NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 3 North, South, East, West — Let us think and reflect

Book page 126 & 127 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

I 1. Extract: 'Amma tells me that places like the Sundarbans are called wetlands. I never knew such a place existed, and that it was possible for trees called mangroves to grow in seawater! But Amma is sad about how much this place floods today. / We also saw crocodiles and a lonely snake while boating. I hope they don't follow us home. / How is everyone? Are you missing me yet?' (i) What feeling does Shaana most likely experience when she says, "I never knew such a place existed..."? A. pride B. hope C. relief D. wonder

Answer

D. wonder

Why it happens: Two signals give it away — the exclamation mark after 'grow in seawater!', and the fact that she is reporting something that upsets her whole idea of what a place can be. Wonder is the feeling of meeting something you did not know was possible. There is nothing here to be proud of, nothing she is hoping for, and no danger she has escaped, so pride, hope and relief are all out.

Q2.

I 1. (ii) Complete the following sentence with a suitable reason. Amma is sad about the frequent flooding in Sundarbans because ____________.

Answer

Amma is sad about the frequent flooding in the Sundarbans because the floods are getting worse than they used to be, and they are drowning a rare and precious wetland — the mangrove forests, the crocodiles, tigers and birds that live in them, and the homes and fields of the people of the delta.

Why it happens: The word today in 'how much this place floods today' is the key — it compares the present with an earlier time Amma remembers. Rising sea levels and stronger cyclones, both linked to a warming climate, are pushing salt water further into the delta. It is the same worry Appa expresses about the Narmada ('there used to be a lot more water') and that the family notices in Kashmir ('there was much more snow last year'). Shaana records all three without quite understanding them — the reader is meant to join the dots.

Q3.

I 1. (iii) Select the evidence from the text that reflects a feeling of the speaker's slight nervousness.

Answer

The line is: "We also saw crocodiles and a lonely snake while boating. I hope they don't follow us home."

Why it happens: The nervousness is in the second sentence, not the first. Seeing crocodiles is a fact; hoping they will not follow her home is a small, half-joking worry — the sort of thing a child says to make a fear manageable by laughing at it. She does not say she was terrified; the word 'slight' in the question matches this light, teasing tone exactly.

Q4.

I 1. (iv) Select the option that applies to both the Assertion and the Reason. Assertion: The speaker is missing her friends. Reason: The speaker wishes to know the well-being of her friends. A. Both the assertion and the reason are true, and the reason correctly explains the assertion. B. Both the assertion and the reason are true, but the reason does not correctly explain the assertion. C. The assertion is true, but the reason is false. D. Both the assertion and the reason are false.

Answer

A. Both the assertion and the reason are true, and the reason correctly explains the assertion.

Assertion — 'Are you missing me yet?' → she is thinking about her friends → true
Reason — 'How is everyone?' → she wants to know how they are → true
Link — you ask after people only when they are on your mind → the reason explains the assertion

Why it happens: The two sentences sit side by side at the end of the postcard, and both point the same way. She is writing from the middle of the most exciting journey of her life, yet she stops to ask after everyone at home — that anxious enquiry is the missing. Option B would be right only if the reason were true but unconnected, which is not the case here.

Q5.

I 2. Extract: 'Amma and Appa are fast asleep, and I should be sleeping too, but I just love looking out of the window. I think we're in the southwest part of the country, in Goa, and you won't believe how nice the plateaus look. There are so many hills here, and beaches too. There are also a lot of tunnels that the train goes through. I used to be afraid of tunnels, but I'm not any more. Someday, I wish we could all go on a tour of the plateaus.' (i) Complete the sentence with a suitable reason. The speaker chooses to stay awake because ____________________.

Answer

The speaker chooses to stay awake because she simply loves looking out of the train window, and the Goan landscape sliding past in the night — the plateaus, the hills, the beaches and the tunnels — is far too beautiful and too new to sleep through.

Why it happens: She admits she ought to be asleep ('I should be sleeping too'), so this is a deliberate choice, not restlessness. Her reason is curiosity: a journey seen is a journey kept, and once the train has passed, that view is gone forever. It is the same appetite for looking that runs through every postcard.

Q6.

I 2. (ii) What does the speaker mean by saying, 'You won't believe how nice the plateaus look'?

Answer

She means that the plateaus are so beautiful that a description cannot do them justice — her friends would have to see them to believe her.

It is a friendly exaggeration, the way we say 'you won't believe what happened'. She is not really doubting her friends; she is inviting them into her excitement and admitting that she has run out of words. That is why she follows it with the plainest possible sentence — 'There are so many hills here, and beaches too' — and then with a wish: 'Someday, I wish we could all go on a tour of the plateaus.'

