NCERT Solutions Class 9 English Chapter 2 the Pot Maker

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 9 · ENGLISH

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 2: The Pot Maker

NCERT Textbook — Kaveri

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

33 – 68 18 60 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 68 pages

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 9 · ENGLISH · KAVERI

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 2: The Pot Maker
Chapter 2 of Kaveri sets a story of one craft beside a poem about all of them. The Pot Maker by Temsula Ao
follows Sentila, a Naga girl whose mother refuses to teach her the family skill — and who receives it, at last,
on the very day her mother dies. Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations, by an anonymous poet, walks
through Bharat listening to carpenters, electricians, boatmen, shoemakers and cooks, and arrives at one
claim: The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Kaveri (Class 9) 33 – 68

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

18 60

MEDIUM

English

Reflect and Respond — Page 33
The Pot Maker (prose) — Temsula Ao

BEFORE YOU READ

Q1 I. Look at the pictures given below and identify the vocations. Now, list at least five
more vocations.

Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4

The four pictures printed on the chapter-opener page (page 33).

The four pictures, in order, show a basket weaver (cane and bamboo craftsperson), a potter
or pot maker, a handloom weaver and a carpenter.

Page 1 of 68

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

PICTURE WHAT YOU CAN SEE THE VOCATION

1 A woman sitting on the floor with split cane and bamboo Basket weaver (cane and
strips all around her, bending them into a round basket bamboo craftsperson)

2 A man turning a wheel and shaping a wet lump of clay, Potter / pot maker — the
with finished pots drying behind him vocation of this very chapter

3 A woman seated at a wooden handloom, passing the Weaver — the vocation Arenla
shuttle through the warp threads wanted for Sentila

4 A man leaning over a workbench, planing and smoothing Carpenter
a long plank

Five more vocations: blacksmith, goldsmith, tailor, mason, cobbler (shoemaker). You could
equally write: farmer, fisherman, barber, electrician, cook — the poem later in this chapter
names several of these.

Tip: Name the vocation from the material and the tool in the picture, not from the
person. Cane and a shaping hand mean a basket weaver; a wheel and wet clay mean
a potter; a plane and a plank mean a carpenter.

Q2 II. Work in pairs. Discuss the following questions and share your answers with your
classmates and teacher. 1. What is common among these pictures?

Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4

The four pictures printed on the chapter-opener page (page 33).

All four show people making something by hand, from a natural raw material, using
simple tools and a skill learnt over years.

Page 2 of 68

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Look at what is absent from every picture: there is no machine, no factory floor, no assembly
line. The maker is alone with the material — cane, clay, thread, wood — and the shaping is done
by the hands themselves. Three more things are common:

The skill is traditional. Each of these crafts is normally learnt at home or in a workshop, by
watching an elder — exactly the way Sentila learns pottery in this story.
Every piece is unique. No two hand-thrown pots or handwoven shawls are identical,
because the hand, not a mould, decides the shape.
Each is a livelihood as well as an art. These are not hobbies; they are how the family eats.

Q3 II. 2. We refer to such skill-based work as v__ __ a __ __ o __ s.

v __ __ a __ __ o __ s

vocations

VOCATIONS

The word has nine letters, and the four already printed — v (1st), a (4th), o (7th) and s (9th) — fit
only one word: vocations.

Why this word and not ‘jobs’: a vocation is work a person is called to and identifies
with, not merely work done for wages. The Latin root vocare means ‘to call’ — the
same root as ‘voice’. That is exactly why the poem later in this chapter can end, “The
voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.”

Page 3 of 68

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
II. 3. Mention a few differences between handmade and machine-made products.
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Q4

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a se

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aPOINT OF HANDMADE MACHINE-MADE

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DIFFERENCE

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m small ag
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amaker’s signature
Identical pieces by the thousand;
Uniqueness Every piece is slightly different;

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irregularities are the any difference counts as a defect

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Time and quantity Slow. Arenla says “It takes months to bring Fast, and produced in very large

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out a batch of pots” numbers

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spreadaover
Cost and return Costly to buy, yet the maker often earns “a Cheap per piece because the cost is

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pittance”

aglSkill involved Years of training; the skill lives in a person The skill lives in the machine; the

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operator can be trained quickly

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Materials Usually local and natural — clay, cane, Often synthetic, and brought from
cotton, wood
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Cultural value
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Carries the “tradition and history of the Carries a brand, not a community

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people”, as the elders say on page 36

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Did you know? The second story printed in this chapter, John Galsworthy’s Quality, is l
s m entirely on this difference. Mr Gessler, who makes boots by hand, loses
ebuilt
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gl everything to “dose big virms” who “get id by advertisement, nod by work”.
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as— Page 37
Check Your Understanding
a g l
The Pot Maker — Part I

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.
PART I

se m
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m .c I. Do you think pot making is easy? If yes, why? If no,
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Q1

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No, it is not easy at all — and the story proves it twice over: once through Arenla’s

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complaint, and once through Sentila’s year of failure.

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a g l Page 4 of 68

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Arenla lists the labour step by step: “The riverbank, where the grey and red clay required for
making pots is found, is sixteen kilometres from here. I need to climb down a sheer drop to the
riverbank and my back aches from carrying the heavy load uphill all the way to the village.
Pounding the stubborn clay inside bamboo cylinders to soften it, is also tedious. So many times,
I’ve dropped the mould out of sheer exhaustion and have had to start all over again.”
The difficulty is not only physical. It is also a matter of fine judgement: the pots need “a final
touch up to retain the required shape and to test the consistency”, and at the kiln “one had to
tend the fire carefully as over firing or under firing would ruin the entire batch”. Months of work
can be lost in one bad firing.
And it cannot be picked up quickly. Sentila trains under her own mother for “almost a year” and
is “unable to learn anything” — she cannot even hold the lump of dough properly.

Why Temsula Ao begins with the hardship: if pot making were easy, Sentila’s
persistence would mean nothing and the ending would be sentimental. The reader
has to feel the sixteen kilometres and the sheer drop first, so that the two matching
rows of pots at the end land as an achievement.

Q2 II. Would Sentila be able to fulfil her dream of becoming a pot maker? Explain.

Yes — and by the end of Part I the story has already planted every reason to expect it.

The wish is old and steady, not a whim. “Ever since Sentila became old enough to
accompany her mother to the fields and forests, she began to dream of becoming a pot
maker.”
She acts on it without being told to. On days she could stay at home, “Sentila approached
expert potters to learn the skill” — and kept going even when the potters “were at first
amused by the little girl’s insistence”.
She learns by watching, which is how this craft is passed on. She notices the exact things
a beginner would miss: how the left hand goes into the lump, “how deftly they rotated the
lump”, the “regular tap, tap of the spatula”.
The whole village is now on her side. The council has warned Mesoba that it is Arenla’s
“duty to teach her daughter the skill”. The one obstacle — her mother’s refusal — has been
removed by the community.

What she still lacks is not desire but teaching and confidence, and Part II supplies both through
Onula.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Tip: “Would… ? Explain.” is a prediction question. Answer yes or no in the first line,
then give evidence from what you have already read — never from the ending you
have not reached yet.

Q3 III. Do you think Mesoba and Arenla would support Sentila? Give a reason.

Yes — but for different reasons, and with different degrees of willingness.
Mesoba already supports her, and does so publicly. Summoned by the village council, he does
not blame his wife or his daughter; he shields both and then commits the family in front of the
elders: “Arenla has never said that she will not teach our daughter pot making; it is only that we
wanted her to grow stronger after her illness. You will soon see Sentila making the best pots in
the village.” That last sentence is a promise made in the open — it cannot be quietly withdrawn.
Arenla’s support, when it comes, will be reluctant. Her objection was never to her daughter; it
was to the craft itself: “it has brought no joy to me and only a pittance for my troubles.” She was
trying to spare Sentila the sheer drop and the aching back. But she is a dutiful member of the
community, and the council has reminded her that the skill “did not ‘belong’ to any individual”.
She will teach because it is her duty — which is why, in Part II, she teaches correctly but coldly,
sitting “in a corner” and watching the girl fail.

Why the distinction matters: the story separates teaching from helping someone
learn. Arenla gives instruction without warmth and it fails; Onula gives the same skill
with reassurance and it works within a single evening.

Check Your Understanding — Pages 41–42
The Pot Maker — Part II

PART II

Q1 I. Do you think Onula’s support helped Sentila? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Yes. Onula changes Sentila from a girl who cannot hold a lump of clay into one who makes
“a beautiful pot” on the very next attempt — and she does it in a single evening.
What Onula does that Arenla never did is worth listing, because each step is deliberate:

Page 6 of 68

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

She finds the real fault. Everyone else saw clumsy hands. Onula “noticed that Sentila was
too tense. As a result, the clay seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right shape.” The
problem was in the girl’s nerves, not her fingers.
She removes the fear first. “Don’t worry, little one, I shall teach you how to make a perfect
pot.” Reassurance comes before instruction.
She demonstrates, then hands the work back. She “fashioned a beautiful pot and asked
her to try again” — a model to copy, immediately followed by practice.
She corrects honestly. When Sentila sits admiring her own pot, Onula says flatly, “The
mouth of the pot is all wrong.” Praise that hides a fault would have left the fault there.
She sends her back to her mother with one thing to watch. “Watch her carefully when
she is shaping the mouth of the pot.” A single, narrow instruction — which is why the next
observation succeeds where a year of general watching had not.

The result is stated in the text: Sentila began again “with a confidence she had never felt before”.
Confidence, not technique, was the missing ingredient, and Onula supplied it.

Q2 II. Sentila observes her mother making pots. What does this tell us about her?

It tells us she is a patient, precise observer who has understood that in a craft like this,
watching is the lesson.
Notice what she picks up in that one session: “how her mother held the left hand and the
spatula, how she slackened the rhythm when fashioning the mouth of the pots and how a strip
of elongated dough was added to the mouth to make the rim.” Those are three small technical
details — a grip, a change of tempo, an added strip — that no one told her in words. She had to
see them.
Three things follow from this:

She is humble enough to be corrected. Onula told her the mouth was wrong; instead of
arguing or sulking, she went back and studied exactly that.
She is persistent. This is not her first observation — she had watched the expert potters for
years, noticing even “the regular tap, tap of the spatula”.
She respects her mother’s skill even while her mother withholds it. The resentment
never enters her watching.

Why the story insists on observation: a craft has no textbook. It is transmitted
from body to body, by eye and imitation. That is precisely why the village elders call
it a skill “handed down from generation to generation” — and why Arenla’s silence
threatened to break the chain.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 III. Arrange the following events of the story in the correct sequence. Share your
answer with your classmates and teacher. 1. The village council called Mesoba to
know about Arenla’s unwillingness to teach pottery to Sentila. 2. Arenla made a new
batch of pots and asked Sentila to continue the work as she was unwell. 3. Sentila
observed how other expert potters crafted beautiful pots. 4. Sentila was passionate
about pottery but did not share it with her mother. 5. Onula guided Sentila in the
art of pot making. 6. Sentila overheard her mother saying that pot making was a
tiring job and that she earned very little from it. 7. Onula observed two rows of pots
inside the work shed, which she felt was the work of two people. 8. Sentila learnt
the art of pot making for a year from her mother, but was unsuccessful. 9. Sentila
was able to make pots quickly and skillfully, just one less than her mother’s.

Correct sequence: 6 → 4 → 3 → 1 → 8 → 5 → 2 → 9 → 7

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
ORDER EVENT THE LINE THAT FIXES ITS PLACE

as e
compot making tiring and
.calling a g l
“she had overheard a conversation between her parents
1st 6 — She overheard her mother

a s em badly paid one night… only a pittance for my troubles”

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2nd 4 — She was passionate but kept “Sentila did not disclose her fascination with pot making

co m
. ag
it secret at home as she had overheard…” — the secrecy is the

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result of the overhearing

3 — She watched the expert g l a
3rd
potters at work
a “Sentila continued her visits to watch the potters at work.
She saw how the clay was mixed with water and
pounded…”
co m
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m l as
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4th 1 — The village council “One day, Sentila’s father, Mesoba was summoned by the

a g
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village council” — after the visits had become “a topic of

l a se village gossip”

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a 5th 8 — A year of training with her “These sessions continued for almost a year but Sentila

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was unable to learn anything from her mother.”
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mother, and no progress

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a se
6th 5 — Onula taught her at the
dormitory
a g l a beautiful pot!”

