NCERT Solutions Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change

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 3: Winds of Change

NCERT Textbook — Kaveri

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

69 – 96 16 50 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 67 pages

Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 9 · ENGLISH · KAVERI

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 3: Winds of Change
Chapter 3 of Kaveri sets a piece of craft history beside a short lyric about making. Winds of Change traces the
Indian pankha from the wall paintings of Ajanta to the craft stall — a hand fan that cooled deities and kings,
travelled the trade routes as an “exotic and stylish” good, and now “runs the risk of slowly losing its presence
among Indians”. Canvas of Soil by Maya Anthony answers it in twelve lines, turning a garden into a painting:
“Palette of earth, rich and deep… Each plot, a canvas wide, / Where art and life coincide.”

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Kaveri (Class 9) 69 – 96

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

16 50

MEDIUM

English

Reflect and Respond — Pages 69–70
Winds of Change (prose)

BEFORE YOU READ

Q1 I. Does anyone in your family use a hand fan? What do you call it in your language?
What is it made of?

This is a personal question, so the marks lie in the three parts the question actually asks — who
uses it, what you call it, and what it is made of. Answer all three, and name a real material.

What a good answer needs:

A named person and an occasion — “my grandmother, during power cuts / while
sitting on the verandah in the evening”.
The word in your language, with the English in brackets: pankha (Hindi/Urdu),
bijna (Bhojpuri), visanakol (Tamil), bīsaṇige (Kannada), hatpakha (Bengali), pankho
(Gujarati), haatpankha (Marathi), viśari (Malayalam).
The material — palm leaf, bamboo or cane strips, khus, moonj grass, cloth over
cardboard, sandalwood, or plastic if that is the honest answer.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer: Yes — my grandmother uses a hand fan every summer evening when she sits
on the verandah, and the whole family reaches for it whenever the power goes. We call it a
pankha; my grandmother, who grew up in a village near Patna, calls it a bijna. Ours is made of
thin bamboo strips woven over a split-bamboo frame, with a red cotton border stitched round
the edge so that the woven ends do not fray. It is very light, and the border makes it stiff
enough to move a good deal of air.

Why the question is asked here: the chapter’s whole argument is that a pankha
carries the identity of the place it comes from — “The structure of each fan reflects
the cultural core of the region that crafts it.” By starting from the fan in your own
house, and its name in your own language, the book makes you notice that you
already own a piece of the evidence.

Q2 II. Work in pairs. Study the pictures given below carefully and complete the
information. Discuss your answers with your classmates and teacher.

FANS

THE STATE IT IS FROM Assam Kerala Uttar Pradesh

SHAPE __________ __________ __________

MADE OF __________ Palm leaf Moonj grass

Page 69 — the three fans in the table, redrawn: an Assam fan of split cane with a forked
bamboo handle; a pleated Kerala palm-leaf fan with a corded rim; and a square Uttar
Pradesh moonj-grass fan with a triangular pattern and a frilled pink border.

Read the shape off the outline of each picture, and the material off the surface texture.

Page 2 of 67

Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

FANS PICTURE 1 PICTURE 2 PICTURE 3

The State Assam Kerala Uttar Pradesh
it is from

Shape Round (circular) — a full disc, Round (circular) — a disc of fine Square (rectangular) — a
with ribs radiating from the pleats opening out from a single flat four-sided panel with a
centre like the spokes of a point, edged with cord, on one frilled border on three
wheel, on a forked handle long straight handle sides

Made of Bamboo and cane — split strips Palm leaf Moonj grass
woven over a bamboo frame

Why the shapes differ: shape follows material. Split cane and pleated palm leaf are
worked outward from a single fixed point, so they naturally close into a circle. Moonj
grass is plaited into flat mats and then cut, so the Uttar Pradesh fan is square and
can carry a woven pattern across its face like a small piece of cloth. This is exactly the
point the chapter makes later: “Each place developed pankhas with distinct materials
or a variety of intricate designs, that set them apart from one another.”

Check it yourself: hold your own fan up and ask the two questions this table asks —
is the outline round or four-sided, and is the surface woven, pleated or stitched?
Those two answers together usually tell you which part of India the design belongs
to.

Q3 III. Work in pairs. Match the underlined words in Column 1 with their meanings in
Column 2 given on the next page. Share your answers with your classmates and
teacher. I visited the crafts fair yesterday. It was a wonderful experience. Each
indigenous artefact was an innovative creation of industrious craftspersons with its
intricate design. It invoked a sense of respect for the initiatives taken by the
government to showcase them. Column 1: 1. indigenous 2. innovative 3. industrious
4. intricate 5. invoked 6. initiatives Column 2: (i) hardworking (ii) actions to improve
a situation (iii) brought out (iv) local — from where it originated (v) new and original
in approach (vi) elaborate/detailed

1 – (iv), 2 – (v), 3 – (i), 4 – (vi), 5 – (iii), 6 – (ii).

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
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co m
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WORD MEANING HOW THE PARAGRAPH PROVES IT

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o(iv)mlocal — from where
indigenous .cit originated
1.
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It describes an artefact at a crafts fair. A craft object is named by

a s em the place it comes from, not by its age or price.

a2.gl (v) new and original in It describes a creation — and you praise a creation for being
innovative approach new, not for being detailed (that word comes later).

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3. (i) hardworking
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It describes craftspersons, that is, people. Only (i) can describe a ag
industrious
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person.

4. intricate (vi) elaborate/detailed
a It describes a design. A design is elaborate or plain; it cannot be
“hardworking”.
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5. invoked (iii) brought out It takes an object — “invoked a sense of respect”. Only a verb

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fits here, and only (iii) is a verb.

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6. (ii) actions to improve a They are “taken by the government to showcase them” —
situation governments take actions, and the purpose given is to improve

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the artisans’ position.
a s
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Tip: match by word class first. Five of these six are settled without knowing the
meaning at all: industrious and intricate and indigenous and innovative are adjectives
sitting before a noun, invoked is the only verb, initiatives the only plural noun. Then
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check the noun each adjective is attached to — person, object, design, creation —
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m as e
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and only one meaning will fit.
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a s em
agl Why all six begin with in-: the book has chosen them on purpose. Every one of the
six will come back in the chapter — indigenous for Gujarat’s pankhas, industrious for
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the home-based women workers of Gujarat, intricate for the designs that “set them
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apart”, innovative for the technology that threatens the craft, invokes and initiatives in

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the closing paragraph. Learn them here and the text reads easily.

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Your Understanding — Pages 73–74
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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Winds of Change (prose)

COMPREHENSION

Q1 I. Work in pairs to complete the table on pankha. Share your answers with your
classmates and teacher.

STATE TYPE OF FAN MATERIAL USED

Rajasthan appliqué hand fan ____________

____________ gold thread

temple hand fans ____________

Gujarat mirror work hand fans ____________

____________ beads

____________ leather, decorated with thread and wool

West Bengal sola hand fans ____________

Uttar Pradesh ____________ pure gold, silver zari, silk and satin frills

Bihar ____________ bamboo

Pages 73–74 — the table as printed, with its blanks left empty.

The completed table (the answers in bold are the ones you had to supply):

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

STATE TYPE OF FAN MATERIAL USED

Rajasthan appliqué hand fan pieces of fabric in different shapes and patterns, sewn on to
another cloth with ornamental needlework

Rajasthan zardozi hand fan gold thread (“glittering ornate and encrusted gold
threadwork”)

Rajasthan temple hand fans engraved brass, with a long handle

Gujarat mirror work hand fans pure cotton, embellished with mirror work

Gujarat beads hand fan (with a beads
silver handle)

Gujarat hand-stitched leather hand leather, decorated with thread and wool
(Kutch) fans

West Bengal sola hand fans the milky-white spongy centre of the sola, a water grass

Uttar Pradesh Phadh hand fans pure gold, silver zari, silk and satin frills

Bihar colourful and sturdy bamboo
bamboo hand fans

Why the blanks are placed as they are: the table is a reading test in disguise.
Three consecutive rows leave the State blank after Rajasthan and three after Gujarat,
because the text keeps the state name only in the first sentence of each paragraph
and then says “Furthermore, the zardozi hand fan of Rajasthan…”, “In Rajasthan,
temple hand fans are popular too”, “Kutch is recognised for…”. The linking words —
furthermore, too, and the place-name Kutch — are what carry the state forward.
Track those and the blanks fill themselves.

Did you know? Two more fans appear in the same paragraphs but are left out of the
table — Rajasthan’s painted hand fan, “a cardboard pankha featuring various
images… usually offered to gods”, and Bengal’s palm-leaf Tal Patar Pankha.
Odisha’s large palm leaf fans complete the list.

Critical Reflection — Pages 74–76

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Winds of Change (prose)

EXTRACT-BASED

Q1 I. Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow. 1. Over time,
pankhas became significant cultural goods distributed through trade routes. They
were considered exotic and stylish. Although there was substantial commonality in
their use across India, different villages and towns developed their own varieties of
traditional pankhas. Each place developed pankhas with distinct materials or a
variety of intricate designs, that set them apart from one another. (i) State whether
the following sentence is true or false. Pankhas were one of the most popular items
of commerce. (ii) Why has the word ‘traditional’ been used to describe pankhas? (iii)
Complete the following statement. The sentence ‘They were considered exotic and
stylish’ is an opinion and not a fact because ______________. (iv) Infer one reason for
commonality in the use of pankhas across India. (v) Select which one of the two
statements is the correct assertion for the given reason. Reason: Pankhas were
made of indigenous materials, unique to the region, with elaborate designs. A. Each
kind of pankha could be distinguished from the other. B. Pankhas were used by
many people.

(i) True.
The extract gives two pieces of evidence, and both point the same way. First, pankhas “became
significant cultural goods distributed through trade routes” — a thing that travels along
trade routes is, by definition, an item of commerce, and “significant” tells you it mattered in that
trade. Second, “They were considered exotic and stylish” — that is the language of desirability,
and desirable goods sell. Put together, the extract supports the statement.

Careful: the extract says nothing about rank — it never compares pankhas with
cloth, spices or salt. So keep your justification to what is printed: pankhas were
valued, widely traded and in demand. That is what makes the statement true here.

(ii) Because these pankhas were not new or invented designs — they were the long-
established, inherited pattern of a particular place, made the same way over generations.
The extract says “different villages and towns developed their own varieties”, each with “distinct
materials” and its own “intricate designs”. A design that belongs to a place, is passed down in it,
and is repeated by every maker in it, is by definition traditional. The word also quietly separates
these fans from the “innovative creations” that appear later in the chapter and threaten them.
(iii) …because it records what people thought of pankhas — a judgement of taste that
cannot be measured, tested or proved, and that would differ from one person to another.
The verb itself gives it away: “they were considered” means somebody held this view. Set the two
sentences side by side and the difference is plain — “distributed through trade routes” can be
checked against records and can be shown true or false; “exotic and stylish” cannot.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

(iv) Because the need was the same everywhere: most of India is hot for most of the year, and
before electricity the only way an ordinary household could move air was by hand. A common
climate and a common need produced a common object.

A second defensible inference: the extract itself supplies one — pankhas were
“distributed through trade routes”, so the object travelled out of the region that
made it and was seen, copied and adopted elsewhere. Trade spread the habit even
where a local tradition did not begin it. Either answer is acceptable; the climate
answer explains why the object was wanted, the trade answer explains how it spread.

(v) A. Each kind of pankha could be distinguished from the other.
Test each option against the reason. The reason offers two facts — indigenous materials unique
to the region and elaborate designs. Both are marks of difference, and the extract draws exactly
that conclusion in its last line: distinct materials and intricate designs “set them apart from one
another”. So A follows.
B does not. That pankhas were made of local materials with fine designs says nothing about
how many people used them; widespread use is asserted elsewhere in the extract (“substantial
commonality in their use across India”) and has a different cause altogether. A reason must lead
to its assertion, and this one leads only to A.

Q2 I. 2. With time and the advent of technology and innovative creations, the beautiful
culture of pankhas runs the risk of slowly losing its presence among Indians. Once
made for personal use, over time this handicraft has transformed into a commercial
business and now provides some form of livelihood to India’s artisans. The slight
increase in popularity and demand is significantly factored by the different versions
of the pankha being crafted. (i) Infer one negative impact of technological
advancement on pankha. (ii) Complete the statement with an appropriate reason.
The writer refers to ‘pankhas’ not just as an object but as a ‘culture’ because
___________. (iii) Select a line from the extract which depicts how the role of the
pankha has changed over the years. (iv) List one way in which the increase in
demand of pankhas might benefit artisans. (v) Select the factor that has
contributed to the commercialisation of pankhas. A. cultural preservation B.
economic demand C. technological advancements D. artisan initiative

(i) Technology has produced the electric fan, the cooler and the air-conditioner, which do the
pankha’s work without a hand to move them. So the pankha has lost its everyday users, and
with them the reason for the craft to exist: “the beautiful culture of pankhas runs the risk of
slowly losing its presence among Indians.” If nobody needs a pankha, nobody learns to make
one, and a skill carried for centuries can disappear in a generation.

