NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 1 –15The Day the River Spoke (Kamala Nair) — Let us explore

Why rivers are considered sacred: Indian civilisation grew on river banks — Harappa on the Indus, the Vedic settlements on the Saraswati, Varanasi and Patna on the Ganga. A river gave drinking water, irrigated fields, carried boats and never asked anything in return. What gives life without asking is treated as divine, so rivers became objects of worship, with festivals such as Ganga Dussehra, Chhath and Pushkaram held on their banks.

Why most are female: A river feeds, cleans, carries and forgives — the qualities Indian tradition associates with a mother. So rivers are addressed as maa: Ganga Maiya, Yamuna, Godavari, Kaveri, Narmada. Grammar helps too — most river names in Sanskrit are feminine nouns, and the goddesses of the Ganga and Yamuna appear as women in temple sculpture.

The male exceptions: The Brahmaputra ('son of Brahma') and the Sone are masculine in name and in nature — huge, fast and famously destructive in flood. So is the Damodar, once called the “sorrow of Bengal”.

Method: Go row by row. Each student names every language he or she can speak, read and write — the three are often different. One student keeps the tally on the board; two others copy the final list onto chart paper.

What a good chart must contain:

Add a title (“The Languages of Class VII-A”), the total number of different languages found, and the script each one uses.

Answer for yourself, and give a reason rather than just a name.

The poster shows four schoolgirls sitting side by side at a classroom desk. They are in bright clothes — orange, green, blue — with ribbons and clips in their plaited hair. One girl is writing in an open notebook with a yellow pencil; the others are turning towards her, laughing. Behind them the classroom is plain and slightly blurred, so all the attention falls on the girls' faces.

On the left, in large white and orange letters, is the message: “The Happiness of a Nation lies in the Dignity of its Daughters” — with the words its Daughters highlighted in orange.

Because they are in school, learning, and among friends — the three things Jahnavi wanted in the story.

• They have been given the chance to study, which many girls before them did not get.
• They are learning something and understanding it — the notebook is open and being written in.
• They have each other's company; happiness in the poster is shared, not solitary.
• They are being treated with respect, and a person who is respected looks confident.

Dignity comes first; happiness follows from it.

A person has dignity when she is treated as an equal — allowed to study, to choose, to speak and to be heard. Someone treated that way stops feeling small and begins to feel worth something, and that feeling is what we call happiness. Take away dignity and no comfort can replace it: a child who is fed but not allowed to go to school is not a happy child. That is exactly why Jahnavi cries at the river bank although nobody has been cruel to her.

Because half a country's talent is then actually used.

• More skilled people. Girls who finish school become doctors, teachers, engineers, farmers and scientists — the nation gains their work instead of losing it.
• Better families. An educated mother keeps her own children in school, so the gain repeats in the next generation.
• Better health and smaller families. Education delays early marriage and improves the health of both mother and child.
• A stronger economy. Women who earn add to the family income and to the country's production.
• A fairer society. Where daughters are respected, there is less violence and less discrimination for everyone.

Jahnavi says it best in the story: “when I grow up, I'll be a teacher and I'll go from house to house in our village and ask all the little girls to come to my school.” One girl in school becomes a whole village in school.

Method: Search or ask your teacher for the scheme's full name, the year it began, who it is meant for and what it gives. Then make a one-page handout in your own language and read it out at a neighbourhood gathering or paste it at the panchayat office.