“Complaining that she had a headache and a backache,
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7th 2 — Arenla finished a batch and

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she went out telling Sentila to try and make as many pots
handed the work over, pleading
illness as she could.”
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om 9 — Sentila made pots swiftly, l a
g of her mother’s tally”
8th .c “she had made just one a
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one short of her mother’s count

9th 7 — Onula saw two rows of pots “two neat rows of newly-made pots stood side by side…
se m
in the shed
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not the handiwork of one person alone”
g l a
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ase
agl
Check it yourself: events 4 and 6 belong to the same episode, and the story narrates
the secrecy (4) before it explains the cause (6). Because the question asks for the

c om
sequence of events, the overhearing must come first — the word “as” in “as she had
.
s e m 6, it is following
overheard” makes it the cause. If your teacher’s key prints 4 before

. omorder of telling rather than the order of happening;agbelaready to justify whichever
cthe
as em order you write.
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Critical Reflection — Pages 42–45
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m ase
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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Pot Maker (prose)

EXTRACT-BASED

Q1 I. Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow. 1. Pounding
the stubborn clay inside bamboo cylinders to soften it, is also tedious. So many
times I’ve dropped the mould out of sheer exhaustion and have had to start all over
again. It takes months to bring out a batch of pots after so much labour. And the
reward? A few rupees. But if Sentila learns weaving, she can make much more
money besides providing enough cloth for the family. Weaving is not messy like pot
making and can be done indoors in all seasons. Also, the time spent on weaving one
shawl is much less and the return is handsome. (i) Choose the correct reason for the
given assertion. (A): The effort in making pots is far greater than the returns. A. The
process of pot making is quite tiresome and long, and one hardly earns much. B.
The process of pot making is exhausting, takes a long time, yet gives a sense of
satisfaction. (ii) Why does Arenla want Sentila to learn weaving? (iii) State one
advantage that weaving has over pot making, as per the extract. (iv) Choose the
sentence that uses the word ‘handsome’ in the same way as in the extract. A. My
father is a handsome man. B. They will make a handsome profit selling this
property. (v) ‘And the reward?’ What is the author’s purpose of using a question
mark here?

(i) Option A — “The process of pot making is quite tiresome and long, and one hardly earns
much.”
Test each half of A against the extract. Tiresome: “is also tedious”, “out of sheer exhaustion”.
Long: “It takes months to bring out a batch of pots”. Hardly earns much: “And the reward? A few
rupees.” All three are in the extract. Option B fails on one word: satisfaction. Nothing in the
extract offers any satisfaction — Arenla’s only comment on how the work feels is that “it has
brought no joy to me”.
(ii) Because, in Arenla’s judgement, weaving would give her daughter a better life than pottery
ever gave her. The extract gives four reasons in her own words: “she can make much more
money”; it provides “enough cloth for the family”; it “is not messy like pot making and can be
done indoors in all seasons”; and “the time spent on weaving one shawl is much less and the
return is handsome.” Underneath all four lies the real motive — she has carried clay up a sheer
drop for a pittance, and does not want her daughter’s back to ache the same way.
(iii) Weaving can be done indoors in all seasons, whereas pot making is messy and depends
on the weather — “Weaving is not messy like pot making and can be done indoors in all
seasons.” (Any one of these is equally correct, if quoted: it earns much more money; it takes far less
time per article; the return is handsome; it also clothes the family.)
(iv) Option B — “They will make a handsome profit selling this property.”

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

In the extract, “the return is handsome” means the money earned is large and generous in
amount. Sentence B uses ‘handsome’ in exactly that sense, of a profit. Sentence A uses the far
commoner sense — good-looking — which has nothing to do with money. The clue is the noun
each adjective attaches to: profit and return belong together; man does not.
(v) The question mark turns a statement into a rhetorical question, and its purpose is to make
the reader feel the disappointment instead of merely being told about it.

“It takes months to bring out a batch of pots after so much labour.” → build-up

“And the reward?” → pause; the reader is invited to expect something worth all that

“A few rupees.” → anticlimax

Three effects follow. First, it creates a short silence between the effort and the payment, so the
gap between them becomes audible. Second, it pulls the listener in — Arenla is speaking to her
husband at night, and the question makes him supply the answer in his own mind before she
gives it. Third, the flat two-word answer that follows lands as bitter irony: the word ‘reward’ has
already promised something generous, and “A few rupees” withdraws it.

Q2 I. 2. Onula saw her taking out some clay and the implements from her basket
quietly. She watched Sentila’s clumsy efforts to make a pot and noticed that Sentila
was too tense. As a result, the clay seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right
shape. When Sentila wearily let the misshapen lump fall flat on the ground, Onula
went to her and said, “Don’t worry, little one, I shall teach you how to make a
perfect pot.” Sentila watched in amazement as Onula fashioned a beautiful pot and
asked her to try again. (i) Complete the sentence with an appropriate reason. Onula
feels Sentila’s effort at making a pot is clumsy because ______________. (ii) Choose the
correct option to complete the following sentence. ‘Don’t worry, little one, I shall
teach you how to make a perfect pot.’ This shows that Onula was _____________. A.
sincere and generous B. forgiving and thoughtful C. thoughtful and generous D.
forgiving and sincere (iii) Which among the following is the effect of a cause? A. As a
result, the clay seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right shape. B. Onula saw
her taking out some clay and the implements from her basket quietly. (iv) ‘Onula
fashioned a beautiful pot.’ Here, the word ‘fashioned’ means ______________.
(created/styled) (v) How might Sentila have felt when she saw ‘the misshapen lump
fall flat on the ground’?

(i) …because Sentila is too tense, and her nervousness passes straight into her hands, so
the clay “seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right shape”.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The extract gives the reason itself, in order: Onula “noticed that Sentila was too tense. As a
result, the clay seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right shape.” The clumsiness is a
symptom, not the disease. Pot making needs a loose, rhythmic hand — Sentila is gripping.
(ii) Option C — thoughtful and generous.

WORD IN THE IS IT IN THE EVIDENCE
OPTION LINE?

thoughtful Yes “Don’t worry, little one” — she has read the girl’s distress and
speaks to that first, before saying anything about pots

generous Yes “I shall teach you” — she offers a skill freely, the very skill
Sentila’s own mother had withheld

forgiving No Sentila has done nothing wrong; there is nothing to forgive. This
word eliminates B and D at once

sincere Not shown here Onula is sincere elsewhere in the story, but this one line shows
kindness and open-handedness, not truthfulness

So the two options containing ‘forgiving’ go first, and between A and C, ‘thoughtful’ is what the
endearment and the reassurance actually demonstrate.
(iii) Option A — “As a result, the clay seemed unable or unwilling to yield the right shape.”
The phrase “As a result” is the signpost: it marks whatever follows as an effect. The cause is in
the sentence before it — “Sentila was too tense”. Option B is simply something Onula observed;
nothing in the extract makes it the outcome of anything.
(iv) ‘Fashioned’ here means created. Onula begins with a shapeless lump and brings a whole
pot into being — that is making, not decorating. ‘Styled’ would mean giving a finish or a look to
something that already exists, which is not what happens. (Fresh example: The children fashioned
a boat out of newspaper.)
(v) She would have felt defeated, ashamed and close to giving up — but also stubbornly
unwilling to stop.
The adverb the author chooses is the clue: she “wearily” let the lump fall. Not angrily, not
carelessly — wearily, the word of someone whose strength has run out. It echoes the earlier
failure with her mother, when she “hung her head in shame and frustration”. And there is
humiliation in the timing: everyone else has gone to the musical evening, and she has crept out
her clay in secret, only to fail again with nobody to blame. Yet notice she had carried the clay
and the implements to the dormitory in the first place — the despair is real, but so is the refusal
to abandon the craft.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 II. 1. Describe the process of pot making followed by expert pot makers, as
observed by Sentila.

Sentila watches the whole cycle, from the riverbank to the fired pot. In order:

1. Digging and carrying the clay. The grey and red clay is dug from a riverbank sixteen
kilometres away with a dao, loaded on to a carrying basket and hauled uphill to the village.
2. Soaking and pounding. The clay is soaked in a trough in the work shed, then stuffed into
bamboo cylinders “in the right proportion” and pounded until it becomes “malleable dough”.
Sentila sees the potters mix it “with water and pounded” it.
3. Shaping. This is the part she watches most closely: “how careful they were when they
pushed their left hand into a lump of the softened clay and how deftly they rotated the lump
as they started giving shape to the rotating clay with a spatula held in the right hand.” The
left hand supports from inside; the right hand beats and shapes from outside; the lump
turns continuously.
4. Making the mouth and rim. The potter “slackened the rhythm when fashioning the mouth
of the pots”, and “a strip of elongated dough was added to the mouth to make the rim”.
5. Touching up. “After two or three days, the pots would be given a final touch up to retain the
required shape and to test the consistency.”
6. Drying. Only then are they “taken out to dry in the sun”. This is why Arenla worries about
having “enough days of sunshine”.
7. Firing. They are “loaded on to a kiln in a uniform pattern on a bed of hay and dried bamboo
and covered with another layer of the same materials, and then the kiln would be fired”.
8. Tending the fire. “One had to tend the fire carefully as over firing or under firing would ruin
the entire batch.”

Why the last step is the tensest: everything before it can be corrected — a bad pot
can be squashed back into dough. Once the kiln is lit, months of labour depend on a
judgement about heat that cannot be undone. That single sentence is what makes
Arenla’s “It takes months to bring out a batch of pots” sound like a risk rather than a
boast.

Tip: The question says “as observed by Sentila”, so write it as a sequence of actions
she could actually see, and use the book’s own terms — dao, spatula, malleable, kiln,
consistency. Do not import words like ‘glazing’ or ‘potter’s wheel’; this village potter
shapes by hand and spatula, not on a wheel.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
II. 2. What warning was given to Mesoba by the village council?
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Q4

m l as
.co a g
a s em
a gl accepted his explanation, the elders let Mesoba go — but not without a caution. They
Having
told him to remind Arenla that it was her duty to teach her daughter the skill, and they

com ag
gave him the principle behind that duty.
.
a
The skill was one “that was handed down
s emfrom generation to generation” — so it came to
a l
Arenla as a trust, not as a privategpossession.
Skills such as pot making “not only catered to the needs of the people but also symbolised

co m
the tradition and history of the people”, and therefore “did not ‘belong’ to any individual”.

em.
Consequently, “experts were obliged to pass on their skills not only to their own children but
m l as
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also to anyone who wished to learn”.

em a
a s
galll pot makers followed suit, then there would be no expert potters to take their place.” One
Behind the warning lies a real fear, stated a few lines earlier: the villagers “were worried that if

a
woman’s refusal, repeated, would end the craft.

om a s
e
. c
m in inverted commas: Temsula Ao is marking agl
s
Why the elders put the word ‘belong’

a gla Arenla thinks of her skill as hers — she paid for it
a clash of two ideas of ownership.
with her back and her years. The council answers that a craft is community property
held in trust by whoever happens to be good at it. The whole story turns on this
co m
m .
e
argument, and the ending settles it: the skill passes on, even though the woman
m l as
.co g
who held it dies.
m a
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II. 3. How did Sentila feel when she failed at pot making even after a year of
l
Q5
training with her mother?
. a g
m
ase
ANSWER agl
She felt humiliated and defeated — “Sentila hung her head in shame and frustration”.

co m
m .
Two details sharpen that shame. First, the failure is basic: “when she tried her hand at the

o m l a se
shaping of the lump into a pot, she could not even hold the lump of dough properly” — this
g had “turned the clay into
.c a girl who had already learnt the hard preparatory workaand
m
se malleable dough” easily. Second, she has an audience. “The mother simply sat in a corner and
from

a
agl c
.
watched the girl try again and again” — and then, without a word, “took over the job, and
transformed the lump into a beautiful pot.” Each effortless pot her mother makes is a measure
s e m
of her own failure.
. com a gla
a s em because the wish is unchanged. She has wanted this since
There is frustration as well as shame,
l mother’s refusal has finally been removed, and still nothing
childhood, the obstacle ofgher
a
comes. That is why the failure lasts “almost a year” without her walking away from it.

co m
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Check it yourself: compare this moment with the evening at the dormitory, when
the lump falls and she is described as “weary”. Same girl, same clay — but this time
somebody says “Don’t worry, little one.” The difference in the two scenes is the
presence or absence of encouragement, and that is exactly the point Temsula Ao is
making about how a skill is taught.