Page 8 of 67

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Notice the writer’s word: slowly. The danger described is not a sudden ban or

m as e
l
collapse but a quiet fading — which is harder to notice and therefore harder to stop.

m .co a g
l a se
g
(ii) …because a pankha carries far more than the breeze it makes: it carries the materials
a
of its region, its inherited designs, the ritual and household customs it belongs to, the
stories told about it and the skill handed down through generations of a family. The

. c om
chapter has already shown this — the fan fanned deities in temples and kings in courts, and
ag
s e m core of the region that crafts it.” An object can be
“The structure of each fan reflects the cultural
a is a way of life, and that is what is at risk. Calling it a
agl
bought, replaced or thrown away; a culture
culture is also what makes the loss matter — you cannot mourn the disappearance of a tool, but
you can mourn the disappearance of a tradition.
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(iii) “Once made for personal use, over time this handicraft has transformed into a
m.
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commercial business and now provides some form of livelihood to India’s artisans.”

em a
a s
a gl Why this line and no other: the question asks for change of role, and this is the only
sentence in the extract built on a before-and-after contrast — “Once… over time…

om a s
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now”. It names both roles: the pankha used to be something you made for yourself; it
is now something you make to sell. .c
a s em
agl a regular and sustainable income from the craft itself.
(iv) A steady demand gives artisans

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When orders come in through the year, a family no longer has to treat pankha-making as a

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spare-time occupation or abandon it for daily-wage work, and the skill can be passed on to the

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next generation instead of being dropped. (The chapter puts the same idea

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paragraph:

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(v) B. economic demand.
a The extract makes the chain explicit: the handicraft “has transformed into a commercial

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business and now provides some form of livelihood”, and “The slight increase in popularity and

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demand…”. Commercialisation is what happens when an object acquires buyers; buyers are
demand.
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A — cultural preservation

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not the cause of commercialisation.

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C — technological advancements is named in this very extract as the threat to pankhas, the

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force pushing them out of daily use. It is the opposite of the answer.

agthe initiatives the chapter
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m names later are workshops and exhibitions, and they come after commercialisation.
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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 II. 1. How does the title ‘Winds of Change’ capture the essence of the chapter?

The title works on two levels at once, and that double action is exactly what makes it right for
this chapter.
Literally, a pankha exists to make wind. Every object in the chapter — the two-inch pankhi, the
appliqué fan, the brass temple fan with its long handle, the huge one “requiring a person’s full
arm strength” — is a machine for moving air. So the first word of the title names the subject
itself.
Idiomatically, “winds of change” means a shift in circumstances that cannot be resisted. And a
shift is precisely what the chapter describes:

from sacred and royal use — pankhas “used in temples to fan deities” and “in royal courts to
fan kings” — to ordinary household use;
from a useful object to a decorative one: “In modern times, the use of pankhas has been
restricted to decorative purposes, and they have become traditional craft items in India”;
from something “made for personal use” to “a commercial business” that “now provides
some form of livelihood to India’s artisans”;
and from a living habit to something that “runs the risk of slowly losing its presence among
Indians”.

Why the pun is more than a pun: the two meanings are causally linked. It is
technology — the electric fan, another maker of wind — that has driven the change
in the hand fan. The literal wind and the metaphorical wind are the same wind. A
title that could have been merely clever turns out to state the chapter’s argument in
three words.

Tip: when a question asks how a title “captures the essence”, always test it against
the end of the text as well as the beginning. Here the closing paragraph is about
reversing the drift — workshops, exhibitions, celebration. So the title is hopeful too:
winds can change direction.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q4 II. 2. Support the following statement with any two relevant examples from the
chapter. ‘The structure and design of pankhas are testimony to the cultural identity
of the region.’

The chapter states the claim outright — “The structure of each fan reflects the cultural core of
the region that crafts it” — and then proves it region by region. Two examples make the point
clearly.
Example 1 — Rajasthan and its embroidery and temple traditions. Rajasthan does not have
one pankha; it has four, and each one is a different part of the state’s identity. The zardozi hand
fan is made with “glittering ornate and encrusted gold threadwork” — zardozi is the courtly
embroidery of the region, so the fan carries the taste of the old princely courts on its face.
Beside it stand the temple hand fans, “made by engraving brass” and given “a long handle”,
and the painted hand fan, “a cardboard pankha featuring various images… usually offered to
gods”. The long handle is not decoration; it exists because a temple fan must be waved over a
deity by an attendant standing at a distance. Structure follows ritual, and ritual is culture.
Example 2 — Gujarat and its bead and mirror crafts. Gujarat’s fans are “elegant pure cotton-
based fans embellished with mirror work”, and its beads hand fan is “covered with colourful
beads and has a silver handle”. The chapter gives the reason in the very next sentence: “Gujarat
is the centre for bead craft in India”. The fan is simply the state’s best-known skill applied to a
new object. And in Kutch, where leather-working is the old trade, the fan changes material with
the district — “hand-stitched leather hand fans decorated with thread and wool at its seams”.

What the two examples together prove: the fan does not choose its material; the
region does. Where gold thread is the local skill you get zardozi, where beads are the
local skill you get bead fans, where the marsh grows sola you get Bengal’s milky-
white fans, and where bamboo grows thick you get Bihar’s “colourful and sturdy
bamboo hand fans”. Read a row of pankhas and you are reading a map of India’s
crafts.

Other pairs you could have used: West Bengal’s sola and Tal Patar Pankha, made
from a local water grass and palm leaf and “perpetually kept as an article of
possession in Bengali households”; or the tribal fans, which are recognised by their
“geometrical patterns and the white ink and red background combinations”.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q5 II. 3. The chapter mentions pankhas running the risk of slowly losing their presence
among Indians. Evaluate how the balance between preserving traditional
craftsmanship and incorporating innovative designs in the creation of pankhas will
help in this regard.

Neither half of the pair can save the craft alone; the balance is what saves it.
Tradition alone preserves the object but loses the buyer. If artisans make only what was
always made, for a use that no longer exists, the pankha becomes a museum piece. The chapter
is blunt about the modern reality: “the use of pankhas has been restricted to decorative
purposes.” Nobody today buys a fan to survive the summer. A craft that refuses to change waits
for a market that has already gone.
Innovation alone keeps the buyer but loses the craft. If the fan is redesigned freely —
printed on machine-made board, assembled from plastic, stripped of the appliqué or the mirror
work because those take weeks — then what survives is the shape and not the skill. The very
thing that made a pankha “testimony to the cultural identity of the region” disappears, and with
it the reason anyone should want one rather than a printed souvenir.
Held together, each supplies what the other lacks. Tradition supplies the value — the zardozi
stitch, the Kutch leather seam, the sola pith, the woven moonj — and innovation supplies the
occasion to use it: fans redesigned as wall panels, table décor, wedding and festival gifts,
packaging that protects a delicate sola fan in transit, a smaller lighter version that fits a
handbag, online listings that reach buyers a village fair never could. The chapter itself records
that this is already working: “The slight increase in popularity and demand is significantly
factored by the different versions of the pankha being crafted.”

The economic point underneath: preservation is not free. Somebody must be able
to live by making pankhas, or the skill will not be taught to the next child. Innovation
is what makes the traditional skill earn — and earning is what makes it survive. That
is why the chapter speaks of a “commercial platform to create a sustainable
livelihood” in the same breath as “preserve the essence of the craft”.

Where the line should be drawn: change the use and the form freely; do not
change the hand and the material. A machine-printed pankha may sell, but it can no
longer testify to anything.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q6 II. 4. How might initiatives such as pankha-making workshops contribute to the
preservation of this traditional craft?

A workshop does four things at once that neither a shop nor a museum can do.

It transmits the skill. Pankha-making is learnt by watching hands, not by reading. A
workshop puts a learner beside a maker, which is the only way a craft has ever passed on —
and it opens that transmission beyond the artisan’s own family, so the skill survives even
where a son or daughter has taken up another trade.
It creates informed buyers. Once you have tried to plait moonj or set a single mirror, you
know what three weeks of work looks like, and you stop asking why a hand fan costs more
than a plastic one. The chapter names this effect: workshops and exhibitions “help spread
awareness about the beauty and importance of this craft in India’s culture.”
It gives the artisan a platform and a price. Running a workshop is itself paid work, and it
puts the maker in front of customers directly, without a middleman. The chapter says such
initiatives allow “contemporary pankha makers to demonstrate their craft and regain its
popularity” and “provide them with a commercial platform to create a sustainable livelihood.”
It records the craft. A workshop forces the maker to break the process into teachable steps,
and those steps — which materials, which season, which tool, which knot — are exactly the
knowledge that is otherwise lost silently when an old artisan dies.

Why the writer places workshops “both within and outside the handicraft
exhibitions”: inside an exhibition the audience is already interested; outside it — in
schools, in fairs, in city markets — the workshop reaches people who would never
have looked for a pankha at all. Preservation needs both the convinced and the
unconvinced.

Try this: the chapter itself sets you a workshop on page 81 — make a paper hand
fan in a group of four and describe the process. Do it, then write down how many
steps you could still remember a week later. That is exactly the problem an artisan
faces in passing on a craft.

Page 13 of 67

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
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II. 5. The writer mentions celebrating pankhas in the concluding part of the chapter.
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Q7

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Assess how this could be beneficial to artisans and the craft.

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The writer’s exact words are worth holding on to: “One of the first steps to preserve the essence

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of the craft is by celebrating pankhas, and appreciating the culture, stories, and artistry that
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this handicraft invokes.” Notice what is being celebrated — not the object only, but the culture,
stories and artistry behind it.
l a se
g pankha’s status. A thing that is celebrated is worth
For the craft, celebration changesathe
keeping; a thing that is merely used is thrown away when something better arrives. Festivals,

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exhibitions, displays and documentation move the pankha out of the category of “obsolete tool”
m protection.
and into the category of “heritage”, and heritage attracts attention, fundingeand
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Celebration

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god, the
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For artisans, the benefits are practical and immediate. Celebration gives them:
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Visibility — it “allows contemporary pankha makers to demonstrate their craft and regain its
agl
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ag“al commercial platform to create a sustainable livelihood”,
popularity”, so the maker is seen and named instead of being an anonymous supplier;
A market and a fair price —
since buyers who understand the labour pay for the labour;

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Dignity — public appreciation turns a poorly-paid occupation into a respected vocation, and

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that respect is often what persuades the next generation to continue rather

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m celebration comes first: the writer calls it “one of the first steps”, and the order
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g l as is deliberate. Money and marketing follow demand, and demand follows value.
a
Nobody buys what nobody admires. Change how the pankha is regarded and the
se m
com g l a
. a
workshops, the exhibitions and the livelihood become possible; leave that
m
ase
unchanged and no scheme can hold the craft up for long.

agl

co m
m .
II. 6. How does the restriction of the use of pankha for decorative purposes reflect
e
Q8

m l as
.co
the changing cultural role of these traditional fans in modern India?

a g
a s emANSWER
agl The pankha has moved from being an object of use to an object of display — and that single
.c
s e m
m a
agl
shift changes everything about where it lives, who owns it and what it means.
. co
e m
Then: the fan was in the hand. It fanned deities in temples and kings in royal courts, it lay in

g l as
every Bengali household, and it was “made for personal use”. Its value came from what it did.
a

com
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Now: the fan is on the wall. The chapter is exact: “In modern times, the use of pankhas has been
restricted to decorative purposes, and they have become traditional craft items in India” — and
Gujarat’s “dainty pankhas are commonly used as wall decorations”. Its value now comes from
what it represents.
Three things follow from that change:

The pankha has become a symbol of identity rather than a solution to heat. An electric
fan has taken over the function; what the pankha keeps is the meaning — the region it
comes from, the skill in it, the memory of the household it once belonged to.
The audience has changed. A working fan was made for the family that owned it; a
decorative one is made for a buyer, often a city buyer or a tourist. So the craft has shifted
“into a commercial business”, and the artisan now works to somebody else’s taste.
The knowledge is at risk even while the object survives. A decorative fan need not fan
well. Once no one tests it in a hot afternoon, the practical parts of the skill — the weight, the
balance, the spring of the cane, the set of the handle — are the first to be forgotten, even
though the pattern on the face is kept.

The double meaning of the word “restricted”: the writer could have written
“changed to”. “Restricted” carries loss — a narrowing of the fan’s world from temple,
court and courtyard to a single wall. That is why the very next paragraph turns to the
risk of “slowly losing its presence among Indians”, and why the chapter ends with
what can be done about it.

Vocabulary and Structures in Context — Pages 76–79
Winds of Change (prose)

VOCABULARY GRAMMAR

Q1 I. Read the following pairs of words from the text. exotic and stylish | villages and
towns | thread and wool | silk and brass | ornate and encrusted | within and
outside 1. Classify the pairs of words given above in the following categories. One
example has been done for you. Appearance | Place | Material __________ | within and
outside | __________ Now, find more such word pairs from the text and share them
with your classmates and teacher.

