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NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 10 Story 5: The Mexican Marigold Moves into India! — Write

Book page 170–171 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.
1. Why do you think both Indian and Mexican cultures use marigolds during their festivals?
Answer

Because in both countries the marigold does the same three jobs: it is the colour of the sun and of fire, it grows easily and blooms in huge numbers just at festival time, and it holds together well enough to be strung into garlands and scattered on the ground. Two cultures on opposite sides of the world reached for the same flower for the same practical reasons.

Look at the reasons one at a time:

  1. The colour. Marigold is bright orange and yellow — the colour of the sun, of fire and of a lamp flame. The chapter says these colours reminded us of warmth, celebration and spirituality. Those are exactly the feelings a festival is about, in any country.
  2. It is easy to grow. The plant is not fussy. It grows in ordinary soil in a pot, a field or a courtyard, and one plant gives many flowers.
  3. It flowers at the right time. In India it is in full bloom around Diwali; in Mexico around the same weeks, when their festival of remembering the family's ancestors is held. A flower that blooms out of season is useless for a festival.
  4. It lasts after picking. The blooms are tight and firm. They stay fresh for a day or two off the plant, which is why they can be strung, hung on a door, carried in a procession and offered.
  5. It is cheap. A poor family and a rich family can both decorate with it. A festival flower has to be one that everybody can afford.
  6. Its smell. The strong, sharp scent is unmistakable, and in both countries that smell has come to mean ‘today is a special day’.
In IndiaIn Mexico
Where you see itTemples, homes, weddings, doorways, garlands, DiwaliFestival decorations, especially the festival when families remember those who have died
How it is usedStrung into garlands, hung over doors, scattered in rangoli, offered in worshipScattered as petals to make a path, and heaped on decorations
What the colour meansWarmth, celebration, spiritualityWarmth and welcome — the bright colour is meant to guide and welcome
Where it growsFields, pots and courtyards all over IndiaIts original home — the marigold is from Mexico
The interesting part of this story: India did not borrow the idea of using flowers from Mexico. India had been offering flowers for thousands of years already. What came from Mexico was one particular flower — and it fitted our festivals so perfectly that within a few hundred years people forgot it had ever come from anywhere else. When something from outside answers a need that was already there, it stops feeling foreign very quickly.
Find out at home: Ask which flowers were used for worship in your family before marigold became so common. You will hear names like champa, chameli, kaner, harsingar, lotus and hibiscus — all Indian flowers, still used today alongside the marigold from Mexico.
Q2.
2. Why do you think people in different countries include flowers in their celebrations?
Answer

Because flowers are the one beautiful thing that every country has, that costs almost nothing, and that everybody instantly understands. You do not need a common language to know that being given a flower means somebody is pleased to see you.

Six reasons, and each one holds in every country:

  1. They are beautiful and they smell good. A room with flowers in it looks and smells different from an ordinary room, and that difference is what a festival needs.
  2. Nature gives them free. A flower costs a poor family very little, or nothing at all if it grows in the courtyard. A celebration that only the rich could decorate for would not be a real celebration.
  3. They are alive and fresh. Flowers stand for new life, new beginnings and good wishes — a new year, a wedding, a birth, a harvest.
  4. They do not last. A flower fades in a day or two. That is not a fault; it is the point. Giving something that will not last says, “today is special, and I am spending something on it”.
  5. They can be used in a hundred ways. Strung into a garland, worn in the hair, floated on water, scattered on a path, laid on a stone, made into a rangoli.
  6. Every place has its own flowers. Marigold and jasmine in India, cherry blossom in Japan, roses in many countries, orchids in the north-east. So every culture could build its festivals around whatever grew nearby.
The bigger idea, and the one this chapter is about: Human beings in very distant lands, who had never met and could not have spoken to one another, all arrived at the same custom on their own. That tells us something important — people everywhere are far more alike than they are different. We celebrate at different times, in different languages, wearing different clothes, and we all reach for flowers.
A small class activity: Ask everybody to name the flower used most in their own family's celebrations. Write the list on the board. Then find out which of those flowers are originally from India and which came from somewhere else. Almost every list will have at least one traveller on it.
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