Q6 II. 4. ‘Onula stood there for a long time as if trying to absorb a new phenomenon’.
Explain.

Onula has stepped into the work shed on the morning Arenla’s body is being carried out, and
has found “two neat rows of newly-made pots… She could find nothing to tell one batch
from the other.” The sentence records the moment she understands what that means — and
understanding takes time, which is why she stands still.
Work out what she is seeing:

Two batches, made on the same day, indistinguishable. “She was sure that it was not the
handiwork of one person alone.”
One batch is Arenla’s — a master of thirty years. The other must be Sentila’s, the girl who a
year ago “could not even hold the lump of dough properly”.
Onula alone knows how to read this, because she alone had heard Sentila cry, “Mother, I did
not wish it to happen this way; it simply came to me.” The others “did not understand what
she meant”.

So the ‘new phenomenon’ is not the pots. It is the fact that a skill has passed whole from one
person to another at the very moment the first person died — that the mother’s dexterity did
not go into the grave with her. The word ‘absorb’ is exact: this is too large to grasp at a glance,
like news that has to be taken in slowly. That is why the narrator calls the shed “this place of
wonder” and says she “believed that she had just witnessed a profound revelation”.

Why Temsula Ao needs Onula here at all: the story requires a witness who can
interpret. Sentila cannot explain what happened to her, and Arenla is dead. Onula
stands in for the reader — she looks at two rows of pots, works out what they prove,
and lets the story end on a single line of announcement instead of an explanation.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q7 II. 5. ‘The tradition and history of the people did not belong to any individual,’ what
does this symbolise?

It symbolises the idea that a traditional craft is the collective memory of a community, held
in trust by the person who practises it — never owned by them.
The council spells out the reasoning: skills such as pot making “not only catered to the needs of
the people but also symbolised the tradition and history of the people”. A pot is therefore two
things at once. As an object it holds water; as an inheritance it holds the community’s history —
its shapes, its clay, its way of doing things, unchanged across generations that left no written
record. Break the chain of teaching and that history is simply gone; there are no books to
recover it from.
Three consequences follow, and the story shows each one:

The expert is a custodian, not a proprietor. Hence: “experts were obliged to pass on their
skills not only to their own children but also to anyone who wished to learn.”
Refusing to teach is a public matter, not a private one. That is why a family disagreement
ends up before the village council at all.
The individual is temporary; the craft is not. Arenla dies on the last day of the story. The
craft does not — “A new pot maker was born.”

Did you know? The poem printed later in this chapter states the same idea from the
other side: “each celebrating what belongs to them and to none else”. The poem
honours what is personal in a vocation; the story insists that the skill itself is shared.
Read together, the two pieces argue that a craft gives you an identity precisely
because it was given to you by others.

Q8 II. 6. What is the significance of the concluding line of the story, ‘A new pot maker
was born’?

It is a birth announcement placed immediately after a death — and that placing is the
whole meaning of the story.
Take the line apart:

‘Born’, not ‘made’ or ‘trained’. Birth is something that happens to you; it comes from
outside. This matches Sentila’s own bewildered words: “I did not wish it to happen this way; it
simply came to me.” She did not seize the skill; she received it.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

‘A new pot maker’ — the community’s answer to its own fear. The villagers had worried
that “there would be no expert potters to take their place.” One short sentence closes that
worry.
The tense and the placing. Arenla lies dead; the last thing the reader is told is not that a
woman has died but that a potter has come into being. The tradition survives the person,
exactly as the elders had argued it must.

Why it is a separate one-line paragraph. Temsula Ao gives it no explanation and no adjectives.
It reads like a formal proclamation to the village, and its bareness makes the claim final. Any
sentence after it would weaken it.

The proof came first. Notice that the announcement is earned before it is made: the
two indistinguishable rows of pots are the evidence, and Onula is the witness. A
weaker story would have told us Sentila had become a great potter; this one shows
two rows nobody can tell apart, and then says one line.

Q9 II. 7. What is the role of perseverance in pursuing one’s dreams? Elaborate with
reference to Sentila.

Perseverance is what keeps a dream alive through the long stretch in which there is no
evidence that it will ever work — and Sentila’s story is almost entirely made of that
stretch.
Count what she absorbs without stopping:

THE SETBACK WHAT SHE DOES NEXT

The expert potters laugh at her — “amused by the little girl’s Keeps returning: “Sentila continued her visits to
insistence”, sure she would “outgrow her childish passion” watch the potters at work”

Her mother refuses to teach her, and she cannot even say she Learns in secret, timing her return so “when her
is interested mother came back from the fields, she would be
there”

Almost a year of lessons and nothing learnt; her mother Does not quit — she carries clay and implements to
silently finishes each pot for her the dormitory and practises alone

Onula tells her the pot she is proud of is wrong: “The mouth Accepts the correction and goes back to observe that
of the pot is all wrong” one detail during the next session

Two things are worth noticing about how the story defines perseverance, because they are what
lift it above “never give up”.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Perseverance here is patient, not loud. Sentila never argues with her mother and never
demands to be taught. Her persistence takes the form of attention — years of watching
hands, rhythms and rims.
Perseverance needed help to pay off. A year of trying alone produced nothing; one
evening with Onula produced a pot. Effort put her in a position to be helped; it did not
replace the help. That is an honest lesson, and the story is careful about it.

The reward, when it comes, is sudden and total: “like a sprinter who had suddenly found
momentum, she continued making pot after pot with the same speed and dexterity that she
had noticed in her mother’s hands.” The simile matters — a sprinter’s speed looks instant, but it
rests on years of running.

Vocabulary and Structures in Context — Pages 45–48

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as e
Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Pot Maker (prose)
co m
em.
m as
VOCABULARY GRAMMAR

.co a g l
s m the highlighted words in the following sentences from the text. 1. She
eRead
gl aI.
a
Q1
taught Sentila how to dig the clay with dao, load it on to her carrying basket… 2.
Sentila was a quick learner and turned the clay into malleable dough. Pounding the

. com
stubborn clay inside bamboo cylinders to soften it … The highlighted words
ag
a s em in the process of pot making. Now,
describe the tools and materials required

a gl in the box as shown in the table below. One
classify the words/phrases given
example for each category has been done for you.

co m
em.
m l as
.co
dao dough pounding bamboo clay
a g
a s em kiln spatula basket cylinders rotating

ag l bed of hay shaping

m a s
TOOLS/IMPLEMENTS
m .co RAW MATERIALS PROCESS
agl
l a se
dao
a g dough pounding

co m
m .
m ase
.co a g l
se m
g l a
a The word box and the classification table as printed on page 45; one example is already

m
filled in for each column.

a se
.com a g l
m
ase
agl

com
TOOLS/IMPLEMENTS RAW MATERIALS PROCESS

.
m (given)
com ase
agl
dao (given) dough (given) pounding

e m.spatula
las
clay rotating

ag c
basket bamboo shaping
m .
m a s e
. co agl
cylinders bed of hay kiln (the firing stage)

e m
g l as
a
How each one was decided, from the text:

co m
m .
m as e
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

spatula — “a spatula held in the right hand”; the book itself glosses it as a “tool used by a
potter to shape a pot”.
basket — “load it on to her carrying basket”: it carries the dug clay, so it is an implement, not
a material.
cylinders — “Pounding the stubborn clay inside bamboo cylinders”: the cylinder is the
container the pounding is done in.
clay and dough — the substance the pot is made of, before and after pounding.
bamboo and bed of hay — “on a bed of hay and dried bamboo”: fuel and packing for the
kiln, so raw materials.
rotating and shaping — both name actions: “they rotated the lump… giving shape to the
rotating clay”.

The one debatable word is ‘kiln’. There are twelve words and twelve cells, four to a
column. ‘Kiln’ is the only word left over, and it fits Process best if you read it as the
firing stage — “then the kiln would be fired… over firing or under firing would ruin
the entire batch.” If your teacher places the kiln under Tools/Implements (it is a
structure the potter uses), that column will hold five words and Process only three.
Either grouping is acceptable so long as you can justify it from the text.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 II. Notice the use of the following words in the text. pittance rupees reward return
These words relate to livelihood and economic aspects that are crucial for any
enterprise/business/vocation. Work in pairs and find the meanings of the following
words related to economy. You may refer to a dictionary. bankrupt credit currency
debt fiscal inflation investment interest Now, frame sentences using each word.

WORD MEANING SENTENCE

bankrupt declared by a court to be unable to pay The mill went bankrupt after two seasons
what one owes without orders.

credit money lent, or the arrangement of buying The potter buys his firewood on credit and
now and paying later settles the bill after the sale.

currency the money in use in a particular country The rupee is the currency of India, Nepal and
Sri Lanka alike, though each is different.

debt a sum of money that one owes She cleared the last of her debt with the money
from the shawl she wove.

fiscal connected with government money — Our fiscal year runs from April to March.
revenue, taxes and public spending

inflation a general rise in prices, so that money Inflation had doubled the cost of clay by the time
buys less than before the pots were sold.

investment money or effort put into something in Buying a new loom was the biggest investment
order to earn a return later the family had ever made.

interest the extra money paid for the use of The bank charges nine per cent interest on a
borrowed money small-business loan.

Why the chapter teaches these words here: Arenla’s whole argument is an
economic one. She weighs the input (sixteen kilometres, months of labour) against
the return (“a few rupees”), and concludes that the craft does not pay. In the
language of these words: her investment is large and her return is a pittance. Notice
that ‘return’ and ‘reward’ mean almost the same thing in her speech, but ‘reward’
carries a promise of fairness — which is exactly why the question mark after it
stings.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 III. Read the following sentences from the text. The main clause has been
underlined and the subordinate clause has been circled. • … she realised that the
pot was ready. • She intuitively sensed that something momentous had happened.
Subordinate clauses that act like nouns and perform the same functions as subject
or object are called noun clauses. 1. Complete the following sentences with suitable
noun clauses. (i) The elders emphasised that ______________________. (ii) Mesoba
explained why ______________________. (iii) Onula’s promise was that ______________________.
(iv) Sentila observed her mother carefully when she was shaping the mouth of the
pot, which ______________________. (v) The kiln, where ______________________, required
careful attention to prevent over-or-under firing.

Model completions (many wordings are possible; what must not change is the kind of clause
each blank needs):

(i) The elders emphasised that a skill handed down from generation to generation did
not belong to any individual. Noun clause, object of ‘emphasised’.
(ii) Mesoba explained why Arenla had not yet begun teaching their daughter pot
making. Noun clause, object of ‘explained’.
(iii) Onula’s promise was that she would teach Sentila how to make a perfect pot. Noun
clause, subject complement after ‘was’.
(iv) …which helped her see how the rim was formed. Relative (adjectival) clause describing
the act of observing.
(v) The kiln, where the pots were stacked on a bed of hay and dried bamboo and then
fired, required careful attention… Relative clause describing ‘the kiln’.

How to test whether your clause is really a noun clause: replace the whole clause
with the word ‘something’. “The elders emphasised something” still works, so the
clause is doing a noun’s job. Try it on (v): “The kiln, something, required careful
attention” — it collapses, because that clause is describing the kiln, not naming a
thing. So (iv) and (v) are in fact relative clauses, even though they are printed under
the noun-clause exercise. Recognising the difference is the real skill being tested; the
book returns to relative clauses in the very next item.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q4 III. 2. Read the following sentences from the text. Underline the main clause and
circle the subordinate clause. (i) Arenla took Sentila to the riverbank where the grey
and red clay was found. (ii) She started on the next one, and like a sprinter who had
suddenly found momentum... (iii) … skills such as pot making, which not only
catered to the needs of the people...

NO. MAIN CLAUSE (UNDERLINE) SUBORDINATE CLAUSE TYPE
(CIRCLE)

(i) Arenla took Sentila to the riverbank where the grey and red clay was Relative clause
found describing riverbank

(ii) She started on the next one who had suddenly found Relative clause
momentum describing a sprinter

(iii) skills such as pot making … [did not which not only catered to the Relative clause
‘belong’ to any individual] needs of the people describing skills

Two things to be careful about. In (ii), “like a sprinter” is only a phrase — it has no verb of its
own, so it cannot be the subordinate clause; the clause is the part beginning with who. In (iii) the
book quotes a fragment: the main clause finishes further along in the original sentence (“…did
not ‘belong’ to any individual”), so you have to look back at page 36 to complete it.