Ask one question of each pair: does it tell you what a thing looks like, where it is, or what it is made
of?

Page 15 of 67

Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

APPEARANCE PLACE MATERIAL

exotic and stylish within and outside (given) thread and wool

ornate and encrusted villages and towns silk and brass

How each one is decided:

exotic and stylish — both adjectives judge how a pankha strikes the eye: “They were
considered exotic and stylish.” Appearance.
ornate and encrusted — both describe the surface of the zardozi fan, “glittering ornate and
encrusted gold threadwork”. Appearance.
villages and towns — two kinds of settlement: “different villages and towns developed their
own varieties”. Place.
within and outside — two positions relative to something: “both within and outside the
handicraft exhibitions”. Place.
thread and wool — what the Kutch fans are “decorated with… at its seams”. Material.
silk and brass — “with silk and brass being reserved for antique pieces”. Material.

More such pairs from the text:

PAIR WHERE IT OCCURS CATEGORY

beads and stones “with decorative beads and stones were used” Material

cane and palm leaves “Cane and palm leaves are used” Material

grass and metal “Materials such as grass and metal are embedded” Material

bamboo sticks and “embedded into the fans using bamboo sticks and Material
grass grass”

shapes and patterns “pieces of fabric in different shapes and patterns” Appearance

colourful and sturdy “Bihar’s colourful and sturdy bamboo hand fans” Appearance

shapes and sizes “embroidered hand fans… in different shapes and sizes” Appearance

sculptures and “can be found in embroidery work, sculptures, and Material / craft
carvings carvings” objects

antiquity and rarity “recognised across India due to their antiquity and Value (a fourth kind)
rarity”

popularity and demand “The slight increase in popularity and demand” Value (a fourth kind)

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the writer keeps reaching for pairs: a pair covers a whole range in two words.
“Villages and towns” means everywhere, big and small; “within and outside” means in
every setting; “exotic and stylish” gives both the strangeness and the elegance in one
breath. In a survey chapter that must describe eight states in three pages, the paired
phrase is an economy device.

Q2 II. Find the word pairs for the following fixed expressions. Write the meanings of
these expressions by selecting them from the box given below. One example has
been done for you. [Some common expressions with ‘and’ have a fixed order which
cannot be changed. The shortest expression comes first. For example, bread and
butter (*not butter and bread)] Word 1: 1. high 2. cut 3. fact 4. all 5. wear 6. time 7.
thick 8. hard Word 2: tear | fast | sundry | thin | figures | run | again | dry
(Example row: 4. all + sundry = ‘all and sundry’ = (v) everyone, not just a few special
people) Now, match the following meanings with the correct word pairs created
above. (i) in a difficult situation, without help or money – (ii) the damage to object
due to normal use – (iii) accurate and detailed information – (iv) even when there
are problems or difficulties – (v) everyone, not just a few special people – (vi) often;
on many or all occasions – (vii) To make a quick or sudden escape –

The two columns are deliberately not in matching order — you must pair them yourself. The
completed table:

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WORD AND WORD FIXED MEANING
1 2 EXPRESSION

1. high and dry high and dry (i) in a difficult situation, without help or
money

2. cut and run cut and run (vii) to make a quick or sudden escape

3. fact and figures facts and figures (iii) accurate and detailed information

4. all and sundry all and sundry (given) (v) everyone, not just a few special people

5. wear and tear wear and tear (ii) the damage to an object due to normal
use

6. time and again time and again (vi) often; on many or all occasions

7. thick and thin thick and thin (iv) even when there are problems or
difficulties

8. hard and fast hard and fast — (no meaning is printed for this one)

Note on the eighth pair: the book prints eight word pairs but only seven
meanings, so one expression is left for you to supply. It is hard and fast, which
means fixed and not to be bent, and is almost always used of rules: There is no hard
and fast rule about which side the handle should go on. Also note that the book prints
“fact” in Word 1, but the fixed expression is always plural — facts and figures.

Each expression in a sentence of your own:

high and dry — The contractor disappeared and left the artisans high and dry.
cut and run — When the rain started, the stallholders cut and ran.
facts and figures — Bring facts and figures to the meeting, not opinions.
wear and tear — After two summers of daily use, the cane fan showed some wear and tear.
time and again — Grandmother told us time and again to keep the pankha out of the sun.
thick and thin — Those women workers have stayed with the craft through thick and thin.
hard and fast — There is no hard and fast rule about how many pleats a paper fan needs.

Page 18 of 67

as e
Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Why the order is fixed: the book gives one reason — “The shortest expression

m l a se
comes first”, so we say bread and butter, wear and tear, high and dry. English also
o
.c pair whose second word has more syllables or a longer
a g vowel (time and
m
prefers the

l a seall and sundry), and it favours a rhyme or a repeated sound (wear and tear
g
again,
arhymes; thick and thin alliterates; cut and run rhymes). These are called irreversible
binomials. Reverse one and it sounds instantly wrong — “dry and high”, “tear and
co m
.
wear” — even though the meaning would be unchanged. That is why they must be
e m ag
learnt whole, as single items of vocabulary.
g l as
a

co m
Q3
se
III. Read the following word combinations from the text. • sustainable livelihood •
m.
o m l a
gcombinations are called
.c
aesthetically pleasing • appreciating the culture [The given phrases are

m a
se
conventional combinations just like fixed expressions. Such
a
agl
collocations.] 1. Choose the appropriate word collocations for the following
sentences. (i) The students have to (take/give) the English exam tomorrow. (ii) The

m
interviewer asked the candidate to (take/have) a seat. (iii) My scooter (dashed
a s
.co
against/ran into) a car. (iv) I must (take/own) responsibility for my success. (v) I
m agl
a se
would like to (tone up/improve) my grammar.
l
ag

co m
m .
CORRECT
m
WHY THE OTHER WORD FAILS
ase
.co
COLLOCATION
a g l
a s e(i)m
gl
A student takes an exam; the teacher or the board gives/sets it. The
a
The students have to take
the English exam two verbs belong to opposite sides of the desk.
tomorrow.
se m
om
Take .acseat is the fixed polite formula for inviting someone to sit. g l a
(ii) The interviewer asked the
em may hear have a seat in informal American English, but take a a
a s
agl seat is the standard collocation and the one the exercise wants.)
candidate to take a seat. (You

(iii) My scooter ran into a car.
co m
Run into is the ordinary collocation for a vehicle colliding with

m .
e
something. Dash against is not idiomatic English here; dash

com l as
collocates with dash off a note or dash across the road.

.(iv) a g
e m
as
agl
I must take responsibility Take responsibility is the standard verb + noun pair (also take charge,
for my success. take the blame, take credit). Own can mean “admit” in very informal

.c
m
speech (own up to), but it does not collocate with the bare noun

s e
om la
responsibility in standard usage.

. c
I would like to improve my mTone up collocates with the body — tone up your muscles. A skill is a g
a se improved, polished or brushed up.
(v)
grammar.
ag l

co m
m .
m as e
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What a collocation is, and why it cannot be worked out by logic: two words may
mean almost the same thing and still not be interchangeable. Heavy rain is English;
strong rain is not. Strong tea is English; powerful tea is not. There is no rule behind this
— only habit, which is why collocations are learnt by reading and noticing, exactly as
the three phrases at the head of this exercise were noticed inside the chapter: “a
sustainable livelihood”, “appreciating the culture”, and aesthetically pleasing.

Try this: collect five more collocations from the chapter — spread awareness, provide
a livelihood, preserve the essence, regain its popularity, date back to. Then write each in
a sentence about your own town’s craft.

Q4 IV. Read the following sentences. Underline the verbs. 1. In modern times, pankhas
have become traditional craft items in India. 2. Gujarat’s industrious home-based
women workers have worked tirelessly in the handicraft of pankha-making. 3.
Many tribes in India have adopted this handicraft. 4. Once made for personal use,
this handicraft has transformed into a commercial business. [The underlined verbs
refer to the past, but have relevance to the current or present time. This form of
tense is called the present perfect tense. Recently completed actions also take the
present perfect form of tense.]

The verb to underline in each sentence is the whole verb phrase — helping verb + past
participle — not just the last word.

VERB (UNDERLINE THIS) HELPING VERB PAST PARTICIPLE

1. have become have become

2. have worked have worked

3. have adopted have adopted

4. has transformed has transformed

Why has in sentence 4 and have in the other three: the helping verb agrees with
the subject. Sentences 1–3 have plural subjects — pankhas, women workers, many
tribes — so have. Sentence 4’s subject is singular — this handicraft — so has.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the writer chose this tense, and not the simple past: the present perfect ties
a past action to the present moment. “Pankhas have become traditional craft items”
means they are craft items now; “pankhas became craft items” would leave it safely
in history. The whole chapter is an argument about a craft in danger today, so nearly
every sentence about the modern situation takes this form: has been restricted, has
transformed, have adopted. Change them to the simple past and the urgency
disappears.

Watch out for the trap in sentence 4: “Once made for personal use” looks like a
verb, and it is a past participle — but it belongs to a reduced clause describing the
handicraft, not to the main verb. The main verb of the sentence is has transformed.
The same trap appears in sentence 2, where home-based and tirelessly can distract
you from the phrase have worked.

Q5 IV. Now, fill in the blanks with the present perfect form of verbs in the following
paragraph. One example has been done for you. Puppets have long fascinated
(fascinate) audiences worldwide. Puppeteers (i) ______ (create) intricate characters
and captivating stories with their skillful artistry. They (ii) __________ (master) the
delicate movements that bring these lifeless figures to life, entertaining both
children and adults. Over the years, puppetry (iii) ___________ (evolve), using modern
technology while preserving traditional techniques. Many puppeteers (iv) __________
(pass) down their craft through generations, ensuring its continuity. They (v) ________
(perform) in theatres, on television, and at festivals, conveying important cultural
narratives.

BLANK ANSWER SUBJECT → HELPING VERB PARTICIPLE

(i) have created Puppeteers (plural) → have regular: create → created

(ii) have mastered They (plural) → have regular: master → mastered

(iii) has evolved puppetry (singular, uncountable) → regular: evolve → evolved
has

(iv) have passed Many puppeteers (plural) → have regular: pass → passed

(v) have They (plural) → have regular: perform →
performed performed

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The paragraph read whole: Puppets have long fascinated audiences worldwide. Puppeteers
have created intricate characters and captivating stories with their skillful artistry. They have
mastered the delicate movements that bring these lifeless figures to life, entertaining both
children and adults. Over the years, puppetry has evolved, using modern technology while
preserving traditional techniques. Many puppeteers have passed down their craft through
generations, ensuring its continuity. They have performed in theatres, on television, and at
festivals, conveying important cultural narratives.

The only one that catches students out is (iii). Puppetry looks plural because it
ends in a soft sound and names a whole art, but it is a singular uncountable noun —
like pottery, weaving, embroidery — so it takes has. Test it by substituting a pronoun:
“puppetry… it has evolved”, not “they have evolved”.

Did you notice? This paragraph is the pankha chapter’s argument transferred to
another craft. Puppetry too is old, handed “down… through generations”, threatened
by change, and surviving by “using modern technology while preserving traditional
techniques” — the exact balance the chapter asks you to evaluate in Critical
Reflection II.3. The grammar exercise is also a comprehension lesson.

Listen and Respond — Page 79 (Transcript for teacher, Appendix page 263)
Winds of Change (prose)

LISTENING

Q1 I. You will listen to a dialogue between a boy and a girl discussing which type of
pankha they should choose as a gift. As you listen, choose four statements out of
seven that are true from 1–7 given below. (Transcript for teacher on page 263) 1.
Rohan thinks Grandma prefers heavier items because they feel more substantial. 2.
Priya suggests getting a pankha that can be easily moved around. 3. Rohan believes
Grandma enjoys sitting in the verandah during the evenings. 4. Priya knows
Grandma likes to keep special items close to her. 5. Rohan thinks a pankha with
intricate designs would be too delicate for Grandma’s liking. 6. Priya suggests
choosing between a bamboo pankha with beadwork or an embroidered pankha
with mirror work. 7. Rohan decides they should buy the pankha without consulting
their mom.

The four true statements are 1, 2, 3 and 6.

Page 22 of 67

Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

In the transcript (Appendix, page 263) the Boy is Rohan — he opens with “Priya, what do you
think we should get Grandma for her birthday?” — and the Girl is Priya. Half the task is simply
keeping track of who said what, because three of the false statements are true remarks put in
the wrong speaker’s mouth.

TRUE / EVIDENCE FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
FALSE

1 True Priya raises the idea — “do you think she would prefer something heavy that feels
sturdy?” — and Rohan confirms it from his own knowledge: “Good point. She did
mention once that she likes things with a bit of weight.”

2 True After Rohan objects, “won’t that be hard to move around?”, Priya proposes “Maybe
something in between? Not too heavy, not too light.” and her final shortlist begins
with “the lightweight bamboo one” — a pankha Grandma can carry about easily.

