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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 9 Roles and Responsibilities — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 143 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Create a story of a family somewhere in India, where we see some family values practised. Share it with your class either through writing or drawing.
Answer

Method. Follow the shape the book itself uses for Shalini and Tenzing: (1) place the family somewhere real in India and name the members; (2) give them ordinary work; (3) bring one difficulty; (4) show a family value — dāna, sevā, tyāga, cooperation, care — solving it; (5) end with what someone learnt. Keep it to 150–200 words. If you draw instead, use four or five panels with one line under each.

Sample answer — “The Bicycle”, a family in Bhagalpur, Bihar
Ratna is in Class 6. She lives with her mother, who is a tailor, her father, who drives an auto-rickshaw, her dadi, and her younger brother Manu. For a year Ratna had been saving in a steel box for a second-hand bicycle, so that she could stop walking four kilometres to school. In August the rains flooded the low lane where her father’s cousin lived, and the family’s sewing machine — their only means of earning — was ruined.
That evening nobody spoke at dinner. Then Ratna brought her steel box and put it on the mat. “The bicycle can wait,” she said. Her father said nothing for a while. Then he said that he would drive two extra hours daily until the box was full again.
Six weeks later the cousin’s family had a repaired machine, and Ratna had her bicycle — bought with the box, her father’s extra hours and her dadi’s silver ring. On the first morning she rode it, Manu ran beside her all the way to the turning.
The value practised: tyāga (sacrifice) and dāna (giving), and the cooperation of every member — nobody carried the loss alone.
Tip: the best stories in this exercise are small. One difficulty, one decision, three or four people. Avoid a story where a rich stranger solves everything — the chapter is about what a family does for itself.
Q2.
Stage a small drama with all your classmates around two or three families. The play you write could include some challenging situations that the families faced, and show how they are resolved.
Answer

Method for the class. Divide into three groups of six to eight. Each group is one family and writes its own scene of five to seven minutes; the teacher or two students link the three scenes as narrators. Keep the props simple — chairs, a shawl, a bag.

SceneFamilyThe challengeHow it is resolved
Scene 1A joint family in a village in Odisha — grandparents, two brothers and their wives, four childrenThe paddy must be harvested in three days before the rain, and one brother has fallen illNeighbours join in; the children carry water and food to the field; the harvest is saved before the rain
Scene 2A nuclear family that has just moved to a city for work — a mother, a father and two childrenBoth parents’ shifts change and there is nobody at home when the younger child returns from schoolThey talk to the neighbours; a retired teacher next door offers her veranda for an hour each day, and the elder child takes charge of homework
Scene 3A family in which a mother brings up two children alone, with her own mother’s helpThe school trip costs more than they can spare this monthThe family decides together: the trip this year for one child, next year for the other; the grandmother’s savings meet half the cost; nobody is made to feel less

Three lines for the narrator to close with — take them straight from the chapter: relationships rest on love, care, cooperation and interdependence; each member has a role and responsibility towards the others; and “this is how families support each other and share what they have”.

Careful when you cast the play: write the families as characters, not as copies of anyone in the class. And let the girls’ and boys’ parts share the difficult work — do not put all the cooking on one side of the stage.
Q3.
In the stories of Shalini and Tenzing, we see examples of joint families. What do you think are the aspects of modern living that make some couples opt for a nuclear family (i.e., living apart from older generations or other relatives)? What could be some advantages as well as disadvantages of the two kinds of families?
Answer

Part 1 — what makes some couples live separately today.

  • Work in another place. A job, a transfer or a posting takes a couple to a city far from the family home, and the older generation may not want to leave the place they know.
  • Small and costly houses. A city flat has two rooms; the family house in the village or town had eight.
  • Both partners working, often with long travel and shifting hours, so the daily rhythm of a large household is hard to keep.
  • Studies and moving about. Young couples move for courses, training and better opportunities.
  • Wanting to decide for themselves — about money, about schooling for the children, about how they live.
  • Smaller families generally, and children of one family settling in different cities or countries.

Part 2 — advantages and disadvantages of each.

Joint familyNuclear family
AdvantagesMany hands for work and for child care; children grow up with grandparents and cousins; the elderly and the sick are cared for at home; expenses are shared, so a shock like Chittappa’s job loss can be absorbed; traditions, recipes and stories are passed on; there is always someone to talk toFewer people to consult, so decisions are quicker; the couple can move where the work is; less friction over daily matters; expenses of one small household are easier to plan; parents and children get a great deal of time together
DisadvantagesLess privacy and less individual freedom; disagreements between many adults; decisions can be slow; the household work may fall unfairly on a few members, usually the women; a young couple may find it hard to make their own choicesNo help at hand in an illness or an emergency; children may see grandparents rarely; one lost job hits the whole household at once; the elderly may be left alone in another town; parents can feel very stretched between work and home
The fair conclusion: neither kind is better than the other — they suit different situations, and most families move between them over a lifetime. A nuclear family in a city may become a joint one when a grandparent comes to live with them; a joint family gathers for a wedding and separates again. What actually decides whether a family works is not its type but whether its members share the work and support each other, which is the whole point of this section of the chapter.
Beyond the book: you will sometimes hear a third term, extended family — used for a household that is more than a couple with children but not a full joint family, for example a couple, their children and one grandparent or an aunt; or, more loosely, for all the relatives a family keeps close ties with even when they live in separate homes. Your NCERT chapter names only joint and nuclear, so use those two in an examination and mention ‘extended’ only as an extra.
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