Tip: Find the relative pronoun first — who, which, whose, that, where, when. The clause
it introduces is the subordinate one; whatever is left standing on its own is the main
clause. A main clause must make complete sense by itself: “Arenla took Sentila to the
riverbank” does; “where the grey and red clay was found” does not.

Q5 III. 3. Complete the following sentences with suitable relative clauses. (i) Sentila,
whose ______________, practised the craft diligently. (ii) The village council, where
____________, sought an explanation for Arenla’s reluctance. (iii) The potter’s hands,
which _____________, shaped the clay into beautiful creations. (iv) Arenla, her mother,
wanted her to learn weaving, which ______________________. (v) Mesoba went home and
discussed the matter with Arenla, who _____________.

(i) Sentila, whose dream had been to become a pot maker like her mother and
grandmother, practised the craft diligently.

Page 23 of 68

as e
Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

(ii) The village council, where the elders of the village met to settle such matters, sought
co m
an explanation for Arenla’s reluctance.
se m.
o m g l a
.c clay into beautiful creations.
(iii) The potter’s hands, which moved with practised dexterity over the turning lump,
shapedm a
se
the
l a
ag
(iv) Arenla, her mother, wanted her to learn weaving, which brought a handsome return
and could be done indoors in all seasons.

co m
(v) Mesoba went home and discussed the matter with Arenla, who had so far refused to
teach their daughter the family skill.
em . ag
g l as
a
Choose the relative pronoun by what it points back to: whose for possession

m
(Sentila’s dream), where for a place (the council), which for a thing or an idea (hands,
co
m.
weaving), who for a person (Arenla). Note that in (iv) ‘which’ refers to the whole idea

as e
om l
of weaving, not to a single noun — that is a perfectly correct use, and a useful one in
longer.csentences. a g
a s em
a gl
Check it yourself: a relative clause set between commas can be lifted out and the

om a s
c agl
sentence must still stand. “Sentila practised the craft diligently” — it stands. If
m .
s e
removing your clause breaks the sentence,
a
you have written something else.

agl

co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
se m
g l a
a
se m
com g l a
m . a
ase
agl

co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
se m
g l a
a c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

co m
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q6 III. 4. Read the highlighted words in the following lines from the text. • Onula saw
her taking out some clay… • … make as many pots as they could. • … did not belong
to any individual. • Slowly she walked away from this place of wonder. • … they
would not have enough days of sunshine … The highlighted words are determiners.
Determiners are words that come before nouns and specify something about their
quantity, definiteness, or ownership. Here is a list of the most frequently used
determiners — • a, an, the (Articles) • this, that, these, those (Demonstratives) • my,
our, your, his, her, its, their, one’s (Possessives) • one, two, three, etc. (Definite
numerals) • some, any, no, all, both, much, many, few, less, several, little (Indefinite
numerals) • each, every, either, neither (Distributives) (i) Find out some more
determiners from the text.

TYPE DETERMINER WHERE IT APPEARS IN ‘THE POT MAKER’

Article the, a “the riverbank”, “a shapeless lump”

Possessive her, my, his, their, our “her carrying basket”; “my back aches”; “his daughter’s
visits”; “their left hand”; “our daughter”

Demonstrative this, those, that “this place of wonder”; “Those who heard her”; “that
batch”

Definite sixteen, one, two, three “sixteen kilometres from here”; “two or three days”;
numeral “one night”

Indefinite many, few, all, much, no, “So many times”; “A few rupees”; “all pot makers”;
numeral another, several “much more money”; “no expert potters”; “another
layer”

Distributive every, each “in every possible way”; “each one” (poem)

Tip: A determiner always has a noun somewhere after it. That is how you tell the
determiner ‘this’ in “this place of wonder” from the pronoun ‘this’ in “this is
wonderful”. Test any word you are unsure of by asking: this what? If there is an
answer, it is a determiner.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q7 III. 4. (ii) Fill in the banks with suitable determiners. The first two blanks have been
done for you. A. The florist arranged five bouquets for her clients, that were
displayed in ____________ elegant floral shop. B. The carpenter crafted ____________
unique tables, and _____________________ became the centrepiece in ____________________
furniture collection. C. ____________ of ____________ apprentices in ____________ culinary
class demonstrated ____________ knife skills during the intense cooking session. D.
____________ of ____________ sculptures were displayed at _______________ art exhibition,
showcasing ___________ diverse artistic skills.

(‘The first two blanks have been done for you’ refers to five and her already printed in sentence
A — a definite numeral and a possessive.)

COMPLETED SENTENCE DETERMINERS USED

A The florist arranged five bouquets for her clients, that were possessive
displayed in her elegant floral shop.

B The carpenter crafted several unique tables, and each became indefinite numeral, distributive,
the centrepiece in his furniture collection. possessive

C Each of the apprentices in that culinary class demonstrated their distributive, article, demonstrative,
knife skills during the intense cooking session. possessive

D All of these sculptures were displayed at the art exhibition, indefinite numeral, demonstrative,
showcasing their diverse artistic skills. article, possessive

Two rules that decide these blanks:
1. ‘…of…’ needs a definite noun after it. You may say “each of the apprentices” or
“all of these sculptures”, but never “each of apprentices”. The second blank in C and
D must therefore be an article, a demonstrative or a possessive.
2. Make the verb agree. In D the verb is “were displayed”, so the subject must be
plural — all, many, some, both will fit; each or every will not, since they take a singular
verb. In B the verb is “became” (singular), which is why each works there.

Other correct answers: B could take two … both … his; C could take Every … the … the
… their; D could take Many … his … an … his. Mark yourself right if your determiner
belongs to a listed type, fits the meaning, and agrees with the verb.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Listen and Respond — Pages 48–49 (Transcript for teacher, Appendix page
261)
The Pot Maker (prose)

LISTENING

Q1 I. You will listen to a man speak about stone statues. As you listen, complete the
given paragraph by filling in the blanks with the exact words you listen to.
(Transcript for teacher on page 261) A statue is carved to create a shape that is 1.
_________. Among the many things stone is used for making stone 2. _____________ is one
of them. India has some of the most 3. _____________ stone sculptures, as is obvious
from its many stone monuments across the country.

BLANK EXACT WORDS THE LINE IN THE TRANSCRIPT (APPENDIX, PAGE 261)

1 visually interesting “it is a statue made with stone, usually by carving or assembling,
three-dimensional to form a visually interesting three-dimensional shape”

2 sculptures “Nowadays, it is mostly used for making stone sculptures.”

3 fascinating and “some of the most fascinating and mesmerising evidence of stone
mesmerising sculptures can be found only in India”

Tip for a gap-fill listening task: read the paragraph before the audio starts and
decide what part of speech each blank needs. Blank 1 follows “a shape that is”, so it
wants adjectives; blank 2 follows “making stone”, so it wants a plural noun; blank 3
follows “some of the most”, so it wants adjectives again. Knowing the shape of the
answer means you only have to catch two or three words, not the whole sentence.

Q2 II. You will now listen to the man speaking about some steps involved in making
stone statues. As you listen, select the six correct steps out of the nine given.
(Transcript for teacher on page 261) 1. carve to remove large unwanted portions of
the stone 2. set up the different tools 3. measure the weight and dimensions of the
statue 4. leave the statue in water to firm up overnight 5. refine the creation within
the stone 6. choose the stone 7. begin carving from the centre 8. detach the
creation from the stone as the final statue 9. work to bring out the imagined shape

The six correct steps, in the order the speaker gives them: 6 → 3 → 1 → 9 → 5 → 8.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

ORDER STEP WHAT THE SPEAKER ACTUALLY SAYS (PAGE 261)

1st 6. choose the stone “it all begins with choosing the stone”

2nd 3. measure the weight “a sculptor chooses a stone according to the needful weight and
and dimensions of the dimensions of the statue”
statue

3rd 1. carve to remove large “he/she begins by removing large unwanted portions of the
unwanted portions of the stone”
stone

4th 9. work to bring out the “the craft of bringing out the imagined shape from the block of
imagined shape stone begins”

5th 5. refine the creation “the fully dimensional form is created for the first time in the
within the stone stone itself as the sculptor removes material, sketches on the
block of stone, and develops the work along the way”

6th 8. detach the creation “The statue is then detached from the block of stone and the
from the stone as the sculptor refines it with finishing touches”
final statue

The three that are not steps:

4. leave the statue in water to firm up overnight — water is never mentioned. This is a
distractor borrowed from clay work, not stone.
7. begin carving from the centre — the speaker says the sculptor begins by removing large
unwanted portions, that is, from the outside inwards. The opposite of what this option claims.
2. set up the different tools — the tempting one. The transcript does mention tools:
“Different tools are used to do this.” But that is a remark about how the shaping is done, not
a separate stage of the process, and ‘set up’ is never said. Listen for what is presented as a
step in the sequence, not merely for a word you recognise.

Why this task is really a comprehension task: in a “select six out of nine” item the
wrong options are usually built from words that do occur in the audio, rearranged
into a claim that does not. Option 7 flips a direction; option 2 promotes a passing
detail into a step. Match the whole statement, not the keyword.

Speaking Activity — Pages 49–50

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Pot Maker (prose)
co m
e m.
m as
SPEAKING

.co a g l
a s em in pairs and choose two characters from the story—Sentila and one other
gl
Work
a
Q1
character [Arenla, Mesoba, Onula, or a village elder]. • Prepare to speak from the
chosen character’s perspective based on information from the story and the

. com
understanding of the intentions of the characters. • Prepare a role-play between
ag
m conversation between the characters should
Sentila and the chosen character.eThe
s
l a
cover the following points: –gSentila’s
a desire to learn pot making – the challenges
she faces – the advice or perspective the other character offers • Students can use

co
direct quotes from the story and creatively expand on the characters’ thoughts and
m
em.
feelings. You may use the following sentence prompts. • I feel/felt __________

om
cfeel/think g l as
because... • I wish/wished __________ because... • When you said/did __________, it made

m . a
e
me __________ because...

la s
agANSWER
m a s
.co agl
Method. A role-play is judged on whether the two voices are different, and whether each is

em
anchored in the text.
a s
a
1. Choose your partner charactergl for the friction it creates. Arenla gives you a clash of love
and fear; Onula gives you encouragement; Mesoba gives you a father caught between wife
and council; an elder gives you the community’s claim on the craft.
co m
m .
se
2. Collect three quotations before you write a line of dialogue. One for the desire, one for

o m l a
g but has learnt to hide
.c each speaker a distinct manner. Sentila is young and eager
the obstacle, one for the advice. Quotations keep the role-play from drifting into invention.
3. m
e a
las things. Arenla is blunt and tired. Onula is gentle and practical. Mesoba is “humble in tone”, as
Give

ag the story says.

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4. Use the sentence prompts to reach feelings, not facts. “When you said…, it made me
o
feel…” is what turns a summary into.ca conversation.
a g
m
se — desire, challenges, advice — and end on a decision or a
l a
5. Cover all three required points
ag has a shape.
change of mind, so the scene

m
What a good performance must contain: at least two direct quotations from the story; one
. co
m
clear disagreement; both characters’ reasons made visible (never make the opposing character

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simply wrong); natural turn-taking of five to seven exchanges; and audible, clear delivery.
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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer: (Sentila and Arenla, in the work shed, the evening after the village
council has spoken to Mesoba.)

Sentila: Mother, may I sit here while you work? I will not touch anything.
Arenla: You have been sitting in other people’s sheds for two years. Did you think I
did not know?
Sentila: I felt afraid to tell you, because I had heard you say that pot making “has
brought no joy to me and only a pittance for my troubles”. I did not want to bring
that up in the house.
Arenla: Then you also heard about the sixteen kilometres, and the sheer drop, and
my back. I wished you would take up weaving, because it can be done indoors in all
seasons and the return is handsome. A mother is allowed to want an easier life for
her daughter.
Sentila: I know. But when I watch the potters, the tap, tap of the spatula is music to
my ears. I do not want an easier life. I want this one.
Arenla: The elders have said the skill was handed down from generation to
generation and does not belong to me. Perhaps they are right, and I have been
holding on to something that was never mine to keep.
Sentila: When you said that just now, it made me think you were not refusing me at
all — you were protecting me.
Arenla: Come to the riverbank tomorrow. Bring the basket. And be ready before the
sun is up — the clay does not wait for anybody.