3 True Rohan: “Hmm, maybe something light that she can use easily. I remember she likes
sitting in the veranda in the evenings.”

4 False It is Rohan, not Priya, who says this: “it should be something she can keep under her
pillow when she’s not using it. She likes keeping special things close.”

5 False The opposite. When Priya suggests “the ones with intricate designs… those
embroidered ones from Rajasthan”, Rohan is enthusiastic: “Oh yeah, the applique
ones! Those are beautiful. And they would look so nice in her room.” He never calls
them too delicate.

6 True Priya: “I think we should narrow it down to two options: the lightweight bamboo one
with the delicate beadwork, or the medium-weight embroidered one with the
mirror work.”

7 False Rohan says exactly the reverse: “I like both, but let’s ask Mom for her opinion. She
knows Grandma’s tastes better than anyone.”

How to be sure of 1 and 2, which are the hard ones: use the number the question
gives you. Statements 4, 5 and 7 are contradicted outright by the recording — 4 and
5 attribute a line to the wrong speaker or reverse an opinion, and 7 is the opposite
of what Rohan says. Since the task states that exactly four of the seven are true, and
3 and 6 are certainly true, the remaining two must be 1 and 2. Checking them
against the transcript then confirms it. In a listening test, this cross-check is worth
doing whenever a statement feels borderline.

Page 23 of 67

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
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co m
m.
Tip for listening tasks like this: before the recording starts, mark each statement

m l a se
with the name it contains — R or P. Then listen only for who is speaking when the
o g not content
.c up. Most of the errors in a task like this are speaker-swaps,
a
m
idea comes

l a se
ag
errors.

co m
e m . ag
as
Speaking Activity — Page 80
Winds of Change (prose)
a g l

m
SPEAKING

co
e m.
combelow. g l as
I. Work in groups of four. Look at the pictures of the four different kinds of fans
. a
Q1

sem
given
a
agl
m a s
m .co agl
l a se
a g

. com
se m Handheld fan
com l a
Hand fan Ceiling fan Table fan

m . ag hand fan on a stick, a
ase
Page 80 — the four kinds of fan, redrawn: a woven palm-leaf

agl
three-blade ceiling fan, a table fan with a round guard on a pedestal, and a small
battery-operated handheld fan.

se m
o m g l a
m .c
• Each of you in the group will pick one kind of fan. • Imagine yourself to be that fan.
a
l a se box below. – Introduce yourself as the fan which you
• Use the points given in the

ag yourself, for example, your features, etc. – What do you like
have chosen. – Describe
about yourself? – What do you feel is your weakness? – What makes you unique?

co m
m .
m

o l a se
.c is a spoken monologue in the first person — you are the a gfan. Speak for about a minute
m
This

a se and a half, and keep to the five points in the order the box gives them, so the group can
agl compare four talks fairly.
c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

com
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What a good talk needs:

Consistent voice. Use “I” throughout, and give the fan a personality that matches
the object — the ceiling fan can be steady and a little grand, the handheld one
quick and restless.
Real, checkable detail in the description: material, size, how many blades or
ribs, how you are powered, what you cost, where you hang or sit.
An honest weakness. This is the point most students skip. Every fan has one —
and naming it is what makes the talk interesting.
A “unique” point that no other fan in the group can claim. Decide it in
advance so that the four talks do not overlap.
Delivery: look up from your notes, vary your pace, and end on the unique point
rather than trailing off.

Sample answer: the Hand fan
“Namaste. I am the hand fan — the pankha. I am the oldest of us four by a very long way: my
ancestors are painted on the walls of the Ajanta caves, from the second century of the Common
Era, and my name comes from pankh, the feather of a bird. I am about the size of a dinner plate,
woven from split bamboo strips over a bamboo frame, with a red cotton border stitched round
my edge, and a handle you can hold in one hand. I weigh less than a slice of bread.
What do I like about myself? I never need electricity. When the power fails on an August night
and the ceiling fan hangs there dead, the whole family remembers me. I make no noise, I cost
less than a bus ticket, and when I am worn out I go back into the soil, because everything in me
grew in a field. I also carry my home on my face — a girl in Kerala can tell at a glance that I was
made in Assam.
My weakness? I am lazy only because I have to be carried. I cool one person, and only for as
long as an arm is willing to move me. On a still, hot afternoon my owner’s wrist tires before the
heat does. And I am fragile — I fray at the border, and a monsoon leak can ruin me in a night.
What makes me unique is this: I am the only fan here that is a work of art. Nobody has ever
hung a table fan on a wall as decoration or offered one to a deity in a temple. My mirror work,
my zardozi, my beads and my moonj plaiting were made by a pair of human hands, and each of
those hands belongs to a place. The other three of you move air. I move air and carry a culture.
Thank you.”

Why the ‘weakness’ point matters: it is what turns the activity from description
into argument. When all four fans have spoken, the group can see the real trade-off
the chapter is about — the electric fans win on effort and coverage, the hand fan
wins on cost, silence, independence from electricity and cultural value. That is the
debate behind the title, ‘Winds of Change’.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Writing Task — Page 80
Winds of Change (prose)

WRITING

Q1 I. Describe an artefact you have made in your craft class or learnt from someone.
Begin with collection and organisation of the facts with the help of the pointers
given above. Do not include your opinion in the factual description. [Pointers given
on page 81: • Name of the object and its physical characteristics — appearance,
shape, size, colour, etc. • What is it made up of? • Which region does it belong to?
How has it been used traditionally? • Is there an origin story associated with it? How
has it evolved over time? • How can it be used effectively and safely in today’s
time?]

The instruction that carries the marks is the last one: “Do not include your opinion in the
factual description.” This is a factual description, not a personal essay.

Method — collect, then organise, then write:

1. Collect. Put the object in front of you and write down measurements, colours,
materials and the number of parts. Ask whoever taught you where the craft
comes from and how it used to be used. Do not write a sentence yet.
2. Organise. Sort your notes under the five pointers, in the order given — identity
and appearance, material, region and traditional use, origin and evolution,
present-day use and safety. That order is your paragraph plan.
3. Write four or five short paragraphs, one per pointer, about 150–200 words in all.

Keeping opinion out — the practical test: strike out every word that a reader could
disagree with. Beautiful, lovely, amazing, my favourite, I felt proud, the best — all out.
Replace each with something measurable. Not “a beautiful bright fan” but “a fan 22
cm across, dyed pink and green”. Use the passive and the present tense for
processes — “the strips are soaked for two hours”, “the ends are trimmed” — which is
the register the chapter itself uses: “These are made by engraving brass and have a
long handle.”

Sample answer: A moonj-grass coaster set
Name and physical characteristics. The artefact is a set of four round table coasters. Each
coaster is 10 centimetres in diameter and about 6 millimetres thick. The surface is flat and coiled
in a spiral from the centre outwards. Three of the coils are left in the natural straw colour of the

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

grass; the fourth and the outermost coil are dyed magenta and green.
Material. The coasters are made of moonj grass wound over a core of kaisa grass. Nothing else
is used except cotton thread at the finishing edge. No glue, nails or plastic are involved.
Region and traditional use. The craft belongs to the Prayagraj region of Uttar Pradesh, where
the grass grows on the river banks. Traditionally, moonj is plaited into baskets, grain bins, mats,
boxes given to a bride at her wedding, and the square hand fans mentioned in this chapter.
Origin and evolution. The craft has been practised in the region for several generations and
was taught in households rather than in workshops. It was earlier done only for domestic use.
Today it is made for sale, and the range has been extended from baskets and fans to coasters,
trays, lampshades and wall panels.
Use and safety today. The coasters are used under hot cups and glasses. They must be kept
dry, because damp grass darkens and grows mould; a wet coaster should be dried in the shade
and not in direct sun, which makes the grass brittle. Loose ends should be trimmed with
scissors rather than pulled.

Why the pointers are in this order: the sequence moves from what a reader can
see to what a reader must be told — appearance, then material, then history, then
care. A description that begins with history loses the reader, because there is
nothing yet in the mind’s eye to attach it to. Look back at the chapter and you will
find it uses the same order for each state’s pankha.

Learning Beyond the Text — Pages 80–85
Winds of Change (prose)

PROJECT

Q1 I. Identify any art or craft item from your region and make a presentation
describing its features, materials, and process involved in making it, its usage, etc.
You may refer to the points given on the next page. [Points on page 81: • Name of
the object and its physical characteristics — appearance, shape, size, colour, etc. •
What is it made up of? • Which region does it belong to? How has it been used
traditionally? • Is there an origin story associated with it? How has it evolved over
time? • How can it be used effectively and safely in today’s time?]

This is a research-and-present task. The chapter has already given you the model: pick one craft,
and show that its material, its shape and its uses all come from its place.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Method:

1. Choose a craft you can actually see. One where a maker, a shop or a family
object is within reach beats a famous craft you can only read about. Examples by
region: Madhubani painting and sikki grass (Bihar); Channapatna lacquered toys
(Karnataka); Pattachitra (Odisha and Bengal); Blue pottery and bandhani
(Rajasthan); Kondapalli toys and Kalamkari (Andhra Pradesh); Pashmina and
papier-mâché (Kashmir); Dhokra metal casting (Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West
Bengal); Aipan (Uttarakhand); Phulkari (Punjab); coir and Aranmula mirrors
(Kerala); Warli painting and Kolhapuri chappals (Maharashtra).
2. Gather primary material. Interview one maker or one shopkeeper. Ask three
questions the internet cannot answer: Where do you buy your raw material? How
long does one piece take? Who taught you? Photograph the tools, not just the
finished piece.
3. Use the five printed pointers as your five slides, plus a title slide and a closing
slide.
4. Show the process as a numbered sequence — raw material → preparation →
shaping → decoration → finishing. A craft is a process, and this is the part a
listener will remember.
5. Separate fact from opinion, exactly as the Writing Task asked, and keep your
own view for one clearly-marked closing slide.
6. Rehearse to five minutes, and end with what the chapter ends with — what
would help this craft survive.

Sample answer: outline of a presentation on Sikki grass craft of Mithila, Bihar

Slide 1 — Name and features. Sikki craft: baskets, boxes (pauti), toys and fans coiled from
golden grass. A typical pauti is 15 cm across and 12 cm high, with a domed lid. The natural
colour is bright gold; dyed strands are added in magenta, green and black.
Slide 2 — Material. Sikki grass, cut in the monsoon from the wetlands of north Bihar, dried in
the sun, split with a needle-like tool called the takua, and coiled around a core of kaisa grass.
No glue is used.
Slide 3 — Region and traditional use. Mithila region — Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga.
Sikki boxes are traditionally part of a bride’s trousseau; sikki dolls and toys are made for
children; sikki fans and mats for household use.
Slide 4 — Origin and evolution. A household craft carried down the female line, taught by
grandmothers and mothers. Once made only for the family and for gifting; now made for
sale through self-help groups and craft fairs, with new forms such as wall panels, jewellery
boxes, coasters and lampshades.
Slide 5 — Process, in six steps. (1) Cut the grass, (2) dry it in the sun to bring out the golden
colour, (3) split the stems with the takua, (4) dye a portion of the strands, (5) coil the grass
round the kaisa core, stitching each coil to the one below with a fresh strand, (6) trim, and

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finish the rim.
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Slide 6 — Use and safety today. Keep away from damp, which causes mould; do not use for
em.
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hot or oily food unless lined; store flat. Suitable as gift boxes, storage and décor.
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Slide 7 — What would help it survive. Fair pricing, direct sale by the makers’ groups,

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a proposes for the pankha.
workshops in schools, and a Geographical Indication tag — the same remedies this chapter

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II. You can also make your own hand fan. Take ideas from the pictures given below
a
Q2
and in groups of four, make your own hand fan. Display the hand fans in the class

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and describe the process used to make it.

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Hand fan

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Mark the paper Pleat the paper Open one half Join the two halves

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Glue on a stick Fix both sticks The finished fan

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Page 81 — the two picture strips, redrawn. The top strip shows a rainbow paper fan
opening and folding shut again; the bottom strip shows the seven steps of making a

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paper hand fan.

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a s em ANSWER

agl Reading the seven pictures (page 81, ‘Paper hand fan’):
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1. A rectangular sheet of stiff coloured paper — red with a green border — is marked along

.
one edge with a pencil, so that the folds will be of equal width.
a
a s em concertina (accordion) pleat, one fold forward, one fold
aglThe picture shows both hands pressing the pleats flat.
2. The sheet is folded into an even
back, all the way across.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

3. The pleated strip is folded once in the middle, and the two halves are pinched together at
the fold, so a half-fan opens out.
4. The two inner edges that meet at the middle are pressed and glued to each other, and the
fan opens into a semicircle.
5. A flat stick — an ice-cream stick or a strip of green card — is glued along the back of the
folded edge to make the handle.
6. The stick is held in place with the fingers until the glue sets.
7. The finished fan: a full round pleated disc, red at the centre with a scalloped green rim, on a
single green handle. (In the first strip, the same fan is made in rainbow colours from two
half-fans joined together.)

