childhood ends at a datable age, but the poem immediately doubts the date - each later stanza offers a truer moment. Hell and Heaven failing Geography: what cannot be located on a map stops being real - the child's world shrinks to the provable. Talk versus act: adults 'talked of love and preached of love' yet 'did not act so lovingly' - the discovery that words and deeds can split. 'My mind was really mine': the first thought that is 'mine alone' is both a gain and a loss - independence ends the borrowed certainty of childhood. The refrain's turn: 'When' becomes 'Where' in the last stanza - the question shifts from time to place, and only the 'where' gets an answer. 'Hidden in an infant's face': childhood is not destroyed, only out of reach - it survives where adults cannot go back for it.
3. Theme
The stages of losing childhood: growing past eleven, losing the mappable afterlife, seeing through adults, owning one's own mind. Innocence versus experience: each discovery is a small fall - knowledge arrives exactly as trust leaves. Adult contradiction: love preached but not practised is the poem's sharpest disappointment. Childhood as place, not time: it retreats to 'some forgotten place' visible only in an infant's face - gone from the adult, present in the child.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Date the ending
Choose the method: Eleven, then doubt.
EZT practice question
Which birthday threshold does the first stanza fix as a candidate for childhood's end?
Show the worked solution
- The candidate: 'Was it the day I ceased to be eleven,' - the turn towards twelve.
- The doubt: the poem asks it as a question, and each later stanza offers a truer moment.
- The signal: childhood ends at a datable age, yet no date satisfies.
Answer: 'Was it the day I ceased to be eleven,' - the birthday when childhood officially ended; but the poem keeps asking, so the date is only the first candidate.
Check: Ceased to be eleven, the open question.
Watch for this: Do not settle on the birthday - the stanza's own 'Was that the day!' is half-exclamation, half-appeal; the poem is still searching.
Now try it yourself
Why start the loss at a birthday?
Check your answer
A birthday is the one ending everyone can date - starting there lets the poem show that the real endings, the undateable ones, matter more.
The calendar is the first suspect, not the culprit.
Fail the map test
Choose the method: Heaven, then Geography.
EZT practice question
Why does Geography matter in the first stanza?
Show the worked solution
- The realisation: 'Hell and Heaven, / Could not be found in Geography,'.
- The conclusion the growing mind draws: 'And therefore could not be,'.
- The signal: what no map can show stops being real - the child's world shrinks to the provable.
Answer: Hell and Heaven 'Could not be found in Geography, / And therefore could not be' - what no map can show, the growing mind stops believing in.
Check: Hell and Heaven, Geography, therefore could not be.
Watch for this: Do not read this as triumph - the logic is flawless and the loss is real: rationalism arrives exactly as the mapped-off places vanish.
Now try it yourself
Why Geography and not science?
Check your answer
Geography is the child's own subject of places - if heaven cannot be found there, in the book of where things are, it cannot be anywhere.
The map is the child's first authority on reality.
Measure the adult gap
Choose the method: Talked, then acted.
EZT practice question
What gap does the poet see in adults?
Show the worked solution
- The talk: adults 'talked of love and preached of love,'.
- The act: 'But did not act so lovingly,'.
- The discovery: words and deeds can split - and the child notices.
Answer: They 'talked of love and preached of love, / But did not act so lovingly' - their words and their behaviour do not match.
Check: Talked, preached, did not act.
Watch for this: Do not soften the charge - the doubled 'talked... preached' against the single 'did not act' makes hypocrisy the stanza's verdict, not its suspicion.
Now try it yourself
Why is this discovery a loss of childhood?
Check your answer
Childhood trusts that words mean deeds; seeing the split ends that trust, and the poem files it beside the other falls.
Innocence ends when talk and act separate.
Claim your own mind
Choose the method: Mine, then alone.
EZT practice question
What does the poet mean by finding his mind 'was really mine'?
Show the worked solution
- The finding: 'Was it when I found my mind was really mine,'.
- The freedom: 'To use whichever way I choose,'.
- The proof: 'Producing thoughts that were not those of other people / But my own, and mine alone'.