Writing Task — Pages 50–51

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Pot Maker (prose)

WRITING

Q1 Reflective Writing – Identifying Skills and Passion Reflective writing encourages
introspection and thoughtful exploration of personal experiences, skills, and
aspirations. It helps individuals gain deeper insights into themselves and their
goals through structured reflection. I. Follow the steps given below to create a
write-up about your skills and passions. • Step 1: Introduction — Reflect on your
passions and the skills you currently possess or are developing. Consider why these
activities or interests are meaningful and enjoyable to you. • Step 2: Describing
skills — Describe specific activities or practices you engage in to nurture your skills.
This could include hobbies, classes (art, music, coding, etc.), workshops, or personal
projects. • Step 3: Passion into profession — Identify which of these skills you
believe have the potential to turn your passion into a profession. Explain why you
think these skills are crucial or advantageous in your chosen field. • Step 4:
Examples and reflection — Provide examples or anecdotes that illustrate how your
skills and passions complement each other. Reflect on how these experiences have
shaped your career aspirations and personal growth. • Step 5: Conclusion —
Summarise your reflections. Discuss any insights gained about yourself, your skills,
and your career ambitions through this exercise.

Method. This is your own write-up, so no one can give you the content — but the shape is fixed
by the five steps, and the marks lie in the shape.

Write one paragraph per step, in order. Five short paragraphs, roughly 150–200 words in
all.
Be specific, not general. “I like art” says nothing. “I have filled three sketchbooks with
studies of hands, because hands are the hardest thing to draw” says a great deal.
Use the first person and the past tense for incidents, present tense for what you are
still doing.
Reflective writing means saying what you learnt about yourself, not only what you did.
Every paragraph should contain at least one sentence beginning “I realised…”, “What
surprised me was…”, “This showed me…”.
Be honest about difficulty. A reflection that admits a failure is stronger than one that lists
achievements — which is exactly why Sentila’s year of failure is the most useful part of her
story.

What a good answer must contain: a named passion; at least two concrete practices that
develop it; one skill identified as employable, with a reason; one real anecdote; and a closing
insight that was not obvious at the start.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer:

Introduction. The thing I look forward to all week is Thursday, when our school’s
pottery club opens the wheel room. I did not choose it; I wandered in to wait for a
friend and stayed for two hours. What draws me is that clay answers back — if my
hand is tense, the pot tells me immediately.

Describing my skills. I practise for two hours every Thursday and again at home
with a small hand-wedged batch. I keep a notebook of what went wrong with each
pot. Last summer I attended a four-day terracotta workshop at the district craft mela
and learnt to burnish a surface with a smooth stone.

Passion into profession. Two skills seem employable to me: patience with
repetition, and an eye for proportion. Ceramics and product design both need
someone who can make the same shape forty times and still see the forty-first
clearly. I am also learning to sketch a design before I make it, because a designer
must be able to explain an idea before it exists.

Examples and reflection. My first twenty pots collapsed. I wanted to stop, and I
remember telling my teacher that my hands were simply wrong. She said what
Onula says in our chapter — that I was too tense. When I stopped gripping, the
twenty-first pot stood. That week taught me more about myself than about clay: I
had been treating failure as a verdict rather than as information.

Conclusion. This exercise has shown me that my passion is not ‘art’ in general but
the slow, physical business of making something by hand, and that my real strength
is persistence rather than natural talent. I intend to keep the Thursday habit, build a
portfolio of thirty pieces by Class 11, and look seriously at a design course after
school.

Learning Beyond the Text — Pages 51–56

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The Pot Maker (prose)

PROJECT

Q1 I. Pottery is practised in many parts of our country and each region has its unique
style. Find out about the different styles of indigenous pottery of your region and
other regions of our country. Some notable styles include: • Khurja pottery from
Uttar Pradesh • Blue pottery from Jaipur • Terracotta from West Bengal • Andretta
pottery from Himachal Pradesh • Karigari pottery from Tamil Nadu • Longpi Black
pottery from Manipur 1. Match the pictures with the pottery it represents.

1 (top left) 2 (top middle)
A crowded roadside stall packed Against an orange brick wall, a
with brightly glazed ceramic ware group of deep cobalt-blue vessels:
— tall white and blue jars and two tall long-necked vases, a large
vases covered in fine patterns, and, decorated plate, round bowls and a
spread across the front, stacks of squat lidded pot, all painted with
small bowls, cups, plates and lids in white, yellow and pale-blue floral
red, green, yellow, pink and blue. motifs.

3 (top right) 4 (bottom left)
Rows of tall unglazed reddish- Studio ware on indoor shelves: a
brown baked-clay figures standing large round platter glazed a rich
outdoors against a building — blue with a spiral pattern standing
horses with raised heads, upright, deep blue bowls, brown
elephants, standing human figures bowls ringed with pale bands, and
and slender votive columns, with a dark tall jar behind.
no glaze or paint at all.

5 (bottom middle) 6 (bottom right)
An enormous open-air heap of A ground display of matte black
small unglazed red-clay pots, water stoneware: cooking pots with lids
pots and lamps — thousands of and cane handles, tall mugs and
them spread over the ground in beakers, kettles, bowls and a wide
front of a shed. shallow pan, all a dark charcoal
grey.

The six pictures printed with this question on page 51 — they are photographs,
described here; see the textbook for the pictures themselves.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
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co m
m.
PICTURE WHAT YOU CAN SEE ON THE PAGE THE POTTERY

A crowded shop display of brightly glazed ceramic ware — vases, las
m e
1 (top left)
o
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Khurja pottery,

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2 (top middle) Deep cobalt-blue vases and plates with white and yellow floral Blue pottery, Jaipur

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motifs, against an orange brick wall

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3 (top right)
and human figurinesa—
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Rows of unglazed reddish-brown figures — horses, elephants Terracotta, West
Bengal

4 (bottom A few large studio pieces on a shelf: a blue plate with a spiral
co m
Andretta pottery,

m.
se Karigari pottery,
left) pattern, and glazed bowls in blue and earth colours Himachal Pradesh

o m l a
5 (bottom
m .c An open yard covered with hundreds of small red clay pots
ag
laid

l a se
middle) out to dry Tamil Nadu

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a 6 (bottom Matte black and grey vessels, kettles and cooking pots, one with Longpi Black

a s
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a cane handle

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right) pottery, Manipur

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ase
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The clue in each case — this is what the matching is really testing:

Khurja: many colours at once, thick glaze, mass-produced crockery shapes. Khurja is called

m
the ‘ceramic city’ of India.

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m
Blue pottery: one dominant colour. It is made from a quartz-and-glass paste rather than

m
ordinary clay, and is fired at a low temperature.
o l a se
.c g are the famous
no glaze anywhere — plain fired earth. The horseashapes
m
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Terracotta:

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made forms rather than a market stall.
se m
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.
Karigari: a Tamil Nadu tradition; the photograph shows the scale of an ordinary working
m a
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pottery — hundreds of red clay pots drying in the sun, exactly the stage described in our
story.
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Longpi: unmistakable. It is made in Manipur from black serpentinite rock ground with
weathered clay, shaped without a wheel, and finished with a cane weave.
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Check it yourself: pictures 2, 3 and 6 can be named with certainty from a single

s e m feature — one colour, no glaze, black stone-clay. Pictures 1, 4 and 5 are best settled
agla by elimination and by scale: a packed market stall (Khurja), a handful of studio pieces
.c
(Andretta), a drying yard (Karigari). For the research half of the question, add the
s e m
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local pottery of your own district, with the name of the clay, the shapes made and
m .
the nearest craft market.
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Q2 II. You must have read stories in English and in your own language about the value
of handicrafts and art. Read the story ‘Quality’ by John Galsworthy. Write its review
and make a presentation highlighting the decline of traditional crafts and skills vs.
industrialisation and mass-produced goods. (‘Quality’, in an abridged version, is
printed on pages 52–56 of the book.)

Method for the review. A review is not a summary. Give it four parts: (1) what the story is and
who wrote it; (2) the plot in three or four sentences, without the ending spoiled beyond the
point the theme needs; (3) how it is written — narrator, character, symbols, dialect; (4) your
judgement, with a reason and a recommendation. Two hundred and fifty words is plenty.
What your review must contain: the author and the central character named; at least two
quotations; a comment on Gessler’s broken English, which Galsworthy spells out on the page
(“Id is an ardt!”); and a link to the chapter’s theme of craft against mass production.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer — a review of ‘Quality’ by John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy’s ‘Quality’ is a short, quiet story about a German bootmaker in
London, Mr Gessler, told by a customer who has known him since childhood. Almost
nothing happens in it, and that is the point.

Gessler makes boots to order, one pair at a time, out of the best leather he can buy.
He does not advertise, keeps no assistants and will let nobody else touch his work.
The narrator visits him over many years and notices, slowly, that the shop is
emptying — the elder brother dies, the sign disappears, and at last the old man
himself is gone. The young Englishman who has taken over the shop explains it
without malice: “poor old man starved himself… People won’t wait. He lost
everybody… But look at the competition! He never advertised!”

The strength of the story is in its details. Galsworthy makes us hear Gessler before
we understand him — “Id is an ardt!”, “What a beaudiful biece!” — and the accent,
which could have been comic, becomes moving, because it belongs to a man who is
completely certain about one thing in a world that has stopped caring about it.
Entering the shop is “as one enters a church”; the boots have “some essence of the
boot stitched into them”. The narrator’s guilt when he arrives once in factory-made
boots — “Dose are nod my boods” — is the moral centre of the story.

Read beside ‘The Pot Maker’, ‘Quality’ is the darker half of the same argument.
Temsula Ao shows a craft surviving because a community insists that it must be
passed on. Galsworthy shows one dying because nobody insisted. Both stories agree
that the maker and the making cannot be separated: Sentila becomes a pot maker,
and Gessler is his boots. I would recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered
why handmade things cost more — and it is worth reading twice, because the
second time the narrator’s long absences read as neglect.

For the presentation (six to eight slides): 1. the question — why do traditional crafts decline? 2.
what mass production offers: speed, low price, uniformity, advertising. 3. what craft offers:
individuality, repairability, local materials, livelihoods, cultural memory. 4. Gessler’s own
explanation — “Dey get id by advertisement, nod by work.” 5. an Indian example from your own
district, with numbers if you can find them. 6. what is being done — GI tags, craft melas, e-
commerce for artisans, cooperatives. 7. what students can do. Close on the sentence the
customer repeats at the end: “he made good boots.”

Reflect and Respond — Page 57

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem) — Anonymous

BEFORE YOU READ

Q1 I. Given below are four riddles. Read and identify who these people are. 1. In
furrows deep, secrets I sow, As time passes, I watch them grow. Who am I?
________________ 2. From wheel to kiln, my skill is born, Step by step, an art takes form.
Who am I? ________________ 3. I lay foundations, brick by brick, To build a house, it’s me
you pick. Who am I? ________________ 4. I work with pots, pans, and spice, Creating
dishes that taste so nice. Who am I? ________________

NO. ANSWER THE WORDS THAT GIVE IT AWAY

1 A farmer “furrows” are the long grooves a plough cuts in a field; “sow” and “watch
them grow” complete the season

2 A potter / pot “From wheel to kiln” names the two pieces of equipment no other trade uses
maker together; “step by step, an art takes form” describes the very process Sentila
watched

3 A mason “lay foundations, brick by brick” — the mason is also one of the workers the
(bricklayer) poem itself names

4 A cook / chef “pots, pans, and spice… dishes” — and the poem speaks of “the delicious
singing of the cook”

Why riddles are used to open a poem about work: a riddle describes a person
only through what they handle and what they make — a furrow, a wheel, a brick, a
spice box. That is precisely the method of the poem you are about to read, which
never gives a worker a name, only a craft. By the time you reach the poem you have
already been taught to recognise a person by their vocation.

Q2 II. What is the role and relevance of the people you identified in the riddles. How do
they contribute to the society? Discuss with your classmates and teacher.

All four meet a basic human need — food, storage, shelter and nourishment — and
between them they cover almost everything a village or a town cannot do without.