What you need: two sheets of A4 stiff coloured paper or thin chart paper, a pencil
and ruler, glue stick, an ice-cream stick or two, scissors, and — if you want the
rainbow version — strips of six or seven colours pasted side by side before folding.

Sample answer: describing the process to the class
“Our fan is called Chakra. We made it in five stages.
First we prepared the paper. We took two A4 sheets of chart paper and pasted seven strips of
coloured paper across each of them, in the order of the rainbow, so that the fan would show
every colour when it opened. We let them dry flat under a book for ten minutes.
Then we marked and pleated. Using a ruler we made pencil marks every one and a half
centimetres along the top edge, and folded along each mark, alternating the direction of the
fold. Equal folds are the whole secret: where our marks were uneven, the fan did not close flat.
Third, we formed the two halves. We folded each pleated strip exactly in half, pinched it at the
centre and glued the two inner faces together. Each strip then opened into a half-circle.
Fourth, we joined the halves. We glued the flat edge of the first half-circle to the flat edge of
the second, which gave us a full circle about 24 centimetres across.
Finally we fitted the handle. We glued two ice-cream sticks, one on each side of the joint at the
back, and held them for two minutes until the glue set. The sticks stiffen the centre and give a
grip.
What we learnt: paper that is too thin will not hold the pleat and the fan flops; paper that is too
thick will not fold evenly. And a hand fan works only if it is stiff — which is exactly why the
traditional makers in this chapter use split bamboo ribs, plaited moonj or a cardboard base
under the painting. Thank you.”

Connect it back to the chapter: after the display, ask each group one question —
what would you have to change to make your fan last five summers instead of five days?
The answers (a stronger frame, a stitched border, a natural material, a coating) are
precisely the design decisions that produced the appliqué, the leather and the
moonj pankhas you read about.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 III. You must have read stories about the impact of art, painting, etc. in your life, in
English and in your own languages. Now, read and enjoy the story given below. The
Last Leaf — O. Henry (An abridged version of the original story) [pages 82–85]

The book sets no question here — it says “read and enjoy”. But read it with the chapter in mind,
because it has been placed here for a reason. Here is what to notice.
The story in brief. Sue and Johnsy, two young artists, share a flat on the third storey of an old
house. Johnsy falls ill with pneumonia in November and will not fight it: watching an ivy creeper
shed its leaves through the window, she counts them backwards and decides, “When the last
leaf falls, I will die.” The doctor tells Sue plainly, “If she doesn’t want to live, medicines will not
help her.” Downstairs lives Behrman, a sixty-year-old painter whose “lifelong dream was to paint
a masterpiece but that had remained a dream”. After a night of storm and “an icy-cold wind”,
one leaf is still on the wall, “quite green and healthy”. It does not fall the next night either. Johnsy
recovers — “I have realised that it is a sin to want to die.” Behrman dies of pneumonia two days
later, and Sue finds beside his bed “a ladder and a lantern still lighted… some brushes and green
and yellow paints on the floor”. The last leaf was painted on the wall. “That’s Behrman’s
masterpiece.”
How O. Henry produces the effect.

The twist is planted, not sprung. Every element of the ending is shown to us earlier and
then made to look like something else — Behrman’s unpainted masterpiece, his silence
when he sees the last leaf (“Behrman did not say a word. He went back to his room”), the wet
clothes and shoes the janitor finds. On a second reading his silence is the loudest thing in
the story.
The clue that gives it away is a detail of physics. Sue asks, “Haven’t you wondered why it
doesn’t flutter when the wind blows?” A real leaf in a storm moves. The reader, like Johnsy,
was too anxious to notice.
The leaf is a symbol that works two ways. For Johnsy it stands for her own life; for
Behrman it becomes the masterpiece he never painted. The story’s irony is exact — one life
is bought with another, and the greatest painting of Behrman’s career is one that nobody will
ever hang, sell or even recognise as a painting.
Counting down is the story’s clock. “Twelve… eleven… ten… nine, eight, seven… Six… only
five left… only four leaves left”. The falling number does the work of suspense without a
single sentence of explanation.

Why this story sits inside a chapter about pankhas: both texts argue that a made
object is never only an object. A hand fan carries the culture of its region; a painted
leaf carries a life. In each case the value lies not in the function — a fan that fans, a
leaf that is green — but in the human skill and intention behind it. Behrman’s leaf is
the strongest possible statement of the chapter’s claim that “art and life coincide”,
which is the line the very next poem in this book will use.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Try this: compare Behrman with the artisans of the chapter. Both work unseen, both
are undervalued in their lifetime, and in both cases the work outlives the maker.
Then compare O. Henry’s ending with the last line of ‘The Pot Maker’ in Chapter 2 —
“A new pot maker was born.” Both stories end in a death that is also a handing-on.

Reflect and Respond — Pages 86–87
Canvas of Soil (poem) — Maya Anthony

BEFORE YOU READ

Q1 I. Work in pairs. Discuss what all you see in a garden. Think of the colours you see
and where you see them. Share your responses with your teacher.

The question has two halves, and the second is the one that is usually missed: not only what
colour, but where that colour sits. Organise your talk that way and it becomes a description
instead of a list.

What a good answer needs: at least three levels of the garden (ground, middle,
above), a named colour for each, and one or two things that are not plants at all — a
garden is also light, sound, movement and the people in it.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHERE WHAT YOU SEE THE COLOURS THERE
YOU LOOK

Underfoot soil, gravel path, fallen petals, roots, brown, near-black where it is watered, grey
earthworms after rain stone, rust

Low down grass, creepers, marigold and portulaca many greens at once — pale, apple, olive, deep
beds, a row of bricks along the edge pine; orange and yellow of marigold; red
brick

At eye level rose bushes, hibiscus, tulsi and curry crimson, pink, white, the dusty green of tulsi
leaf in pots, a hedge

Above neem or gulmohar branches, a creeper dark green in shadow, gold where the sun
on a trellis, the sky through the leaves strikes through, blue and white above

Moving butterflies, dragonflies, bees, sparrows yellow, orange, iridescent blue-green
and a squirrel

Made by people a bench, a tap and hose, a watering painted white and red, weathered wood, green
can, a nameplate on a plant, a compost plastic
pit

Sample answer: “In our school garden the first thing I notice is that green is not one colour. The
new leaves of the money plant are almost yellow-green, the tulsi is a dull grey-green, and the
mango leaves are so dark they look black in the shade. The colours are arranged in layers:
brown soil at the bottom, then a low band of orange and yellow marigolds along the border,
then the red and pink of the roses at knee height, and above everything the deep green of the
banyan. The brightest colours are always at the edges — where the light falls. And the garden
changes colour twice a day: at eight in the morning everything is fresh and light, and by four in
the afternoon the same beds look darker and heavier.”

Why the book asks this before the poem: the poem you are about to read does
exactly this exercise in verse — it names “Shades of green, red, and blue” and places
them: seeds in the earth, blossoms in “the morning light”, the whole plot as a spread
canvas. Doing it yourself first means that when Maya Anthony calls the earth a
“palette”, you already know what she means.

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co m
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II. Look at the picture of a garden and a painting given below. Speak about any
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Q2

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similarities between the garden and the painting.

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.cPage 86 — the illustration, redrawn in simplified form: two brushes
l a se twelve colours; a watercolour landscape with a bare tree, hills, a waterfall and a

a g rainbow; and a line drawing of a garden with the sun, a leafy tree, flowers, birds, a
butterfly and a dragonfly. The middle panel is a watercolour painting — see the

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textbook for the painting itself.

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Speak using the following: • Just as a garden ______________, similarly, a painting
______________ • A garden and a painting, both ________. • ______________ is common to both

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a garden and a painting. • Like a garden, a painting too __________.

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Work the four sentence-frames one by one; each demands

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sentence, and using all four gives you a complete short talk.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

FRAME WHAT IT ASKS SAMPLE SENTENCES
FOR

Just as a garden ___, a parallel action Just as a garden is planned before it is planted, similarly, a
similarly, a painting ___ painting is composed before the first colour is laid down.
Just as a garden grows out of bare soil, similarly, a painting
grows out of a blank canvas.

A garden and a painting, one shared A garden and a painting, both need patience, and neither is
both ___ quality finished in a day.
A garden and a painting, both are made by human hands out
of natural materials.

___ is common to both a a shared thing, a Colour is common to both a garden and a painting.
garden and a painting noun A frame or a boundary is common to both — the edge of the
canvas, the border of bricks round the bed.
Light is common to both: neither can be seen without it.

Like a garden, a painting a shared effect Like a garden, a painting too makes a person stop and look,
too ___ on the viewer and calms them.
Like a garden, a painting too looks different depending on
where you stand and how the light falls on it.

Sample answer (spoken as a short talk): “In the picture the paint box on the left holds twelve
separate colours, and the garden on the right holds just as many — the yellow of the sunflower,
the pink and purple of the daisies, four or five different greens, the blue of the small flowers at
the front. Just as a garden is planned before it is planted, similarly, a painting is composed
before the first brushstroke is made: somebody decided that the sunflower would go at the
front and the tall tree at the left, exactly as the painter decided where to put the waterfall. A
garden and a painting, both take time, and both can be spoiled by one careless hand. Colour is
common to both, and so is light — the sun in the garden drawing does what the white of the
paper does in the watercolour. Like a garden, a painting too changes with the seasons of a
viewer’s mood: you notice something new in it every time you come back.”

The one difference worth naming at the end of your talk: a painting is finished; a
garden is never finished. That difference is what the poem plays with in its last line
— “Gardens become paintings still” — where a living, changing thing is held for a
moment as a picture.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 III. Let us acquaint ourselves with the meanings of palette, hue, and canvas. 1.
Palette: a thin oval or rectangular board or tablet that a painter holds and mixes
colours on. 2. Hue: shade of a colour 3. Canvas: (here) painting Now, look at the
painting given above and identify palette, canvas, and select a hue.

TERM MEANING IN THE PICTURE ON PAGE 86

Palette a thin oval or rectangular The rectangular paint box on the left, with its twelve separate colour
board on which a painter wells — pink, blue, red, dark blue, orange, purple, yellow, black, and
holds and mixes colours three greens — lying beside the two brushes.

Canvas (here) the painting itself The watercolour landscape in the middle — the bare dark tree in the
foreground, the green and purple hills, the waterfall running down the
slope and the rainbow arching over them. (The garden drawing on the
right is the subject; the middle panel is the painting.)

Hue a shade of a colour Any one shade will do, provided you name the shade and not just the
colour. For example: the pale violet of the distant hills, which is a
cooler, greyer hue than the deep purple in the paint box; or the yellow-
green of the sunlit slope beside the far darker green in the shadow of
the tree.

Why the three words are taught before the poem and not after: they are the
poem’s three load-bearing images, and they arrive in exactly this order — “Palette of
earth” in line 1, “spring’s vibrant hue” in line 4, “Each plot, a canvas wide” in line 9.
Without the definitions the metaphor collapses; with them, the first line already tells
you what the whole poem is going to argue.

Tip on hue versus colour: a colour is a family — red, blue, green. A hue is one
member of it — crimson, scarlet, rusty red. Look at the strip of shades on page 92
and you will see six hues of red, six of green and six of blue. When you “select a hue”,
name the member, not the family.

Check Your Understanding — Pages 87–89

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Canvas of Soil (poem)

COMPREHENSION POETRY APPRECIATION

Q1 I. Read the poem again and complete the summary of each stanza by filling in the
blanks. 1. The ______________ is portrayed as a rich palette where gardeners’ __ __ __ a __
s flourish in the form of ______________ , awaiting spring. 2. The garden flowers
______________ into a beautiful display of different b __ __ __ __ __ m s, resembling a
______________ by Mother Nature, in the light of morning. 3. Each garden is likened to a
wide __ __ n __ __ s, integrating art and __________. Through the efforts of gardeners,
gardens transform into still-life ______________.

The dashes are letter-counts, so each hinted word is fixed: _ _ _ a _ s is six letters with a fourth
and s last; b _ _ _ _ _ m s is eight letters beginning with b; _ _ n _ _ s is six letters with n third and s
last.

STANZA COMPLETED SUMMARY THE LINES IT COMES FROM

1 The earth (soil) is portrayed as a rich palette “Palette of earth, rich and deep, / Where
where gardeners’ dreams flourish in the form of dreams of gardeners seep. / Brushstrokes
seeds, awaiting spring. of seeds, planted true, / Awaiting spring’s
vibrant hue.”

2 The garden flowers bloom into a beautiful “Blossoms bloom, a painted sight, /
display of different blossoms, resembling a Dancing in the morning light. / Shades of
painting (artwork) by Mother Nature, in the green, red, and blue, / Nature’s artwork,
light of morning. ever new.”