Answer: The moment of independent thought: using his mind 'whichever way I choose' and producing thoughts that are 'mine alone' - the gain of individuality that also ends childhood.
Check: Really mine, whichever way, mine alone.
Watch for this: Do not read the stanza as pure gain - the poem files independence among the losses; borrowed certainty is what childhood was.
Now try it yourself
Why repeat 'mine' so many times?
Check your answer
The repetition is the experience itself - the first possession that feels wholly one's own; the stanza cannot stop saying it.
The word 'mine' is the sound of individuation.
Turn the refrain
Choose the method: When, then where.
EZT practice question
How does the refrain change in the last stanza, and what does the change do?
Show the worked solution
- Three stanzas ask: 'When did my childhood go?'.
- The last stanza asks: 'Where did my childhood go?'.
- The effect: the question shifts from time to place - and only the 'where' gets an answer.
Answer: 'When' becomes 'Where' - three stanzas fail to date the loss, so the poem changes the question, and the place question is the one it can answer.
Check: When three times, where once, only where answered.
Watch for this: Do not treat the turn as wordplay - the poem gives up on time because loss has no date; place is what remains answerable.
Now try it yourself
Why can 'where' be answered when 'when' cannot?
Check your answer
Endings blur but locations hold - the poet cannot point to a day, yet he can point to an infant's face; the poem trades chronology for geography.
The poem maps what it cannot date.
Find the forgotten place
Choose the method: Place, then face.
EZT practice question
Where does the poet finally locate his childhood?
Show the worked solution
- The place: 'It went to some forgotten place,'.
- The hiding: 'That's hidden in an infant's face,'.
- The close: 'That's all I know.' - the search ends in one image and a shrug.
Answer: 'It went to some forgotten place, / That's hidden in an infant's face, / That's all I know' - childhood survives, but only where grown-ups cannot retrieve it.
Check: Forgotten place, infant's face, all I know.
Watch for this: Do not read the ending as despair - childhood is not destroyed, only out of reach; it survives exactly where adults cannot go back for it.
Now try it yourself
Why end on 'That's all I know'?
Check your answer
The flat close refuses consolation - one true image, no philosophy; the honesty of the limit is the poem's last restraint.
The poem stops where knowing stops.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. The first candidate date?
Show answer and reason
'The day I ceased to be eleven.'
The calendar is the first suspect.
2. The map test?
Show answer and reason
Hell and Heaven 'Could not be found in Geography, / And therefore could not be.'
The world shrinks to the provable.
3. The adult gap?
Show answer and reason
'Talked of love and preached of love, / But did not act so lovingly.'
Words and deeds split.
4. Where childhood went?
Show answer and reason
'Some forgotten place, / That's hidden in an infant's face.'
Gone from the adult, present in the child.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain why 'When did my childhood go?' has no answer but 'Where did my childhood go?' has one.
- Contrast the gain and the loss in 'my mind was really mine', using 'mine alone' as your evidence.
- Explain in your own words why 'That's all I know' is a stronger close than any explanation.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote Childhood?
- Markus Natten. The Hornbill text credits him under the title and carries no biographical note, so this page stays with what the poem itself shows.
- What is Childhood about?
- The poet asks when his childhood left him - when he turned twelve, when heaven and hell failed the map test, when adults proved less loving than their talk, when his mind became his own - and answers only where it went: a forgotten place hidden in an infant's face.
- What does 'my mind was really mine' mean in the poem?
- The moment of independent thought: the poet can use his mind 'whichever way I choose' and produce thoughts that are 'mine alone' - the gain of individuality that also ends childhood.
- Where does the poet say childhood goes?
- 'It went to some forgotten place, / That's hidden in an infant's face' - childhood survives, but only where grown-ups cannot retrieve it, and 'That's all I know' closes the search.
- Where is Childhood in the Class 11 book?
- Poem 4 of Hornbill, the Class 11 English textbook (pp. 41-42 by the NCERT contents page - Reprint 2025-26 front matter, whose contents list the Reprint 2026-27 front matter matched when compared on 24 Oct 2026; page numbers can differ between printings, so check your own copy).