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NCERT Solutions for Class 5th English Chapter 10 A. A festival paragraph · B. The Rock Garden, Chandigarh — Let us Write

Book page 128 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.
Write a paragraph of 80–100 words on how you recently celebrated a festival. Hints: Special dish, meeting with friends and family, prayer, any other related ritual.
Answer

How to plan the paragraph — five steps:

  1. Name the festival and say when you celebrated it. That is your first sentence.
  2. The getting ready. Cleaning, shopping, decorating.
  3. The special dish. Name it, and say who made it.
  4. The prayer or ritual. The puja, the lamps, the visit to the temple, gurudwara, church or mosque.
  5. The people. Who came, who you visited, what you gave and got. End with one line saying how you felt.
What a good paragraph needs: one festival only (not three); all four hints used; past tense all the way through; between 80 and 100 words; and one small true detail that only you could have written.

Sample answer (97 words):

Last month we celebrated Diwali at home. Two days before the festival we cleaned every room. On Diwali morning I made a rangoli with red, yellow and white colours. My mother made besan laddus and I helped her shape them. In the evening we wore new clothes and did the Lakshmi puja together. Then we lit twenty diyas along the wall. Our neighbours came with sweets and we gave them a box of dry fruits. We burst only a few crackers, because the baby next door is frightened of the noise. It was a quiet, happy Diwali.
If you celebrate a different festival — Eid, Christmas, Onam, Pongal, Bihu, Chhath, Baisakhi, Losar — keep exactly the same five steps and change the words. For Eid the special dish may be sewaiyan; for Onam it is the sadya served on a banana leaf; for Christmas it is the cake.
Counting your words: Write the paragraph first and count afterwards. If you are over 100, take out a whole sentence rather than a word here and there — the paragraph will read better. If you are under 80, add one more detail about the food or the people.
Q2.
Look at the pictures given below.

The top photograph. A crowd of tall, thin standing figures of people fills an open yard. Each figure is made of cement and is covered all over, from neck to foot, in small curved pieces of broken glass bangles — pink, blue, green, yellow and red — laid in rows, so that the figures look as if they are wearing striped, many-coloured clothes. The tallest figure stands in the middle, looking straight ahead; the others stand in rows behind it. Trees and a low mud wall are seen at the back.

The bottom photograph. Another crowd of the same kind of figures, this time covered in broken pieces of white china plates and tiles set in grey cement, like a cracked pattern. Some wear skirts of plain terracotta clay in orange, pink or dark grey. One figure in front has a hand raised beside its head; another has both arms bent at the elbow. Green trees stand behind them and the ground is bare grey stone.

Rock Garden, Chandigarh — the two photographs printed on page 128, described here; see the textbook for the photographs.
Discuss with your teacher and write a paragraph of 100–120 words in your notebook.
Answer

First, look at the two photographs carefully.

  • The top picture shows tall thin figures of people standing in rows. Their clothes are made of pieces of broken glass bangles in many colours — pink, blue, green, yellow. That is why the figures look so bright.
  • The bottom picture shows another crowd of figures. These are covered in broken white tiles and pieces of crockery (plates and cups), with skirts of plain cement and pink stone.
What the Rock Garden is: It is a large garden in Chandigarh filled with thousands of statues of men, women, animals and dancers. Every statue is built out of waste — broken bangles, broken tiles, cracked plates, old bathroom fittings, bottle tops, stones and cement. It was begun quietly by a road inspector named Nek Chand, who started collecting waste and building his figures in 1957 in a forest area near Sukhna Lake. When the government found out about it, it was not pulled down — it was opened to the public in 1976. People from all over the world come to see it.

How to plan the paragraph — four steps:

  1. Say what the pictures show and where it is.
  2. Say what the statues are made of. Mention the broken bangles — that is the link with our chapter.
  3. Say who made it and how it began.
  4. End with what it teaches us.

Sample answer (110 words):

The two pictures show the Rock Garden of Chandigarh. It is a garden full of statues, but the statues are not made of stone or metal. They are made of waste. In the first picture the figures are covered with pieces of broken glass bangles, so they look bright and colourful. In the second picture the figures are covered with broken tiles and crockery. The garden was made by Nek Chand, a road inspector, who began collecting waste and building his figures secretly in 1957. Today thousands of people visit it every day. The Rock Garden teaches us a beautiful lesson: nothing is really waste if somebody has an idea.
Why this picture is in this chapter: A bangle that breaks is finished — nobody can wear it. But at the Rock Garden the broken bangles became the clothes of a statue that thousands of people come to admire. Ravi and Ananya gave old designs a new life; Nek Chand gave old rubbish a new life. It is the same idea, told twice.
Try this yourself: Collect broken bangles, bottle caps and old buttons from your house. Draw an outline on a piece of cardboard and stick them inside it to make a picture. That is a Rock Garden of your own.
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