NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 1 A Bottle of Dew, Part I — Let us discuss

Rama Natha believed that there was a magic potion that could turn any object into gold. The story calls it “a funny idea”.

He believed it so completely that he did not spend “even one day looking after his land”, although his father had left him large tracts of land. He spent all his time and money trying to learn about the potion, and even when people cheated him again and again by promising to tell him the secret, “he did not give up”.

Sage Mahipati helped him by giving him a “recipe” for the magic potion that was really a plan for hard work. He said he had heard in his travels in the Himalayas how such a potion could be made, and told Rama Natha to:

• plant a banana plant and water it regularly with his own hands;
• collect the morning dew that forms on the leaves in winter and store it in a bottle;
• bring him five litres of dew, over which he would chant magic words.

He also added the key condition — “you must look after them yourself and collect the dew with your own hands.”

Yes, he will collect it — but it will take him many years.

Two things in the text point to this. First, Rama Natha himself sees the difficulty: “But winter is only for a few months. It will take me years to collect five litres of dew.” A few drops of dew on a leaf make a very small quantity of water. Second, the sage gives him the way around it — “You can plant as many banana plants as you want.” More plants mean more leaves, and more leaves mean more dew each winter morning.

Above all, Rama Natha has one quality that will carry him through: he never gives up. He kept believing in the potion even after people cheated him many times. That same stubbornness will now be spent on something useful.