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VOCATION ROLE WHY SOCIETY CANNOT MANAGE WITHOUT IT

Farmer Grows the food and the raw fibre Every other trade eats. Nearly half of India’s
— grain, pulses, cotton, oilseed workforce is engaged in agriculture, and the food of
the whole country begins in a furrow

Potter Makes vessels for carrying, Cheap, local, unbreakable-in-price storage; and, as
storing and cooking, and the our story argues, a keeper of “the tradition and
lamps and idols of festivals history of the people”

Mason Builds houses, schools, wells, Shelter is the second need after food; the mason’s
bridges and roads work outlives him by generations

Cook Turns raw produce into food Feeds households, canteens, hospitals and midday-
people can eat and enjoy meal kitchens; and carries a region’s cuisine, which is
a large part of its culture

Three points worth making in the discussion:

They are interdependent. The cook needs the farmer’s grain and the potter’s vessel; the
potter needs the mason for a shed and the farmer for the hay that fires the kiln. No vocation
stands alone.
Their value is not the same as their income. Arenla gets “a few rupees” for months of
work. Society’s dependence on a job and society’s payment for it are two different things — a
good reason for the respect the poem insists on.
Each carries knowledge that is not written down. When the last potter in a village stops,
nothing records how that shape was made.

Check Your Understanding — Page 60

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Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)
co m
e m.
m as
COMPREHENSION

.co a g l
s m on your understanding of the poem, state whether the following
eBased
gl aI.
a
Q1
statements are true or false. Also, rectify the false statements. 1. The poem
highlights the skilled work of craftsperson. 2. The poet shares that musicians

. com
express emotions through their instruments. 3. The carpenters in the poem are
ag
m electricians in the poem are recognised for
admired for their logical work. 4. eThe
s
their crucial role in lightingg a
l lives. 5. The poem pays homage to shoemakers who
a up
manufacture quality footwear. 6. The poem celebrates the patriotism of the people
of Bharat. 7. The poet feels that each vocation deserves to be respected.
co m
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NO. TRUE / THE LINE THAT DECIDES IT — AND THE CORRECTION WHERE NEEDED
FALSE

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1 True “Those of craftsperson, each one celebrating their craft, woven with colours and

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a
myriad hues.”

2 True a g l
“The artisans with lutes, each hailing varied emotions and celebrating dreams,
echoing in the streets.” A lute is a stringed instrument, and the emotions are

co m
.
‘hailed’ through it.

se m
m l a
.co g statement stands. (Be careful:
3 True “they create anything out of wood with mathematical precision”. ‘Mathematical
precision’ is exactly logical, measured work — so a
se m the

g l a it is praise for exactness, not for creativity alone.)
a “they get ready for work, work with cables and wires to brighten our lives.”
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4 True

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5 False
m .
quality — “Theeshoemakers
The poem honours shoemakers
a
a s
suggestsgalfactory; the whole poem is about individual, personal work, “what
affirming the quality of their work”. ‘Manufacture’

a
belongs to them and to none else”.

. c om
m where all these voices
6 False The poem celebrates the varied vocations and the dignity of work of the people
of Bharat, not their patriotism. Bharat appears as theeplace
m l a s
. co a g
are heard — “I hear Bharat celebrating, the varied vocations I hear” — not as a

e m
as
cause people are devoted to.

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7 True Every worker is given the same verb, ‘celebrating’, and the closing line makes each
.c
s e m
a
vocation an identity: “The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.”
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How the two false statements were built: both swap one word for a near-
neighbour that changes the meaning. ‘Manufacture’ replaces handwork with factory
work; ‘patriotism’ replaces pride in one’s craft with love of country. In a true/false
task on a poem, always check the single word that carries the claim — the rest of the
sentence is usually accurate on purpose.

Let us appreciate the poem — Pages 60–61 (Check Your Understanding,
item II)
Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)

POETRY APPRECIATION

Q1 II. 1. Rhyme Scheme and Lineation (i) Does the poem strictly adhere to a rhyme
scheme, or is it in free verse? (ii) What is the impact of the varying length of lines in
the poem? (iii) What is the pattern in the structure of most lines of the poem?

(i) It is in free verse. There is no rhyme scheme at all.
Set the line-endings side by side and the absence of pattern is plain: hear – hues – streets –
precision – lives – sea – home – else – hear. Nothing rhymes with anything. Nor is there a regular
metre; the lines simply run to the length the sense needs, and the poem is not divided into
stanzas. What holds it together instead is repetition — of a sentence pattern, of the word
‘celebrating’, and of the first line at the end.
(ii) The uneven line lengths make the poem sound like a real, unrehearsed catalogue of
voices rather than a composed song — and they let the poet give each vocation exactly as
much room as it needs.
Compare two lines:

“The carpenters celebrating; they create anything out of wood with mathematical precision,”

— short, clipped, exact: the line behaves like the work it describes

“The boatmen gathering their nets from the shore, sailing, and singing while at work, return

to tell the tales of life at sea,” — long and rolling: gathering, sailing, singing and returning

are all carried in one breath, like a voyage

Three effects follow. The variation stops any sing-song rhythm from forming, so the poem keeps
the movement of ordinary speech. It suggests variety itself — the poem’s whole subject is that
vocations are ‘varied’, and lines of different lengths enact that. And it makes the short opening

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

and closing line stand out sharply from the long body of the poem, framing it.
(iii) Most lines follow one repeated structure:

The + name of the workers + a present participle (-ing verb) + what they do or make or

whom it serves

“The carpenters celebrating; they create anything out of wood…”, “The electricians humming; they
get ready for work…”, “The boatmen gathering their nets…”, “The shoemakers affirming the
quality of their work…”. This is parallelism, with the repeated ‘The’ at the start of successive
lines making it anaphora as well.

Why the structure matters more than rhyme here: the identical frame gives every
trade the identical amount of dignity. No worker is introduced more grandly than
another; the carpenter, the electrician and the boatman all arrive in the same
grammatical shape. A rhyme scheme would have made the poem a song about
workers. The parallel structure makes it a roll-call of them — and the -ing verbs keep
every one of them in the middle of doing their work as we read.

Q2 II. 2. Speaker (i) Who appears to be the speaker and what is her/his role here?

The speaker is an unnamed observer — a listener walking through Bharat — who never
tells us a single fact about himself or herself except the act of listening: “I hear Bharat
celebrating… the varied voices I hear!”
Notice what the speaker is not. He or she is not a worker; no trade is claimed in the first person.
There is no name, no age, no place. The only pronoun the speaker uses about others is ‘their’ —
“their craft”, “their work”, “their vocation”, “their identity”. The speaker stands outside the crafts
and points at them.
The role is that of a witness and a celebrant, and it has three parts:

To gather. The speaker collects nine or ten different trades into one poem, which no single
worker could do — a carpenter hears his own workshop, not the boats and the kitchens.
To honour. By reporting each trade in the same admiring frame, the speaker confers equal
dignity on all of them. The title calls them ‘gifts of grace’.
To speak for the country. ‘Bharat’ is doing the celebrating; the speaker is the ear through
which we hear it. The individual ‘I’ almost disappears into that larger act of listening.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Did you know? The poem is printed as Anonymous, and its method — a nameless ‘I’
listening to a nation’s workers, each line beginning the same way — is very close to
Walt Whitman’s famous ‘I Hear America Singing’. Recognising that echo is not
necessary to answer the question, but it explains why the speaker is deliberately
given no identity of his own.

Q3 II. 3. Tone and Mood (i) Fill in the blanks with suitable options from the box given
below. Box: serious celebratory hostile reverential joyful sympathetic A. The tone is
______________ and _____________, depicting a sense of admiration and respect for the
artisans and craftspersons. B. There is a _____________ mood throughout the poem,
capturing the vibrancy and richness of cultural traditions and skills.

A. The tone is celebratory and reverential.
B. There is a joyful mood throughout the poem.

WORD USED? WHY

celebratory Yes The word ‘celebrating’ appears five times, and ‘celebrated’ is the poem’s whole
(tone) action — “I hear Bharat celebrating”, “each one celebrating their craft”, “The
carpenters celebrating”

reverential Yes The clue in the question is “admiration and respect”. Reverence is respect
(tone) that borders on worship — and the title calls these vocations “Gifts of Grace”,
language borrowed from prayer

joyful Yes Humming, singing, echoing in the streets, colours and myriad hues — the
(mood) feeling the poem leaves the reader with is happiness

serious No Nothing in the poem is grave or troubled; no hardship is mentioned

hostile No The poem attacks nobody

sympathetic No Sympathy implies pity for suffering; these workers are not pitied, they are
admired

Tone and mood are not the same thing, and the two blanks are testing that. Tone
is the speaker’s attitude to the subject — here, admiring and respectful. Mood is the
feeling created in the reader — here, happy and uplifted. A poem can have a serious
tone and a joyful mood, or the reverse; in this poem they run together, which is why
it reads like a festival.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q4 II. 4. Imagery (i) Select any two descriptions from the poem that evoke visual
images. (ii) Fill in the blanks with suitable phrases. The poem includes auditory
imagery through mentions of artisans with lutes, _______________, and _______________,
emphasising the sounds associated with each vocation.

(i) Two visual images:

“each one celebrating their craft, woven with colours and myriad hues” — the eye is filled
with a spread of countless shades; ‘woven’ makes the colours a fabric, so we see a weaver’s
cloth and the whole crafts tradition at once.
“The boatmen gathering their nets from the shore, sailing” — a complete picture: figures on
a beach, wet nets being drawn in, boats moving out to sea.

Equally acceptable: “they create anything out of wood with mathematical precision”; “work with
cables and wires to brighten our lives”; “for the feet that walk, dance, run, jump, return home”.
(ii) The poem includes auditory imagery through mentions of artisans with lutes, the
electricians humming, and the delicious singing of the cook, emphasising the sounds
associated with each vocation.
The boatmen “singing while at work” and the dreams “echoing in the streets” are equally correct fillers
— the poem is unusually rich in sound.

Why the poem leans on the ear rather than the eye: the speaker’s one claim is “I
hear Bharat celebrating”. A vocation is identified in this poem by the noise it makes
— the hum of an electrician, a boatman’s song, a lute, a cook at work. That is what
allows the final line to work: if each trade has its own sound, then “The voice of their
vocation is the voice of their identity” follows naturally.

Tip: Name the type of imagery when you answer. Visual (sight): “colours and myriad
hues”. Auditory (sound): “humming”. Gustatory (taste): “delicious”. Kinaesthetic
(movement): “walk, dance, run, jump”. Listing the type shows the examiner you know
what imagery is, not just where it is.

Q5 II. 5. Metaphor (i) State whether the following sentence is true or false. The mention
of ‘delicious singing’ of the cook is a metaphor because it implies that the quality of
the singing is so enjoyable or pleasing that it can be equated to the experience of
tasting something delicious.

True.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
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‘Delicious’ is a word of taste. ‘Singing’ is a thing of sound. By joining them, the poet says that
co m
e m.
the cook’s singing is delicious — not that it is like something delicious. There is no ‘like’ or ‘as’, so

om g l as
not a simile. .c
the comparison is implied rather than stated, and that is exactly what makes it a metaphor and

em a
a s
agl
simile → “his singing was like a delicious meal”

co m
metaphor → “The delicious singing of the cook”
m . ag
l a se
Why the choice of word is so apt a g The poet could have written ‘sweet singing’ or ‘cheerful
here.
singing’. ‘Delicious’ is chosen because it belongs to the cook’s own trade — the one adjective a

. c om
cook earns. So the metaphor does two things at once: it praises the singing, and it tells you

m a s em a single
whose singing it is. The pleasure of the song and the pleasure of the food become
sensation.co
. a gl
a s em
agl Did you know? When an image transfers a quality from one sense to another like
s
this — taste words used of sound — it is also called synaesthesia. ‘A loud shirt’ and
om a
. c agl
‘a warm voice’ work the same way. You are not required to use the term, but naming

a s
it will show a real grasp of how theemline works.
agl

co m
m
II. 6. Personification (i) Select the line that tells us that the poet personifies
.
e
Q6

m l as
.co
vocations by attributing human-like qualities to them.

a g
a s em
agl

m
The line is: “The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.”

a se
com g l
A vocation is an abstract thing — an occupation, a kind of work. It cannot literally speak. By

m . a
e
giving it a voice, the poet treats the vocation as a living person standing beside the worker and
s a human attribute to something non-human is
speaking for them. That transferaof
l
personification. a g
m
What the personification achieves:

. co
em
as
It makes the work a character in its own right, not merely something a person does
m l
.co g
between morning and evening.

em a
s
It sets up an equation — voice of vocation = voice of identity — so that speaking as a carpenter
l a
ag
and being a carpenter become the same act. What you do is who you are.