3 Each garden is likened to a wide canvas, “Each plot, a canvas wide, / Where art and
integrating art and life. Through the efforts of life coincide. / In the hands of those who
gardeners, gardens transform into still-life till, / Gardens become paintings still.”
paintings.

What the three summaries together reveal: the poem is a single metaphor
unfolding in three stages, and the blanks fall exactly on its joints. Stanza 1 is the
materials — palette, brushstroke, the picture not yet made. Stanza 2 is the picture
appearing — bloom, colour, light. Stanza 3 is the finished work and the maker —
canvas, art and life, the hands that till. Fill the blanks and you have not just recalled
the poem; you have traced its structure.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Tip: in stanza 2 the first blank must be a verb in the plural (“The garden flowers
bloom”) and the third a noun (“a painting by Mother Nature”). Deciding the word
class before hunting for the word saves you from writing “blossom” where “bloom” is
needed.

Q2 II. Select the appropriate title for each stanza from those given below. There are
two extra titles. 1. Nature’s Work of Art 2. Sweet-smelling Blossoms 3. Gardens as
Living Canvases 4. Earth and Possibilities 5. The Painter’s Canvas

STANZA TITLE WHY IT FITS THIS STANZA AND NO OTHER

Stanza 1 4. Earth and Nothing has happened yet. The stanza holds only raw
“Palette of earth… Possibilities material and waiting — earth, dreams, seeds, and the word
Awaiting spring’s “Awaiting”. That is precisely possibility: what the soil might
vibrant hue.” become when spring comes.

Stanza 2 1. Nature’s The stanza names it in so many words — “Nature’s artwork,
“Blossoms bloom… Work of Art ever new” — and its subject is the finished display of colour,
Nature’s artwork, ever made by Nature rather than by any human hand.
new.”

Stanza 3 3. Gardens as This is the stanza that states the equation directly — plot =
“Each plot, a canvas Living Canvases canvas, garden = painting — and the word “living” catches
wide… Gardens the stanza’s other half, “Where art and life coincide”.
become paintings still.”

The two extra titles, and why each is rejected:

2. Sweet-smelling Blossoms — the poem never mentions smell at all. Its imagery is entirely
visual: colours, brushstrokes, shades, light. A title about fragrance would introduce a sense
the poet deliberately leaves out.
5. The Painter’s Canvas — tempting for stanza 3, but it points the wrong way. The poem’s
whole argument is that the gardener is the painter and the soil is the canvas; “The Painter’s
Canvas” takes us back to a literal studio and loses the metaphor. “Gardens as Living
Canvases” keeps both halves.

How to choose a stanza title in an examination: a good title must be true of the
whole stanza and false of the other stanzas. Test each candidate both ways. “Nature’s
Work of Art” is true of stanza 2 and only loosely of stanza 3, where the maker is
human; that is what settles it.

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co m
m.
III. Match the poetic devices in Column 1 to the examples in Column 2. Discuss your
se
Q3

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responses in pairs. Then share the responses with your classmates and teacher.
gwithout use of ‘like’
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Column.c 1: 1. Imagery [mind pictures] 2. Metaphor [comparison
a
l a se‘as’] 3. Rhyme Scheme 4. Tone [what the poet feels] 5. Mood [what the reader
or
a g feels] 6. Speaker 7. Alliteration [same consonant sound] Column 2: (i) appreciative
(ii) AABB (iii) ‘Blossoms bloom’ (iv) colours, brushstrokes, blossoms, shades of green

. c om
(v) a gardener (vi) garden as a painting, plot as canvas, seeds as brushstrokes (vii)
ag
s
joyful [The book adds: The poem may
e m be interpreted as an allegory. An allegory is a
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literary device used to expresslalarger ideas than those presented without explicitly
stating them. Allegory operates on two levels—the surface meaning and the deeper

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meaning. Upon considering this poem as an allegory, the garden could symbolise
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various aspects of life or nature. • Life’s journey and growth • Harmony and

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diversity]
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a 1 – (iv), 2 – (vi), 3 – (ii), 4 – (i), 5 – (vii), 6 – (v), 7 – (iii).

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DEVICE EXAMPLE HOW IT WORKS IN THIS POEM

1. Imagery (iv) colours, All four are things you can see. The poem is almost entirely
brushstrokes, blossoms, visual imagery — it never asks you to smell, hear or touch
shades of green the garden, which is exactly right for a poem that treats the
garden as a picture.

2. Metaphor (vi) garden as a painting, Not one metaphor but a sustained (extended) metaphor
plot as canvas, seeds as running through all twelve lines. Note that no comparison
brushstrokes word is used — the poet does not say the plot is like a canvas,
she says “Each plot, a canvas wide”.

3. Rhyme (ii) AABB Check it line by line: deep–seep (A A), true–hue (B B); sight–
Scheme light (A A), blue–new (B B); wide–coincide (A A), till–still (B B).
Each stanza is two rhyming couplets.

4. Tone (i) appreciative Tone is the poet’s attitude. Every adjective she chooses is a
compliment — “rich and deep”, “planted true”, “vibrant”, “a
painted sight”, “ever new”. She is admiring the gardener’s
work, not merely reporting it.

5. Mood (vii) joyful Mood is what the reader is left feeling. Blossoms that are
“Dancing in the morning light”, colour arriving after a wait, an
artwork that is “ever new” — the reader closes the poem lifted,
not thoughtful or sad.

6. Speaker (v) a gardener The voice knows the work from inside — that seeds must be
“planted true”, that spring must be waited for, that the result
lies “In the hands of those who till”. It is not the voice of a
visitor admiring a park.

7. (iii) ‘Blossoms bloom’ The repeated b at the start of two neighbouring words. Said
Alliteration aloud, the two soft explosive sounds imitate the opening of
buds — sound acting out sense.

The trap in this grid is 4 and 5. Appreciative and joyful are both positive, so they look
interchangeable. The book’s own bracket settles it: tone is what the poet feels,
mood is what the reader feels. A poet can appreciate something without making
the reader joyful; here she does both, but the two labels are not swappable.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Reading the poem as an allegory (page 89): at the surface it is about a garden. At
the deeper level, the garden is a life. Seeds “planted true” are efforts made honestly;
the wait for spring is the long gap between work and reward; “Shades of green, red,
and blue” standing together in one bed are the book’s second suggestion — “the
beauty and importance of diversity and harmony in our world”. Read this way,
“Gardens become paintings still” says that a life patiently worked at becomes
something worth looking at.

Critical Reflection — Pages 89–91
Canvas of Soil (poem)

EXTRACT-BASED

Q1 I. Read the given extracts from the poem and answer the questions that follow. 1.
Brushstrokes of seeds, planted true, Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue. (i) The poet has
used a metaphor in ‘Brushstrokes of seeds’. Which option from those given below
uses a metaphor? A. Her mother’s heart heard her heartfelt request with kindness.
B. She has a heart of gold. C. Her heart did a dance of joy on seeing the new doll. D.
She has a very kind heart. (ii) Complete the sentence appropriately. The phrase
‘planted true’ is significant because it implies __________. (iii) Why has the poet used
the word ‘hue’ instead of ‘colours’ in the extract? (iv) Complete the following
analogy correctly with a word from the extract. Summer: hot :: Spring : _________ (v)
Read the Assertion (A) and the Reason (R) and select the option that is correctly
suited. (A): Gardeners wait for Spring. (R): Gardens are worth painting in Spring. A.
Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). B. Both (A) and (R)
are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). C. (A) is true but (R) is false. D.
(A) is false but (R) is true.

(i) B. She has a heart of gold.
A metaphor calls one thing another, without like or as — exactly as the extract calls seeds
“Brushstrokes”. Test each option:

A — “Her mother’s heart heard” gives a human action to an organ: that is personification,
not metaphor.
B — the heart is not made of gold; the heart is gold, meaning precious and generous. One
thing is named as another. Metaphor.
C — “Her heart did a dance of joy”: again a heart performing a human action.
Personification.
D — “a very kind heart” is plain literal description with an adjective. No device at all.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

(ii) …that the seeds have been sown with care, honesty and exactness — each one placed in
the right spot, at the right depth, in the right season, the way a painter lays a deliberate
brushstroke — so that the gardener’s labour can be trusted to come good.
The word true is doing two jobs at once. It carries the sense of accurate (as in “a wheel running
true”, or a line drawn true), which belongs to the painter half of the metaphor; and the sense of
faithful, sincere, which belongs to the gardener half. Read either way, it tells you that the result
in stanza 2 is earned, not accidental.
(iii) Three reasons, in order of weight:

It belongs to the poem’s vocabulary. The poem is built out of a painter’s words — palette,
brushstrokes, shades, canvas. Hue is a painter’s word; colours is an everyday one. Using it
keeps the metaphor unbroken.
It is more precise. A hue is a particular shade within a colour, so the word promises the
countless gradations spring actually brings — the difference between apple green and pine
green, crimson and salmon — instead of a few flat blocks of colour.
It completes the rhyme. Hue rhymes with true in the line above, closing the AABB couplet.
Colours would break both the rhyme and the metre.

(iv) Summer : hot :: Spring : vibrant — taken from “Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue”. The analogy
pairs a season with the adjective that defines its quality, and vibrant is the only adjective the
extract gives to spring.
(v) A. Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
Assertion: gardeners wait for spring — true, and stated outright: “Awaiting spring’s vibrant
hue.” Reason: gardens are worth painting in spring — also true within the poem, because spring
is when the plot fills with colour and becomes “a painted sight”. And in this poem’s logic the
reason genuinely explains the assertion: the gardener is the painter, the plot is the canvas, and
spring is the moment the picture appears. He waits for spring precisely because that is when his
canvas is worth looking at.

Why not B? B would be right if the reason were true but unconnected — for
example, if it said “Spring follows winter”. Here the reason names the very quality of
spring that the waiting is for: the “vibrant hue”. Cause and effect line up, so the
answer is A.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 I. 2. Each plot, a canvas wide, Where art and life coincide. (i) What does ‘Each plot’
refer to in this extract? (ii) Select which option imitates the rhyme scheme of the
extract. A. beautiful and clear / laughter and cheer B. beautiful and clear / laughter
and tears (iii) Select the line from the extract that conveys that gardening blends
aesthetic beauty with natural growth. (iv) Complete the following sentence
appropriately. The plot is likened to a canvas suggesting that _____________. (v) Why
has the poet most likely used the word ‘wide’ instead of ‘long’ in ‘canvas wide’?

(i) ‘Each plot’ refers to every separate piece or bed of garden ground that a gardener digs,
plants and tends — the marked-out patch of soil itself. The word each matters: the poet is not
speaking of one famous garden but of every ordinary patch, anywhere, so that the claim applies
to a small bed in a school compound as much as to a great garden.
(ii) A. beautiful and clear / laughter and cheer.
The extract is a rhyming couplet: wide / coincide — the two line-endings rhyme, so the pattern
is AA. In option A, clear and cheer rhyme, giving the same AA pattern. In option B, clear and tears
do not rhyme, so the pattern would be AB.

Careful: judge a rhyme by sound, not by spelling. Tears looks as though it should
rhyme with clear, and it even shares three letters, but it is pronounced “teers” only in
one sense and “tairs” in another — and in neither does it chime with clear the way
cheer does. Always say the two words aloud.

(iii) “Where art and life coincide.”
Art is the aesthetic beauty; life is the natural growth; and coincide means they occupy the same
place at the same time. The line does not say art imitates life or art decorates life — it says the
two happen together, in the same patch of soil. That is the blending the question describes.
(iv) …that a bare patch of soil, like a blank canvas, is an empty surface full of possibility,
waiting for a maker to compose something on it — and that whatever finally appears
there is the result of deliberate human choice, not accident.
Everything a canvas implies is transferred to the plot: it has a boundary; it starts empty; the
maker decides what goes where and in which colours; and the finished thing is a work, to be
judged as art. Calling the plot a canvas is therefore a way of claiming that the gardener is an
artist.
(v) Because ‘wide’ suggests openness and unlimited scope, while ‘long’ would suggest only
measurement in one direction.

Meaning. Wide spreads out in every direction, like a landscape or a painter’s panoramic
canvas; it carries the sense of “wide open”, freedom, room for the imagination. Long is
merely a dimension, and would make the plot sound like a strip of ground being measured
rather than a field of possibility.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sound. Wide rhymes with coincide and completes the couplet; long would destroy the rhyme
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scheme the whole poem keeps.
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II. Give reasons for the comparisons made by the poet in the poem. 1. A painter is
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compared to a gardener because ______________.
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deliberate, patient hands.
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The likeness holds at four points, and a full answer names at least two of them:

a s emstart from nothing visible. The painter faces a blank canvas; the gardener faces bare
gl soil. What will appear is at present only in the maker’s head — the poem’s word for it is
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Both work by deliberate small acts. A painting is built stroke by stroke; a garden is built

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seed by seed. The poem fuses the twomin one phrase: “Brushstrokes of seeds, planted
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true.”
Both compose with colour. Each must decide which shade goes beside which — “Shades of
green, red, and blue” — so that the whole holds together.
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Both must wait, and neither controls the result completely. The painter waits for paint to

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dry; the gardener waits “Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue”, and depends on weather he cannot
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/ Gardens become paintings still.”

