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NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 1 Three Days to See (Helen Keller) — Let us do these activities before we read

Book page 28 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Work in pairs. Recall a visit to a place that you liked. Discuss the details of that place and write about the following: 1. Name of the place 2. The person(s) you went with 3. The things that you could: see, listen, smell, taste, touch and feel.
Answer

Method: Choose a place you remember clearly — a hill station, a fair, a temple, a beach, a relative's farm. Then fill the five senses one by one. Most students find the last three the hardest; take extra time over smell, taste and touch.

ItemSample entry
1. Name of the placeMarina Beach, Chennai
2. Person(s) you went withMy parents and my younger brother
3. SeeGrey-green waves, catamarans pulled up on the sand, hundreds of kites in the evening sky
3. ListenThe roar of the waves, gulls, a vendor calling “sundal, sundal”
3. SmellSalt in the air, drying fish, hot oil from the bajji cart
3. TasteWarm groundnut sundal, salty spray on my lips
3. Touch and feelHot loose sand, cold foam on my ankles, wind pushing against my shirt
Tip: Helen Keller's essay does exactly this in reverse — she has only touch and smell, and imagines what the other senses would add. Filling this table first will make her essay much easier to feel.
Q2.
How does this memory make you feel?
Answer

Name the feeling and say what causes it — do not stop at “happy”.

Sample answer: “It makes me feel calm and a little homesick at the same time. Calm, because I remember standing still and watching the waves come in one after another with nothing to hurry for. Homesick, because it was the last holiday before my grandfather passed away, so the smell of the sea now brings him back along with it.”
Why it happens: Memories of a place are stored along with the senses that recorded them. Smell in particular is tied very closely to memory, which is why a single smell can bring back a whole afternoon.
Q3.
Do you think your visit/experience would be different if you could not see or hear? Share your answers with your classmates and the teacher. Did you know that our five senses are essential for us to experience and make sense of the world around us?
Answer

Yes — it would be a different experience, but not necessarily a poorer one.

What would be lost: the colours of the sky and the sea, the shapes of the boats, the roar of the waves and the vendors' calls, and the ease of moving about safely in a crowd.

What would remain, and grow stronger: the salt smell, the heat of the sand, the cold foam, the wind, the taste of the sundal, and the vibration of the waves felt through the ground. A person who cannot see would also notice things we miss — the change in the wind before the rain, a difference in the sand's texture near the water.

Why it happens: When one sense is missing the brain gives more attention to the rest. Helen Keller proves this in the very first line of the essay you are about to read: “I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch.”
Tip: Try this in class for two minutes with a blindfold and a partner to keep you safe. Then write down everything you noticed that you had never noticed before.
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