Did you know? The flat-topped land Shaana is seeing is the western edge of the Deccan plateau, where it drops through the Western Ghats towards the Konkan coast — which is why one train window shows her hills, plateaus, beaches and tunnels all in a single night.

Q7.

I 2. (iii) What has been the change in the speaker's attitude towards tunnels? A. from fear to comfort B. from courage to confidence C. from doubt to clarity D. from fascination to delight

Answer

A. from fear to comfort

Why it happens: Her own sentence names both ends of the change: 'I used to be afraid of tunnels, but I'm not any more.' The starting point is fear, so options B and D — which both begin from a positive feeling — are impossible, and C describes a change in understanding rather than in feeling. Travelling through many tunnels, night after night, has made the darkness ordinary, and what is ordinary stops being frightening.

Q8.

I 2. (iv) Fill in the blanks with the correct option from those given in the brackets. The speaker's wish to share the experience of touring the plateaus with others indicates her ___________ (ability to communicate/sense of connection) as well as the value she places on ___________ (shared experiences/updating information) with her peers.

Answer

The speaker's wish indicates her sense of connection as well as the value she places on shared experiences with her peers.

Why it happens: Look at the exact words of her wish — 'I wish we could all go on a tour of the plateaus.' She does not want to tell her friends about the plateaus; she wants them beside her when she sees them again. That is connection, not communication skill, and it values the experience being shared rather than the information being passed on. The same feeling closes the whole set of postcards: 'maybe next time we can take our friends with us.'

Q9.

II 1. Shaana mentions that she used to be afraid of tunnels. What could have been the most likely reason for her to be scared of tunnels?

Answer

Most likely the sudden total darkness, and the loss of control that comes with it.

When a train enters a tunnel the daylight vanishes in a second, the noise doubles as the sound bounces off the walls, the ears pop with the change of pressure, and a child cannot see where she is going or how long it will last. Being shut inside a mountain, unable to see her parents in the next seat, is frightening in the way that any small enclosed dark space is frightening. Shaana also lives on Rameswaram island, in wide open sea light — tunnels would have been strange to her from the start.

Why it happens: The fear ends for the same reason it began. Once she has been through 'a lot of tunnels' and the light has always come back, her mind learns that the darkness is temporary. Repetition, not reasoning, is what cures this kind of fear.

Q10.

II 2. Do you think Shaana's Appa and Amma enjoyed themselves, just like children do? Support your answer with evidence from the text.

Answer

Yes — and Shaana clearly enjoys watching them behave like children.

In Kashmir: 'Appa and Amma love it here, and they like throwing snowballs at each other.'
At the beach near Puducherry: 'Amma and Appa splashed water on each other and behaved like children. It's a good thing I was there to control them.'
On the Narmada: all three went rafting, and 'Appa was so scared that he decided never to go rafting ever again' — the frank fear of someone who threw himself into the fun.
At Olaikaadu they dove below her while she floated, and Amma even wanted to teach her to dive.

The funniest evidence is the reversal of roles. Shaana, the child, says it is a good thing she was there 'to control them'. A family that can swap places like this is plainly a family enjoying itself.

Q11.

II 3. Shaana mentions less snow in the glaciers and more flooding in the Sundarbans. Explain what these observations indicate.

Answer

Together they point to one thing: the climate is changing, and India's landscapes are changing with it.

What Shaana reports	What it indicates
'they say there was much more snow last year' (Thajiwas glacier, Kashmir)	Warmer winters and shrinking glaciers. Himalayan glaciers feed our great rivers, so less snow now means less water later.
'Amma is sad about how much this place floods today' (the Sundarbans)	Rising sea levels and stronger cyclones pushing salt water into the delta, drowning mangroves, farmland and villages.
'there used to be a lot more water, and rafting was much scarier then' (the Narmada)	Rivers running lower than they once did.

The two ends of the same problem meet here — ice that should stay frozen is melting, and water that should stay in the sea is coming inland. Notice how the author delivers this. Shaana never uses the words 'climate change'; she just repeats what the grown-ups say. The reader is left to work it out, which makes the point land harder than a lecture would.

Q12.

II 4. Shaana's visits to different parts of the country highlight the diversity of India's geography. Support this statement with evidence from the text.

Answer

In under two months Shaana crosses almost every landform India has, and her postcards prove it in her own words:

Landform	Where	Evidence
Glacier and snow	Thajiwas, Kashmir (North)	'The glaciers are white and blue and we have to wear four layers of clothes.'
Mountains	Himachal Pradesh (North)	'we can see so many mountains from our cabin'
Dense forest	Arunachal Pradesh (Northeast)	'The forest here is so thick that if you blink… you will get lost.'
Wetland and mangroves	Sundarbans, West Bengal (East)	'it was possible for trees called mangroves to grow in seawater!'
Desert	Gujarat (West)	'It's hot, dry, and there's sand everywhere. It's like a beach without the sea!'
River valley	The Narmada (Centre)	'the Narmada river, which flows all the way to the centre of India'
Plateaus and hills	Goa (Southwest)	'you won't believe how nice the plateaus look. There are so many hills here, and beaches too.'
Coast and sea	Chennai, Puducherry, Pamban, Olaikaadu (South)	'I could see the ocean on both sides. How amazing that a train can travel across the sea like this!'