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Q4
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II. 2. A palette is like earth as __________________.
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the earth, in exactly the same way, holds within it every colour the garden will later show.

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The poem’s opening line, “Palette of earth, rich and deep”, carries three points of likeness:
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Both are the store of colour. Nothing on the canvas was not first on the palette; nothing in
the garden was not first drawn out of the soil. Every red, blue and green in stanza 2 came up

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Both are the place of mixing. A painter mixes pigments on a palette to make new hues; the
soil mixes water, minerals and the seed to produce the shade a flower finally shows.
Both look unpromising until used. A palette is a smear of blobs; soil is plain brown. Neither
is beautiful in itself, and both are the source of all the beauty that follows.

Notice the adjectives: “rich and deep” describes the earth and the palette at once.
Soil is rich in nutrients and deep in extent; a colour is rich and deep in intensity. One
pair of words serves both halves of the metaphor — which is what makes the first
line work so quietly well.

Q5 II. 3. The brushstrokes are like seeds because _________________.

…because each is the single smallest deliberate act by which the whole work gets made —
one mark placed by a hand that already knows what the finished thing should look like.

Both are units of a larger design. No one brushstroke is the painting and no one seed is
the garden; the picture emerges only from many of them placed in relation to one another.
Both are placed with intention. The poem insists on this with the words “planted true” — a
seed, like a stroke, must go in the right place, the right way up, at the right depth.
Both carry the colour that will appear later. A brushstroke holds pigment that will show
when it dries; a seed holds the flower’s colour long before the flower exists. Both are
promises of colour.
Both are irreversible. A stroke laid down changes the canvas; a seed sown changes the plot.
You cannot un-place either.

Where the likeness is strongest: in the time-gap. A brushstroke shows its effect in
seconds and a seed in months — but in both cases the maker acts now for
something that will be seen later. That gap is what the whole first stanza is about:
“Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue.”

Q6 II. 4. A canvas is similar to a garden plot as __________________.

…as both are bounded, empty surfaces handed to a maker — blank at the start, filled only
by what that maker chooses to put on them, and finally judged as a whole composition.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Both have edges. A canvas is stretched to a frame; a plot is marked off by a path, a hedge or
a border of bricks. The boundary is what makes each of them a single work rather than an
endless expanse.
Both begin blank and end full. “Each plot, a canvas wide” names the moment before
anything is planted, when the ground is all possibility.
Both are surfaces you compose on. The gardener, like the painter, must think about
foreground and background, height, balance and which colour sits next to which.
Both are read as a whole. You do not look at one flower or one brushstroke; you step back
and take in the entire surface at once.

The one difference the poet keeps alive: a canvas, once finished, stays as it is; a
plot keeps growing and changing. The poem does not hide this — it makes it the
point of the last line, where a living garden is caught and held as a picture: “Gardens
become paintings still.”

Q7 III. Answer the following questions. 1. How does the metaphor ‘Brushstrokes of
seeds’, enhance the understanding of gardening as an art form?

The metaphor changes what the reader thinks a gardener is doing — and it does so in three
words.
It makes the act deliberate. A brushstroke is never accidental; a painter decides its place, its
direction and its weight. Calling seeds brushstrokes tells you that the gardener is not scattering
grain but composing: this seed here, that one there, because of what each will look like in April.
The next words, “planted true”, confirm the precision.
It makes the plot a design rather than a patch. Once seeds are strokes, the ground is a
surface being worked on, and every gap, every clump and every line of colour becomes a choice
the gardener made. The poem draws that conclusion openly two stanzas later — “Each plot, a
canvas wide.”
It makes the labour skilled, and therefore worth respect. Digging is thought of as work;
painting is thought of as art. By putting the painter’s word into the gardener’s hand, the poet
quietly moves gardening from the first category to the second. That is the whole argument of
the poem, compressed into a metaphor in line 3.
It also introduces delay, which is the difference between the two arts. A stroke of paint
shows immediately; a seed shows in spring. So the metaphor points to what makes gardening
harder than painting — the artist must work blind, and wait. The stanza ends on that waiting:
“Awaiting spring’s vibrant hue.”

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why a metaphor rather than a simile here: the poet does not write “seeds are like
brushstrokes”. A simile would hold the two apart and invite you to compare them.
The metaphor collapses them into one thing, so that for the length of the poem a
seed simply is a brushstroke — and the reader has no choice but to see the garden
as a painting.

Q8 III. 2. What can you infer about the poet’s perspective on the relationship between
nature and creativity from the following lines? ‘Each plot, a canvas wide,/Where art
and life coincide.’

The poet sees nature and creativity not as two separate things that resemble each other, but as
one activity happening in the same place. The key word is coincide — to occupy the same
point in space and time. She does not write that art imitates life, or that art decorates life, or even
that art is inspired by nature. She writes that they meet.
Three inferences follow:

Nature is itself creative. Stanza 2 has already called the garden “Nature’s artwork, ever
new”. Growth is not raw material waiting for an artist; it is already art.
Human creativity works with nature, not on it. The gardener supplies the design, the seed
and the labour; nature supplies the growth, the colour and the season. Neither alone makes
the garden. That partnership is why the last stanza names the human hands — “In the hands
of those who till” — immediately after naming the canvas.
Art is not confined to studios. The word each in “Each plot” insists that this is available
everywhere — any patch of soil, any gardener. Creativity is an ordinary human activity carried
on in the open air, not a rare gift exercised indoors.

Why the couplet is placed where it is: stanza 1 was material, stanza 2 was
appearance. This couplet opens stanza 3 by stating the idea that the first two
stanzas were quietly building. It is the poem’s thesis line, which is why the question
asks you to infer from it rather than from any other.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q9 III. 3. Do you think the imagery in the poem successfully paints a vivid picture in the
reader’s mind? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Yes, largely — and for a precise reason: the poem borrows a painter’s vocabulary, so the
reader is made to look at the garden the way a painter would. But the success is uneven,
and a good answer says where.
Where the imagery works.

The controlling image is concrete and consistent. Palette, brushstrokes, shades, canvas,
painting — five terms from one field, never mixed with another. The reader can hold the
whole poem as a single picture instead of a string of unrelated comparisons.
It appeals to sight with unusual accuracy. “Shades of green, red, and blue” is not the
same as “green, red and blue”: the word shades makes the reader see gradations, which is
what a real flowerbed looks like.
It adds movement and light, which flat colour-words cannot: “Blossoms bloom, a painted
sight, / Dancing in the morning light.” The personification of the flowers as dancers, plus
the specified time of day, fixes the scene at a particular hour with a particular slant of sun.
Sound supports sense. The alliteration of “Blossoms bloom” makes the line open the way a
bud opens, and the tight AABB couplets keep the poem as neatly bordered as a flowerbed.

Where it is thinner.

Only one sense is used. There is no scent, no birdsong, no touch of wet soil — surprising in
a garden poem. The poem is a picture rather than an experience.
No flower is ever named. We get “blossoms” and colours in general, never a marigold or a
rose. The generality is deliberate — it lets the poem stand for any garden — but it costs the
reader some sharpness.

Weighing it up: the imagery succeeds because it is organised, not because it is
abundant. Twelve short lines cannot supply detail, so the poet supplies a frame
instead — and a reader given a frame will fill it with a garden of their own. Whether
the tighter focus on sight is a weakness or a discipline is a fair thing to argue either
way; say which you think and give the line that persuades you.

Q10 III. 4. Support the view that the poet’s mention of the colour yellow, besides red,
blue and green, would have lent effectively to the imagery.

The question asks you to support the view, so argue for it — and the argument is a strong one
on four counts.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
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Yellow is the colour of light, and the poem is full of light. The very next line after the
co m
se m.
colours is “Dancing in the morning light”. Morning light is yellow-gold; naming yellow would

o m g l a
poem was.cseen and not merely mentioned.
have let the colour of the flowers and the colour of the hour meet, so that the light in the

m a
l a se is the missing primary colour. Red and blue are two of the three primaries, and
aggreen is what blue and yellow make. Adding yellow would have completed the painter’s basic
Yellow

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set — which matters enormously in a poem whose first image is a palette. As it stands, the

. co ag
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palette has a gap in it.

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Yellow is the true colour of spring in India. Stanza 1 waits for “spring’s vibrant hue”. What
agmarigold, amaltas, sunflower and the yellow of Basant. A
actually arrives is mustard fields,
reader who knows an Indian spring feels the absence.

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Yellow is the warm note the colour scheme lacks. Green and blue are cool; red alone
carries the warmth. A stroke of yellow would have set up the contrast thatm
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live — andomcontrast is exactly what the poem claims for the garden,
a la contrasts of all
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colours”

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An honest counter-point, worth one sentence: three colours may be the poet’s

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deliberate restraint — a short poem cannot list a spectrum without turning into a
.
m and blue” already implies the many hues
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catalogue, and “Shades of green, red,

a gla asks you to support the addition, argue that on a
within each. But since the question
palette and in a spring, yellow is the one colour whose absence is felt.

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Q11 .c III. 5. Considering the line ‘Gardens become paintingsastill’,
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e about the poet’s view on the timelessness of nature’s beauty?
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c poet has chosen one that means two things at once. ag
Everything turns on the last word, and .the l
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‘Still’ = motionless, held. Algarden
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turn. A painting does notachange at all. The line claims that the gardener’s work achieves

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what a painting achieves: it arrests a moment of beauty and holds it. The phrase the book

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uses in its own summary is still-life — a painting of living things, kept perfectly still.

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‘Still’ = even now, continually. Read the same word as an adverb of time and the line says
agseason and in every generation
.cgardens go on becoming paintings, year after year, in every
m of gardeners. What is fleeting in each single flower is permanent in the pattern.
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The poet’s view, then, is this: nature’s beauty is not timeless because it lasts — no blossom

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lasts. It is timeless because it renews. Stanza 2 has already said so: “Nature’s artwork, ever
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new.” The individual flower dies; the garden returns. And human hands are part of that

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permanence — “In the hands of those who till” is placed immediately before the last line, so the
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renewal depends on theagardener coming back to the plot each year, exactly as his father did.

com
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why this makes a fitting last line: the poem began with something that had not
yet happened — seeds “Awaiting spring”. It ends with something that will not stop
happening. In between, one cycle has been completed. The pun on still lets the poet
close on both permanence and stillness without spending an extra word, and it
leaves the reader with the picture rather than an explanation of it.

Q12 III. 6. Justify the title of the poem, ‘Canvas of Soil’.

The title is a metaphor in three words, and it is justified by everything that follows it.
1. It names the poem’s single controlling idea. The whole poem rests on one equation — the
garden is a painting — and the title states it before the first line. Canvas is the painter’s surface;
soil is the gardener’s. Joining them with of makes them the same thing, and the last stanza
spells it out: “Each plot, a canvas wide.”
2. Its two halves hold the poem’s two worlds together. ‘Canvas’ brings art, design, skill and
judgement; ‘soil’ brings nature, growth, labour and season. Between them lies the line the poem
is proudest of — “Where art and life coincide.” The title is that line in miniature.
3. Every image in the poem is an item on that canvas. Earth is the palette; seeds are
brushstrokes; spring supplies the hue; the blossoms are “a painted sight”; the whole is “Nature’s
artwork”. Not one image steps outside the title.
4. It honours the gardener. Soil is normally spoken of as dirt — something to be cleaned off.
Calling it a canvas raises both the material and the person who works it, which is where the
poem finally arrives: “In the hands of those who till, / Gardens become paintings still.”
5. It works at the allegorical level too. Read as the book suggests on page 89, the garden
stands for a life. Then ‘Canvas of Soil’ says that an ordinary life, made of very ordinary material,
is a surface on which something worth looking at can be composed — provided somebody
plants true and is willing to wait.

Alternative titles, and why the poet’s is better: ‘The Gardener’ would name the
maker but lose the art; ‘A Garden in Spring’ would name the scene but lose the idea;
‘Nature’s Artwork’ (a phrase from the poem itself) would keep the art but drop the
human hands. ‘Canvas of Soil’ is the only one that keeps art, nature and labour in
three words.

Vocabulary in Context — Page 92

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Canvas of Soil (poem)

VOCABULARY

Q1 I. The poet refers to the shades of green, red, and blue in the poem. Let us read
some of the names of different shades of these colours. Reds: Rusty red, Salmon
(saa-mun), Scarlet, Crimson, Blood red, Vermilion (vuh-mil-ion) Greens: Pine green,
India green, Apple green, Jade, Olive, Pistachio (pis-ta-sheo) Blues: Navy blue,
Indigo, Cobalt blue, Denim, Sky blue, Ice blue Now, discuss in pairs, any two things
that you can associate with these colours.