.c
m
It gathers the whole poem together. Every earlier line has given a trade a sound: humming,

m a s e
co agl
singing, the echo in the streets. This line names what all those sounds were: the vocations

m .
e
themselves, speaking.

g l as
a

co m
m .
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.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Also acceptable, with an explanation: “I hear Bharat celebrating” personifies the
country, since a nation cannot celebrate or be heard. But the question asks
specifically about vocations being personified, so the line about the voice of their
vocation is the exact answer.

Q7 II. 7. Repetition (i) Why might the poet have begun and ended with the same line—‘I
hear Bharat celebrating, the varied vocations I hear!’?

First, look closely: the two lines are almost the same, and the one difference is the point of the
whole device.

Opening: “I hear Bharat celebrating, the varied vocations I hear;”

Closing: “I hear Bharat celebrating, the varied voices I hear!”

Four reasons for the repetition:

It frames the poem. Everything between the two lines is what the speaker heard — the
carpenters, the boatmen, the cook. The repeated line is like opening a door, listening, and
closing it again.
It works as a refrain. Since the poem has no rhyme and no stanzas, this returning line is
what gives it the feel of a song and holds the loose catalogue together.
It suggests that the celebration never stops. Ending where it began makes the poem
circular; you could read it round again. The work of Bharat goes on beyond the last line.
The changed word records what the poem has done. ‘Vocations’ are jobs; ‘voices’ are
people speaking. Over nine lines each trade has been given a sound of its own, so by the end
the speaker no longer hears occupations — he hears individuals. And the full stop has
become an exclamation mark: listening has turned into celebration.

Why this makes the last line the poem’s argument, not just its ending: the line
immediately before it is “The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.” The
repeated closing line then demonstrates that claim — vocations have literally become
voices in the poem’s own words. The device and the meaning are the same thing.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q8 II. 8. Alliteration (i) Identify two examples of alliteration from the poem.

EXAMPLE REPEATED WHAT IT DOES
SOUND

“sailing, and singing /s/ The soft, continuous s imitates the hiss of water against a
while at work” boat and makes the boatmen’s labour sound easy and
unbroken

“return to tell the tales /t/ The crisp t gives the line the tap of storytelling, of words
of life at sea” being told out one after another on the shore

Two more you may use instead:

“work with cables and wires” — three w sounds in five words, a hum that matches the
electrician’s own humming.
“The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity” — the repeated v binds ‘voice’ and
‘vocation’ by sound before the sentence links them by meaning. (Notice too that the two
words share a Latin root, vocare, ‘to call’.)

Tip: Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of
nearby words — the sound, not the letter. And never stop at spotting it: an answer
that only names the letters earns half the marks. Always add what the sound does to
the line.

Q9 II. 9. Symbolism (i) Each vocation in the poem symbolises something more than just
a job. What does it symbolise?

Each vocation stands for a human identity — for dignity, self-worth and belonging — and,
taken together, they stand for the working life of Bharat itself.
The poem states this outright in its last full line: “The voice of their vocation is the voice of their
identity.” Work is not what these people do for money; it is what they are. Read that way, each
trade in the catalogue carries a larger meaning:

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

VOCATION IN THE POEM WHAT IT SYMBOLISES

The craftsperson, “woven with colours and myriad hues” India’s diversity — many traditions making one
fabric

The artisans with lutes, “hailing varied emotions and Art and aspiration: work as a way of expressing
celebrating dreams” feeling, not only of earning

The carpenters, working “with mathematical precision” Discipline and exactness — the mind at work inside
manual labour

The electricians, who “brighten our lives” Service: work whose value is felt by everyone and
noticed by no one

The boatmen, who “return to tell the tales of life at sea” Courage and experience, and the passing on of what
is learnt

The shoemakers, working “for the feet that walk, dance, run, Care for others — the maker’s reward is somebody
jump, return home” else’s safe journey

The cook, the designer, the mason, “each celebrating what Individuality: a skill nobody can take from you
belongs to them and to none else”

Two further meanings run under the whole list. The title calls these skills “Gifts of Grace” —
that is, blessings received rather than merely acquired, which is exactly how Sentila describes
her own gift in the story: “it simply came to me”. And because the speaker hears all of them
together as ‘Bharat celebrating’, the vocations become a symbol of the nation as its people’s
labour — a country understood through its workers rather than its rulers or its monuments.

Critical Reflection — Pages 62–63

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)

EXTRACT-BASED

Q1 I. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow. The
shoemakers affirming the quality of their work, for the feet that walk, dance, run,
jump, return home. The delicious singing of the cook, or the rhythm of designer,
mason, each celebrating what belongs to them and to none else, 1. The poet says
that the shoemakers ‘affirm’ the quality of their work. What does ‘affirm’ refer to
here? (i) to make adjustments in (ii) to declare with confidence (iii) to label the
goods (iv) to justify the efforts 2. What do quality shoes help with, according to the
poet? 3. What does ‘return home’ symbolise besides the literal act of returning? 4.
Identify the phrase that tells us that every worker’s contribution is distinct. 5.
Complete the following with suitable words. …for the feet that walk, dance, run,
jump, return home refers to ___________.

1. Option (ii) — to declare with confidence.
The shoemakers are ‘celebrating’ along with everyone else in the poem, so ‘affirming’ must be
something positive and public: they stand by their work and say so without hesitation. Test the
others against the extract. (i) ‘Make adjustments in’ would mean altering the shoes — the line is
about finished quality, not repair. (iii) ‘Label the goods’ is a shop’s act, not a maker’s, and nothing
in the poem mentions labels or brands. (iv) ‘Justify the efforts’ implies the work has been
questioned and needs defending; the tone here is confident, not defensive. Only (ii) fits both the
word and the mood.
2. According to the extract, quality shoes serve “the feet that walk, dance, run, jump, return
home” — that is, they support every kind of movement in a person’s ordinary day, from plain
walking to celebration, from hurry to play, and carry them safely back home at the end of it.
Good shoes make the whole day’s motion possible and comfortable.
3. Literally, ‘return home’ is the end of a journey. In the poem it symbolises:

Safety — coming back unhurt after the day’s work; the shoemaker’s craft protects
someone’s feet all the way to the door.
Rest and belonging — home as the place where labour stops and one is among one’s own
people.
Completion — the day’s round of walking, dancing, running and jumping is finished, and the
cycle closes.

It also quietly measures the shoemaker’s worth: his work is judged not by what it looks like but
by whether it brought somebody home.
4. The phrase is “each celebrating what belongs to them and to none else”. The words ‘and
to none else’ are what make the contribution distinct — every worker owns a skill that is theirs
alone and cannot be duplicated by anybody.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
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5. “…for the feet that walk, dance, run, jump, return home” refers to all the ordinary people
co m
e
who wear those shoes, and to the whole range of everyday activity their lives are made of
m.
m l as
.co g
— going to work, celebrating, hurrying, playing, and coming home again.

em a
a s
gl the poet names five actions instead of saying ‘people’: the feet stand for the
apeople
Why
(that is synecdoche — a part standing for the whole), and the five verbs give

co m
you five kinds of life in one line: labour, joy, urgency, play, and rest. It is a way of

e m .
saying that the shoemaker serves everybody, without ever having to list a single ag
occupation.
g l as
a

. c om
II. 1. Why does the poet say, ‘I hear Bharat celebrating, the varied m
s e vocations I hear’?

com gla
Q2

. a
a s em
l
agBecause

what the poet hears in the country is not one sound but many — and every one of
them is the sound of somebody working with pride.
m a s
Unpack the three parts of the line:
em
.co agl
a s
a gl as a listener, not a judge or a teacher. He is simply walking
‘I hear’ — the poet places himself
through Bharat with his ears open.

co m
‘Bharat celebrating’ — the country is personified. A nation cannot celebrate; its people can.

m .
se
So ‘Bharat’ here means its working people, and the poet is saying that the true voice of the

o m l a
gbut many separate ones
.c varied vocations’ — the celebration is not a single festival
country comes from its workshops, kitchens, boats and building sites.

m a
se
‘the
a
agl
happening at once: the lute in the street, the hum at the switchboard, the boatman’s song,
the tap of a mason. ‘Varied’ is the poem’s key word; the whole catalogue that follows is its

se m
com a
proof.

. a g l
e m
And ‘celebrating’ is chosen instead of ‘working’ for a reason. Work in this poem is not drudgery
to be endured; it is an occasion a s joy, because each worker is doing the one thing that is
entirely their own. a g l for

co m
m .
o m l se for work suggest?
II. 2. What does the electrician ‘humming’ while gettingaready
.c ag
Q3

a s em
agl ANSWER
.c
It suggests that he goes to work happily — that the job is not a burden to him but
s e m
something he takes pleasure in.
. com a gla
Humming is an involuntary signem
a s
agl hums: not while resting afterwards, but as “they get ready for
of contentment. Nobody hums to order; you hum when you are
at ease. And notice when he
work”. The pleasure is in the anticipation of the day, which is the strongest possible evidence of

com
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

job satisfaction.
Three further things the detail does:

It gives the electrician his own sound, as the poem gives every trade — the lute, the
singing boatmen, the cook. That prepares the closing claim that a vocation has a voice.
There is a quiet pun. Electricity itself hums — in wires, transformers and switchboards. The
worker’s hum and his trade’s hum are the same note, so the man and the work merge.
It dignifies invisible labour. The electrician’s achievement is enormous — he works “with
cables and wires to brighten our lives” — yet the poet catches him in the most ordinary
moment, getting ready. Greatness, the line implies, is in the daily going-out to work.

Q4 II. 3. Explain the significance of the line, ‘The voice of their vocation is the voice of
their identity.’

The line is the poem’s conclusion and its argument: what a person does for a living is not
something separate from who that person is — it is who they are.
The sentence is built as an equation, with ‘voice’ on both sides:

the voice of their vocation = the voice of their identity

Three things it achieves.

It gathers up every earlier line. The poem has spent nine lines giving each trade a sound
— a lute, a hum, a boatman’s song, the tap of a mason’s rhythm. This line names what all
those sounds actually were: people announcing who they are.
It is personification, and the device carries the meaning. A vocation cannot speak; by
giving it a voice, the poet makes the work a living presence beside the worker. The device is
not decoration — it is the claim itself.
It grants dignity without ranking. If work is identity, then no vocation can be ‘low’, because
no identity is low. This is why the poem can place a designer and a mason in the same line,
joined by ‘or’, with no difference in tone.

Read it beside the story in this chapter and it becomes sharper. Sentila’s whole
struggle is a struggle for an identity, not for an income — her mother offers her a
better-paid trade and she refuses it. And when she finally succeeds, Temsula Ao does
not write ‘she made good pots’; she writes “A new pot maker was born.” A person,
not a product. That is exactly what this line of the poem asserts.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q5 II. 4. Do you think the role of all the people belonging to different vocations is
important in our daily lives? Support your answer with a reason.

Yes — because a single ordinary morning depends on the work of dozens of people we
never meet.
Trace one hour of it. The water that reaches the tap was laid on by a plumber and is pumped by
a machine kept running by an electrician; the milk came by a dairy worker’s van; the bread was
baked; the uniform was stitched by a tailor from cloth a weaver made; the bus is driven by a
driver and repaired by a mechanic; the road under it was built by masons and labourers; the
school building was raised by them too. Remove any one of these and the morning stops.
Two reasons that go beyond convenience:

Interdependence, not hierarchy. A doctor cannot practise in a building nobody built, with
instruments nobody manufactured, having eaten food nobody grew. Society is a web, and
every strand carries load.
Visibility is not the same as importance. The most essential work is often the least noticed
— sanitation workers, farmers, electricians. The poem makes exactly this point by putting
the electrician, whose job we notice only when the lights fail, in the same admiring line as
the artist with the lute.

Tip: For an opinion question, commit in the first line, then give one worked-out
example rather than four unexplained ones. A single traced morning proves
interdependence better than a list of ten jobs.

Q6 II. 5. Why is the poet celebrating all the vocations in the poem? Explain by giving
examples from your context.

