NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 The Chair — Let us explore

Book page 70 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Find out more stories about ‘Friendship’. It could be from your state, other states or other countries too. You can share them with your class.

Answer

Look in three places: the Panchatantra and Jataka collections in your library, your own state's folk tales, and stories your grandparents remember.

Story	Where it is from	The friendship in it
Krishna and Sudama	Indian epic tradition	A king and a poor Brahmin remain equals — a handful of beaten rice is repaid with wealth and love.
Karna and Duryodhana	The Mahabharata	Loyalty that lasts to the very end, even when it costs everything.
The Four Friends (deer, crow, mouse and tortoise)	Panchatantra, Mitra-samprapti	Four different animals save one another by using each one's special skill.
Rama and Sugriva / Rama and Guha	The Ramayana	Friendship across kingdoms and communities, sealed by a promise.
Damon and Pythias	Greece	One friend stays behind as a hostage so that the other may go home; both are ready to die for the other.

How to share it: Tell the story in about ten sentences, name the friends, and finish with one line — “This story shows that a friend is someone who …”.

Q2.

Describe your friends by filling in the blanks with suitable words. This is known as an acrostic poem. F ____ R ____ I ____ E ____ N ____ D ____ S ____

Answer

In an acrostic poem the first letters of the lines, read downwards, spell a word. Here they must spell FRIENDS, so each line has to begin with the letter printed for it.

Letter	Sample line
F	Faithful, and never far away when I need them
R	Ready to share the last piece of their tiffin
I	Interesting — they always have a new story to tell
E	Encouraging me when I am sure I will fail
N	Never laughing when I fall down
D	Dependable, like an umbrella in the monsoon
S	Silly together, and that is the best part

Tip: A single word per line is enough (Faithful, Ready, Interesting …), but a short phrase makes a far better poem. The lines need not rhyme.

Q3.

Complete the following task by talking to different people of different age groups as mentioned in the table (50+, 31 to 49, 20 to 30, 12 to 19). Question: What does friendship mean to you? After gathering responses — Discuss: similarities and differences across age groups. Reflect: how viewpoints on friendship may change with age and life experiences. Present: a summary of the group’s responses.

Answer

How to do the survey: Divide the class into four groups, one for each age band. Ask everyone the same question — “What does friendship mean to you?” — write the answer down in the person's own words, and note the age group only, not the name.

Age group	Sample response gathered
50+	“A friend is one who has seen your whole life and still respects you. At my age we do not make new friends; we keep the old ones.”
31 to 49	“Friendship means someone I can telephone at midnight in an emergency. We meet rarely, but the trust does not fade.”
20 to 30	“Friends are the people who help me settle in a new city — hostel-mates, colleagues, the ones who share the rent and the worries.”
12 to 19	“Friendship is sitting on the same bench, sharing tiffin, playing after school and having someone who understands my jokes.”

Discuss — similarities: everybody names trust and being there in trouble. Differences: the young speak of daily company and play; older people speak of loyalty tested over years and of quality rather than number.

Reflect: With age, friendship seems to move from doing things together to being sure of each other. Younger people count their friends; older people weigh them — which is exactly what Mario learns from his grandfather in ‘The Chair’.

Present it well: Make one chart with four columns, put the best two quotations in each, and finish with a single sentence such as: “From twelve to eighty, everyone said the same thing in different words — a friend is the person who stays.”

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