The eighteen names are printed with colour swatches on page 92. Notice how they are formed
— most are named after a thing that has that shade (salmon, pine, apple, jade, olive, pistachio,
navy, denim, sky, ice, blood, rust), which is precisely why they are easy to picture and easy to
associate.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

SHADE TWO THINGS YOU CAN ASSOCIATE WITH IT

Rusty red an old iron gate left out in the monsoon; the laterite soil of Kerala and Konkan

Salmon the inside of a ripe papaya; a light cotton sari at a summer wedding

Scarlet the gulmohar in May; the flag on a school sports field

Crimson a rose in December; the deep red of pomegranate seeds

Blood red the flesh of a watermelon; a warning sign or an alarm button

Vermilion sindoor and the tilak at a puja; the orange-red of a fresh marigold

Pine green deodar and pine forests in the hills; a dark school blazer

India green the lower band of the national flag; a paddy field in August

Apple green new mango leaves in spring; a raw guava

Jade still water in a hill stream; a green glass bangle

Olive army uniforms; the dull green of tulsi leaves

Pistachio pista barfi and kulfi; the pale green of tender banana leaf

Navy blue a school uniform skirt or trousers; the sea far from shore

Indigo the dye of Bengal and Bihar’s indigo plantations; the deep blue of a bandhani odhni

Cobalt blue Jaipur blue pottery; the blue of Krishna in a calendar painting

Denim a pair of jeans; a washed-out blue kurta

Sky blue a clear October morning after the rains; a hospital or school shirt

Ice blue a glacier or hailstones; frosted glass on a window

Two pronunciations the book marks for you: salmon is said “saa-mun” — the l is
silent; pistachio is “pis-ta-sheo”, not “pis-ta-chio”; and vermilion is “vuh-mil-ion”. Say
each aloud twice.

Why this exercise sits beside this poem: the poem writes “Shades of green, red,
and blue” — a single word standing for eighteen. Once you know that green can
mean pine, jade, olive or pistachio, you read that line differently: the poet is not
naming three colours, she is gesturing at a whole palette, and asking you to fill it in.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 II. You have studied painting-related words like palette, brushstrokes, shades, hue,
colours, and canvas. Now, read the following paragraph and discuss in pairs what
the underlined painting-related words might mean. Discuss this way: I think
____________ means ____________ because the passage talks about ____________. Example: I
think portrait means a picture of someone’s face because the passage talks about
capturing a friend’s features. In the art studio, young painters eagerly approached
their easels, each framing a canvas that they had to work on. The teacher
encouraged them to experiment with a diverse tonal range, playing with shades
and hues to bring their paintings to life. One student focused on a detailed portrait,
capturing his friend’s features, first with careful underpainting and then filling the
final colours. Another student worked on a mural, depicting a Spring Day on the
right wall of the classroom. The room continued to buzz with artistic energy.

The skill being taught here is guessing meaning from context — so give the clue as well as the
meaning, in the frame the book supplies.

WORD MEANING SAID IN THE BOOK’S FRAME

easels upright wooden stands that hold a I think easels means stands that hold up a
canvas while a painter works on it canvas because the passage talks about painters
approaching them, each one framing a canvas to
work on.

tonal range the span from the lightest to the I think tonal range means the spread of light and
darkest tones a painter uses in one dark tones in a painting because the passage
picture talks about experimenting with it by playing with
shades and hues.

portrait a picture of a person, especially the I think portrait means a picture of someone’s
(example) face face because the passage talks about capturing a
friend’s features.

underpainting the first, plain layer of paint laid I think underpainting means a first base layer of
down to establish shape and paint because the passage says it is done first,
shadow, over which the real colours with care, and then the final colours are filled in.
are painted

mural a large painting made directly on a I think mural means a painting made on a wall
wall because the passage talks about a student
depicting a Spring Day on the right wall of the
classroom.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
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co m
m.
The three kinds of clue in this paragraph — learn to look for all three:

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A defining action. “Depicting a Spring Day on the right wall” defines mural
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without naming a wall painting.

a gl A sequence word. “first with careful underpainting and then filling the final
colours” tells you under- here means underneath in layers, not below in position.

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A near-synonym alongside. “tonal range, playing with shades and hues” — words
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you already know, sitting beside the mword you do not.
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Word-building tip: underpainting = under + painting. The same prefix gives
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undercoat, underline, undergrowth, underground — in each case something that lies
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beneath something else. Meeting a new word, split it before you guess it.
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Listen and Respond — Pages 93–94 (Transcript for teacher, Appendix page
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264)
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Canvas of Soil (poem)

LISTENING
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I. You will listen to a young girl describe her school garden. Asem
you listen identify

gl for teacher on page
Q1

. o of the following 1–3, she does not talk about. (Transcript
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a s em 264) [Three pictures on page 93, each set against a green hedge: 1. a wooden garden
agl bench; 2. a garden tap with a coiled green watering hose lying on the ground, water

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running from its nozzle; 3. three butterflies — pink, blue and mauve.]

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Picture 2 — the tap and the coiled watering hose. The girl never mentions watering, a tap, a
hose or a watering can anywhere in her talk.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

PICTURE TALKED EVIDENCE FROM THE TRANSCRIPT (APPENDIX, PAGE 264)
ABOUT?

1. Garden Yes “The Art and Craft club members… even painted the garden bench,
bench kept near the garden entrance.”

2. Tap and No — this is Nothing in the talk refers to water, watering or any tap. She moves
hose the answer from the flower rows straight to the potted plants, the brick border, the
banyan tree and the waste-material items.

3. Butterflies Yes Of the flowers in the three rows: “These usually have butterflies
fluttering around them.”

Tip for a ‘which is NOT mentioned’ task: the two items that are mentioned usually
appear at opposite ends of the talk — the butterflies come in the second paragraph,
the bench in the second-last. So do not stop listening the moment you tick one off.
Keep all three pictures in front of you and cross out only when you actually hear it.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 II. You will once again listen to the young girl. As you listen, circle the correct
answer from the options given below. 1. The colour of flowers in the first row —
white / red / pink 2. The type of flowers in the second row — marigold / jasmine /
rose 3. Position of the type of the useful plants — left corners / right corners / left
and right corners 4. The number of potted evergreen plants — 15 / 20 / 25 5. The
paint colour on the bricks bordering the garden — black and white / red and black /
white and red 6. Type of tree in the centre of the garden — neem / peepal / banyan
7. Things created with waste material — dustbins / plant name boards / bird houses

ANSWER THE EXACT WORDS IN THE TRANSCRIPT (PAGE 264)

1 pink “The first row just has pink flowers.” (Red and white are the other two rows — a
deliberate distractor.)

2 rose “The second row has red roses and the third row has white jasmines.” (Jasmine is
the third row.)

3 left corners “it has several useful plants that are placed in pots in both the left corners. The
right corners have potted evergreen plants…”

4 20 “The right corners have potted evergreen plants that are a total of 20.”

5 white and “I still remember the day the members of the Nature club painted these white and
red red.” (Note the order — ‘red and black’ and ‘black and white’ are both wrong.)

6 banyan “Even the grand banyan tree in the centre of the garden is lined with these bricks,
in a circle.”

7 dustbins “creating several items from waste materials, like small scarecrows, pin wheels, and
dust bins.” (Plant name boards and bird houses are never mentioned.)

Why items 1, 2 and 3 are the ones students lose: in each case the recording gives
you all three options — three flower colours, three flower types, and both left and
right corners — but attached to different things. The task is not to hear the word; it
is to hear which word goes with which position. Listening for “pink” alone will not
help, because “white” and “red” are also said. Listen for the phrase “the first row” and
take whatever follows it.

Tip: before the second listening, underline the identifying phrase in each statement
— first row, second row, useful plants, evergreen, bricks, centre, waste material. Those
seven phrases, not the options, are what you are listening for.

Page 56 of 67

Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Speaking Activity — Page 94
Canvas of Soil (poem)

SPEAKING

Q1 I. People wish to have a garden at home. Some like a flower garden and some a
vegetable garden. Think and note some advantages of both these types, as gardens
for homes.

Note the instruction: you must list advantages of both, not choose between them. The choice
comes in the next item. Make two clean columns so that your partner can use them in the
discussion that follows.

ADVANTAGES OF A FLOWER GARDEN ADVANTAGES OF A VEGETABLE GARDEN

Beauty and colour all year, if you plan the seasons — It feeds the family. Even a small patch can supply daily
the ‘canvas’ the poem describes. coriander, chillies, curry leaves, tomatoes and methi.

It calms people. Sitting among flowers is restful, and It saves money and cuts the vegetable bill, and there is no
colour affects mood. cost of packaging or transport.

It attracts butterflies, bees and birds, so it supports You know exactly what has gone into the food — no
pollination in the whole neighbourhood. unknown sprays or chemicals.

Flowers are used at home for worship, for garlands, Kitchen waste goes into compost and comes back as soil,
and as gifts, so nothing has to be bought. so the household produces less garbage.

It improves the look of the house and the street, and The harvest teaches patience and responsibility — a plant
gives shade and cooler air. left unwatered for two days shows it.

Many flowering plants — bougainvillea, portulaca, Fast results: radish, spinach and coriander can be picked
kaner — survive with very little water and care. within a few weeks, which keeps a beginner interested.

Two points worth adding in the discussion: first, the choice is not really either–or
— most Indian home gardens mix the two, with tulsi and curry leaf beside the roses,
and marigold planted along the vegetable beds because it keeps some pests away.
Second, the practical limits decide as much as taste: how much sun the space gets,
how much water you can spare, and who will be at home to look after it in the
holidays.

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 II. Would you like to have a flower garden or a vegetable garden at home? Why?
Take turns with your partner and speak your points aloud, one by one, by using the
given sentence prompts to express your preference, with reasons. • I prefer __________
to __________ because ... • For me, it is a __________ instead of a __________ due to ... • If I
had a choice I’d rather have a ________ than a __________ as ... • I would prefer __________
rather than __________ since ...

The four prompts are four ways of saying the same thing, so the language point is to notice the
grammar each one demands — get that right and the sentences sound natural.

PROMPT THE PATTERN IT WATCH OUT FOR
USES

I prefer X to Y because… prefer + noun + to + Not “prefer X than Y”. With prefer, the word is
noun always to.

For me, it is a X instead of a instead of + noun; due Due to is followed by a noun, not a clause — “due
Y due to… to + noun phrase to the small space”, not “due to the space is small”.

If I had a choice I’d rather would rather + bare “I’d rather have”, never “I’d rather to have”. And
have a X than a Y as… infinitive + than with rather the word is than, not to.

I would prefer X rather than would prefer + noun + Since here means because, and must be followed by
Y since… rather than a full clause.

Sample answer (choosing the vegetable garden):

“I prefer a vegetable garden to a flower garden because it gives us something back every
week — my mother has not bought coriander or green chillies for two years.”
“For me, it is a vegetable patch instead of a flower bed due to the size of our terrace,
which has room for only eight pots.”
“If I had a choice I’d rather have a vegetable garden than a flower garden as it makes
our kitchen waste useful: the peels go into the compost drum and come back as soil.”
“I would prefer growing vegetables rather than flowers since I can see the result in three
weeks, and that keeps me interested enough to water them every day.”

Sample answer (choosing the flower garden):

“I prefer a flower garden to a vegetable garden because our house faces a dusty road,
and a row of bougainvillea and kaner makes the whole veranda pleasant to sit in.”
“For me, it is a flower garden instead of a vegetable garden due to the shortage of water
in our colony in April and May — most flowering plants we grow survive on very little.”
“If I had a choice I’d rather have a flower garden than a vegetable one as we need
flowers every morning for the puja and for my grandmother’s hair.”

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Class 9 English Chapter 3 Winds of Change
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

“I would prefer a flower garden rather than a vegetable garden since the butterflies and
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sunbirds that come to it are the only wildlife my younger brother ever sees.”
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Tip for the pair work: take one prompt each, in turn, and do not repeat a reason
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reasons — which is exactly the point of the exercise.

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Writing Task — Page 94 a
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Canvas of Soil (poem)

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WRITING

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gl colours in the garden you have visited. • Focus on how different shades of blue, red,
Q1 I. Write a descriptive piece of two to three paragraphs describing the details and

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and green interact, create contrast, and bring the garden to life. • Pay attention to

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details like the texture of petals, the varying greens of leaves, and the way light
affects the colours.
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This is descriptive writing, and the two bullet points tell you exactly what will be marked:
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shades and contrast, and texture and light. Write 150–200 words in two or three paragraphs.
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a s em Method:

agl 1. Choose one garden and one moment — a particular morning, a particular hour.
Light changes colour, so a description spread over a whole day loses its colours.
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2. Move in an order the reader can
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aglfrom page 92 instead of plain colour words — crimson,
to centre. Do not jump about.
3. Use the shade names
salmon, olive, pistachio, indigo, sky blue. This is where the vocabulary you learnt
earns its marks.
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4. Add one comparison for texture per paragraph — petalsem
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6. Use the present tense for immediacy, and prefer strong verbs to piles of
adjectives.
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Sample answer: a

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