Because he believes that every vocation gives its worker an identity and gives society
something it cannot do without — so all of them deserve the same respect, and none is
beneath any other.
Three reasons the poem itself supplies:

Every craft is a skill, and skill is worth honouring. The carpenter has “mathematical
precision”; the shoemaker can “affirm the quality” of what he makes. These are
achievements, not accidents.
Every craft serves somebody. The electrician brightens our lives; the shoemaker serves “the
feet that walk, dance, run, jump, return home”. Work is described here as care for other
people.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Every craft is somebody’s own. “each celebrating what belongs to them and to none else”
— the poet celebrates vocations because they are the one possession that cannot be taken
away.

Examples from your own context (replace these with people you actually know — that is what
the question is asking for):

The ASHA worker in our locality — the very vocation this chapter teaches on page 63 — who
walks house to house before immunisation day. Nobody applauds her, and children in our
lane are healthy because of her.
The sanitation workers who clear our street at half past five each morning. One week of
their absence would teach the whole neighbourhood how essential they are.
The tailor at the corner who can look at a photograph and cut a kurta to fit. He has never
advertised; every customer he has came from another customer.
The farmer whose grain reaches our kitchen through a chain of hands — commission agent,
lorry driver, shopkeeper — every one of them a vocation in the poem’s sense.

The idea has a name in India: shram ki garima — the dignity of labour. Gandhiji
insisted that everyone, whatever their education, should do some manual work
every day, precisely so that no kind of work could be looked down upon. That is the
conviction this poem is written out of.

Q7 II. 6. How does the poet use sensory imagery to bring out the beauty of everyday
work?

He describes work through the senses rather than through explanation — so instead of
being told that labour is beautiful, we hear it, see it and even taste it.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

SENSE FROM THE POEM WHAT IT MAKES US FEEL

Hearing “artisans with lutes… echoing in the streets”; “The Work becomes music. The poem
(auditory) electricians humming”; boatmen “singing while at is dominated by this sense —
work”; “the delicious singing of the cook”; “the fitting, since the speaker begins
rhythm of designer, mason” “I hear”

Sight (visual) “woven with colours and myriad hues”; “The The workshops of India are
boatmen gathering their nets from the shore, sailing”; shown as bright and full, not
“cables and wires to brighten our lives” grimy

Taste “the delicious singing of the cook” A taste word used of a sound —
(gustatory) the pleasure of eating and of
listening become one

Movement “the feet that walk, dance, run, jump, return home”; Five verbs in a row make the line
(kinaesthetic) “gathering… sailing” itself move, so the reader feels
the body at work

Touch, implied “they create anything out of wood with mathematical Wood, cables, nets, clay: we
precision” sense the materials passing
through hands

Two things make this more than a list of images. First, the imagery is nearly all drawn from
the work itself — the poet does not compare a carpenter to a sunrise; he finds the beauty in
wood and precision. Second, the choice of the -ing form throughout (celebrating, humming,
gathering, sailing, singing, affirming) keeps every worker in the middle of the action. Nothing is
finished; everything is happening as we read. That is why the poem feels alive rather than like a
description of a photograph.

Vocabulary in Context — Pages 63–64

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
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Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)
co m
em.
m as
VOCABULARY

.co a g l
s m of different vocations are being described in the poem. Match the
ePeople
gl aI.
a
Q1
vocations given in the box below with the descriptions that follow. Box: ASHA
worker confectioner sericulturist welder horticulturist goldsmith 1. A person who

. com
studies or grows garden plants: ___________ 2. A trained female community health
ag
m silk: ___________ 4. A person whose job is
worker: ___________ 3. A producer oferaw
s
a
glchocolates: ___________ 5. A metalworker who
making or selling sweets and
a
specialises in working with precious metals: ___________ 6. A person who fuses
materials together: ___________
co m
em.
m l as
.co a g

se m
g l a
a
NO. DESCRIPTION VOCATION HOW THE WORD IS BUILT

m a s
1 studies or grows garden plants horticulturist Latin hortus = garden + cultura = cultivation

e
. c
mASHA
o agl
s
2 a trained female community An acronym: Accredited Social Health

g l a worker
a
health worker Activist — and asha also means ‘hope’

3 a producer of raw silk sericulturist Latin sericum = silk + cultura; sericulture is

co m
.
the rearing of silkworms

e m
m l as
.co chocolates g
4 makes or sells sweets and confectioner From confection, a sweet preparation

em a
a s
agl 5 a metalworker who works with goldsmith gold + smith, one who works metal — as in

se m
precious metals blacksmith, locksmith

m
cowelder g l a
m. a
6 fuses materials together From weld, to join metals by heating them

ase
agl
until they melt into one

m
Did You Know (from the box on page 63): Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) is

. co
m
a group of community health workers employed by the Ministry of Health and

o m l a se
Family Welfare (MoHFW) as a part of India’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
g country; she is usually the
.cThere is at least one ASHA worker for most villages in athe
se m first health worker a family meets.
g l a
a c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

co m
m .
m as e
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

A shortcut worth learning: the ending often gives the trade away. -culturist means
someone who cultivates something (horti-, seri-, agri-, api- for bees). -smith means
someone who works a material (gold-, black-, lock-, word-). -er added to a verb
makes the doer (weld → welder, bake → baker). Once you see the ending, you only
need to identify the root.

Q2 II. Identify the word from Column 2 that is not the synonym of the words given in
Column 1. Column 1 / Column 2 1. myriad — (i) countable, innumerable, numerous,
abundant 2. hues — (ii) shades, tints, drawing, colour 3. precision — (iii) exactness,
accuracy, correctness, calculation 4. varied — (iv) assorted, diverse, uniform,
different 5. delicious — (v) mouth-watering, inedible, tasty, flavourful

NO. WORD THE ODD WHY IT DOES NOT BELONG
ONE OUT

1 myriad countable Myriad means countless — so ‘countable’ is its opposite, not its
synonym. Innumerable, numerous and abundant all mean ‘very
many’

2 hues drawing Shades, tints and colour are all about colour; a drawing is a
picture, which is a different thing altogether

3 precision calculation Exactness, accuracy and correctness are all qualities of being
right. A calculation is an act of working something out, and it
may be quite wrong

4 varied uniform Uniform means all the same — the exact opposite of varied.
Assorted, diverse and different all mean ‘of many kinds’

5 delicious inedible Inedible means unfit to eat — an antonym. The prefix in- should
warn you at once

Two traps, and how to spot each. In items 1, 4 and 5 the intruder is an antonym,
and a negative prefix (in-, un-) or a word you know means ‘same’ will expose it. In
items 2 and 3 the intruder is subtler: the word is related to the topic but belongs to a
different part of the idea — ‘drawing’ is an object where the others are qualities of
colour; ‘calculation’ is an action where the others are qualities of accuracy. When no
antonym is present, ask which word is a different kind of thing.

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Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Check it yourself: put each candidate into the poem’s own line. “woven with colours
and myriad hues” — try ‘countable hues’; it destroys the sense of endless variety.
That single test settles most of these items.

Listen and Respond — Pages 64–65 (Transcript for teacher, Appendix page
262)
Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)

LISTENING

Q1 I. You will listen to two friends, a boy and a girl discussing the occupations of their
parents. As you listen, answer the following question in two to three words only.
(Transcript for teacher on page 262) What does the boy use to understand the
details of the tools?

Toy cars.
The line in the transcript (Appendix, page 262) is the boy’s: “Father lets me go through his tool
kit over the weekends if I want to. I often use toy cars to discuss details and usage with him.”
His father is an automobile mechanic, so the toy car serves as a model: it lets the boy point to a
part and ask which tool is used on it, without touching a real engine. That is why the answer
must be ‘toy cars’ and not ‘his father’s tool kit’ — the tool kit is what he is trying to understand;
the toy cars are what he uses to understand it.

Tip: When a listening question says “in two to three words only”, it is telling you the
answer is a noun phrase lifted straight from the audio. Write exactly those words —
‘toy cars’ — and resist the temptation to explain in a sentence.

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Q2 II. You will now listen to the girl and the boy once again. As you listen, answer the
questions by selecting the correct option. 1. The girl is __________ about taking food
for her mother at the factory. (i) happy (ii) boastful (iii) unsure 2. The boy thinks that
the job of the girl’s mother carries a lot of __________. (i) luck (ii) risk (iii) responsibility
3. The girl __________ why the boy is good at science exhibitions. (i) wonders (ii)
questions (iii) realises 4. The girl shares her __________ about joining the weekend
discussion on tools. (i) doubts (ii) wish (iii) ideas

NO. ANSWER THE LINE IN THE TRANSCRIPT (PAGE 262)

1 (i) happy “It’s vacation time for me and I want her to have warm food. That’s the reason I
pack it fresh and take it to her these days.” She is doing it gladly and by choice.
She never boasts, and she shows no hesitation — so ‘boastful’ and ‘unsure’
both fail

2 (iii) “Wow! That’s a lot of responsibility.” The boy says the word himself, right after
responsibility she explains that her mother is the line supervisor who “checks the smooth
functioning of the manufacturing process and the quality of the parts”

3 (iii) realises “An automobile mechanic? That’s interesting. No wonder you were so good
with mechanical demonstrations during the Science exhibition!” ‘No wonder’ is
the language of a sudden realisation — she now sees the reason. She is not
asking a question, so ‘wonders’ and ‘questions’ are both wrong

4 (ii) wish “Wonderful! I’d love to join in next time.” ‘I’d love to’ expresses a wish. She
offers no ideas and voices no doubts

What this task is really testing: not facts but attitude — how each speaker feels.
The evidence is therefore in small signal words rather than in whole sentences: ‘I
want her to…’ (willingness), ‘Wow!’ (admiration), ‘No wonder’ (realisation), ‘I’d love to’
(wish). When you listen the second time, listen for the tone-carrying phrase, not for
information you have already caught.

Speaking Activity — Page 65

Page 57 of 68

Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (poem)

SPEAKING

Q1 The poet speaks of several occupations in the poem. Create groups of five. Allot the
role of any five vocations that the poet talks about. Each student in the group will
represent one vocation. Each student speaks for 1–2 minutes about their vocation—
who they are, what they do, where they work, what kind of experiences they have
at work, what problems they face and a message for all.

Method. The vocations to choose from are the ones in the poem: craftsperson, artisan
(musician with a lute), carpenter, electrician, boatman, shoemaker, cook, designer, mason.
Pick five that are clearly different from one another, so the group does not repeat itself.
Speak in the first person throughout — “I am…”, not “A carpenter is…”. Build the one to two
minutes on the six points the book lists, roughly fifteen seconds each: who you are → what
you do → where you work → an experience → a problem → a message. Research one real
detail (a tool, a material, a working hour, a wage) so the speech has something in it that could
not have been invented at your desk. Bring one prop or one gesture if you can. Finish on the
message; do not trail off.
What a good speech must contain: a specific place, not ‘everywhere’; one named tool or
material; one honest difficulty; one line that shows pride in the work; and a message addressed
to the audience rather than to the teacher.

Page 58 of 68

as e
Class 9 English Chapter 2 The Pot Maker
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Sample answer — the boatman (about 1 minute 15 seconds)

o m l a se
g for four
c and I am a boatman. My family has fished off thisacoast
I am Anil .Das,
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generations; my grandfather could name every sandbank between here and the
ariver mouth without a map.

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.
I leave the shore at four in the morning, when the sea is still black, and I am usually
m ag
l a se
back by eleven. My work is to read the water — where the current turns, where the
agthen to lay the net, wait, and haul it in. My hands
shoal will be at that hour — and
know the rope better than my eyes do. We sing while we pull; it keeps the rhythm

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m.
even and it keeps ten men’s arms together.

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The best days are the ones when the net comes up heavy and the whole boat
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a s em But there are hard days too. The catch is smaller every year, and diesel costs
gl more than it used to. When the weather warning comes on the radio we do not go
laughs.
a
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out at all, and on those days we earn nothing. Nobody insures a small boat.
m a
em
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a s
My message is simple. When you eat fish, remember that somebody woke at three

aglthe sea, do not throw plastic into it — and respect the
in the morning for it. Respect
people who go out on it. As our poem says, we “return to tell the tales of life at sea”.
Come to the shore one morning and I will tell you a few.
co m
m .
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em
aglas
Writing Task — Pages 66–67

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a g l Page 59 of 68