She sums it up herself in the last postcard: 'I know we're going to miss visiting the forests, glaciers, deserts, wetlands, plateaus, and mountains.' And the diversity is not only physical — she also notes 'all those new languages' and 'all those different people', and the beautiful colourful clothes of Gujarat.

Q13.

II 5. How does Shaana use language to convey her excitement, curiosity, and sometimes her fears about the places she visits?

Answer

She writes exactly as a child speaks, and the choices are worth naming:

Exclamations and 'you won't believe' openings. 'You won't believe where I am!'; 'you won't believe how wild and scary it was'; 'Today was the best day ever!' — excitement pushed to the top of the sentence.
Exaggeration for effect. 'if you blink or stop to tie your shoelaces, you will get lost'; 'It's like a beach without the sea!'
Direct questions to her readers. 'Did you know that Arunachal Pradesh is far away from Himachal Pradesh?'; 'How is everyone? Are you missing me yet?' — she keeps the conversation two-way even on a postcard.
Curiosity shown as new words repeated. 'places like the Sundarbans are called wetlands'; 'trees called mangroves' — she hands her friends the vocabulary she has just been given.
Fears made small by humour. 'I hope they don't follow us home'; 'I would love to meet a bear and give it a hug'; 'I used to be afraid of tunnels, but I'm not any more.'
Honest, unpolished admissions. 'I only fell down twice'; 'I passed with 88 per cent'; 'my hands are shaking from not wearing gloves, so I don't think I can write any more.'

Why it happens: Short sentences, everyday words, plenty of 'and… and…', and no attempt to sound literary — that is what makes the voice believable. An adult travel writer would have described the Sundarbans; Shaana simply tells you she never knew such a place existed.

Q14.

II 6. What might Shaana have learnt from her travels across India? How would it impact her understanding of the country?

Answer

What she learnt:

Geography as something felt, not memorised. She now knows by experience that a Pradesh in the north and a Pradesh in the east may be two thousand kilometres apart, that mangroves grow in salt water, that a plateau is flat-topped, and that a river is far faster than it looks.
The scale of her country. Two-and-a-half days to cross from West Bengal to Gujarat; six hours from the desert to the Narmada; a train that runs across the sea at Pamban.
That India is many peoples, not one. 'we are going to miss hearing all those new languages and meeting all those different people'; the clothes of Gujarat; the food and customs of each place.
That the land is under strain. Less snow, lower rivers, worse floods.
About herself. She lost her fear of tunnels, learnt to surf, floated over a reef, and discovered she enjoys travelling — 'I love Arunachal the best so far and am beginning to enjoy myself.'

The impact: India stops being a map on a classroom wall and becomes a set of real places she has stood in. That does three things — it makes her curious rather than nervous about what is unfamiliar, it makes her respectful of differences in language and custom, and it gives her a personal reason to care about glaciers and wetlands she has now seen with her own eyes. Her last wish, to travel again 'and maybe next time we can take our friends with us', shows the final lesson: that such an understanding is worth passing on.

Q15.

II 7. What could be the author's purpose of presenting the text in the form of postcards?

Answer

The postcard form is doing several jobs at once:

It fits the traveller. A postcard is short, dated and written on the spot, so each entry sounds fresh and unedited — exactly how a twelve-year-old would report a day that has just happened.
It lets the author skip. Twelve postcards can cross the whole country in eight pages. A continuous story would have had to describe the journeys in between; postcards simply jump from Kashmir to Himachal to Arunachal.
It gives the reader the dates and the route. 30 April, 10 May, 17 May… 25 June. You can trace the itinerary and the two months on a map without being told.
It creates a real listener. Because Shaana is writing to her classmates, she can ask questions, tease and gossip — 'Are you missing me yet?', 'Send my love to PT Miss and Library Ma'am.' That makes the reader feel like one of those classmates.
It keeps the voice honest. There is no room on a postcard for fine writing, so we get short, vivid, personal lines instead of a guidebook.
It builds a quiet ending. The last card is addressed not to the class but to Amma and Appa, and the very last line of all is 'we're finally home now' — the form itself closes the circle.

Try This: Write one postcard of your own, dated, from a place you have visited — five sentences, one new thing you learnt, and one question to your friends.

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