NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 3 Paper Boats — Let us discuss
Book page 111 & 112 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
I Choose the correct words from the brackets to complete the summary of the poem given below. 'The poet sends paper boats down a 1. __________ (stream/river) each day, writing his name and the name of his 2. __________ (school/village) on them. He hopes that someone in a 3. __________ (strange/familiar) land will find them and know who he is. The poet fills his boats with 4. __________ (rose/shiuli) flowers from his garden, hoping they will be safely carried to another land at 5. __________ (night/morning). As he launches his boats, he imagines that the 6. __________ (clouds/birds) in the sky are like friends, racing with his boats. At night, he dreams that his paper boats continue to 7. __________ (swim/float) under the midnight stars, with the fairies of sleep sailing in them, their baskets full of 8. __________ (dreams/fruits).'
Answer
The poet sends paper boats down a 1. stream each day, writing his name and the name of his 2. village on them. He hopes that someone in a 3. strange land will find them and know who he is. The poet fills his boats with 4. shiuli flowers from his garden, hoping they will be safely carried to another land at 5. night. As he launches his boats, he imagines that the 6. clouds in the sky are like friends, racing with his boats. At night, he dreams that his paper boats continue to 7. float under the midnight stars, with the fairies of sleep sailing in them, their baskets full of 8. dreams.
Why it happens: Every blank can be settled from one line of the poem — 'down the running stream'; 'the name of the village where I live'; 'someone in some strange land'; 'shiuli flower from our garden'; 'carried safely to land in the night'; 'the little clouds setting the white bulging sails'; 'my paper boats float on and on'; 'baskets full of dreams'. Note blank 7: boats float, only living things swim.
Q2.
II Choose the correct option for the following. The theme of the poem is ________________. 1. innocence 2. imagination 3. ignorance 4. playfulness 5. travel — (i) 1, 2 and 3 (ii) 3, 4 and 5 (iii) 1, 4 and 5 (iv) 1, 2 and 4
Answer
(iv) 1, 2 and 4 — innocence, imagination and playfulness.
Theme
Line that carries it
Innocence
'I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and know who I am.' Only a child would trust the world that completely.
Imagination
'I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!' — clouds become boats, sleep becomes fairies.
Playfulness
'Day by day I float my paper boats one by one' — this is a game repeated for its own joy.
Why it happens:Ignorance is wrong because the child is not lacking knowledge — he is choosing wonder. Travel is wrong because the child never moves; it is only his boats and his dreams that go anywhere.
Q3.
III Identify whether the following statement is true or false. The setting of the poem is a natural, outdoor environment.
Answer
True.
Why it happens: Every place named in the poem is out of doors and made by nature, not by people — 'the running stream', 'our garden', 'the sky', 'the little clouds', 'the midnight stars', 'the dawn', 'the night'. The only man-made things in the poem are the paper boats themselves and the writing on them. Even the last stanza, where the child has come indoors to sleep, keeps the outdoor picture alive: the dream boats are still floating 'under the midnight stars'.
Q4.
IV Complete the following sentence by choosing the correct word given within the brackets. The tone is ____________________ (sad and serious/gentle and wishful) and the mood is ____________________ (thoughtful/boring).
Answer
The tone is gentle and wishful and the mood is thoughtful.
Why it happens:Tone is the speaker's attitude; mood is the feeling created in the reader. The word hope appears twice — 'I hope that someone… will find them', 'hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely' — and the verbs are all soft ones: float, load, launch, dream, sail. Nothing is lost and nobody weeps, so it is not sad; and because the poem ends on a dream rather than an event, it leaves the reader quiet and thinking, not bored.
Q5.
V Identify the examples of alliteration from the poem.
Answer
Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words that are close together. The clearest examples in 'Paper Boats' are:
Line
Repeated sound
'In big black letters I write my name'
/b/
'I load my little boats'
/l/
'these blooms of the dawn will be carried'
/b/
'The fairies of sleep are sailing in them'
/s/
'the little clouds setting the white bulging sails'
/s/
'my paper boats float' (with the title Paper Boats)
/p/
Why it happens: The soft /l/ and /s/ sounds imitate water sliding and cloth filling with wind, so the sound of the line matches its picture. The harder /b/ of 'big black letters' does the opposite — it makes the child's bold handwriting stand out against the gentleness of everything else.
Q6.
VI Fill in the blanks with suitable words from the poem. 1. The repetition of words ___________ and ___________ emphasises the passage of time.
Answer
The repetition of the words 'day' (in Day by day) and 'on' (in float on and on) emphasises the passage of time.
Why it happens: 'Day by day' tells us this is not one afternoon's game but a habit that returns every single morning, and 'on and on' stretches the night out so that the boats never seem to stop. Between them the two phrases cover the whole poem — one holds the daylight, the other holds the dark. You could also point to 'one by one', which slows the launching down and makes each boat count.
Q7.
VI 2. The poet uses imagery like ___________ and ___________ to create a clear picture in the minds of the readers.
Answer
Any two of the poem's pictures will do. The strongest pair is: 'the little clouds setting the white bulging sails' and 'the midnight stars'.
Other good choices:
'big black letters' — you can see the child's uneven handwriting on the paper.
'shiuli flower' / 'blooms of the dawn' — small white flowers with orange stalks, which fall at daybreak.
'baskets full of dreams' — the cargo of the fairy boats.
Why it happens:Imagery is language that appeals to the senses. Tagore keeps the images small and concrete — a flower, a letter, a sail, a basket — so a reader of any age can see them at once. That is what makes a poem of nine lines feel like a whole evening.
Q8.
VII Match the descriptions in Column 1 with what they symbolise in Column 2. Column 1: 1. the child's innocence, dreams, hopes, and messages sent out into the world 2. purity, beauty, and the start of a new day 3. the vast universe and the child's dreams continuing through the night — Column 2: (i) midnight stars (ii) paper boats (iii) shiuli flowers
Answer
Column 1 — what is symbolised
Column 2 — the image
Why
1. the child's innocence, dreams, hopes, and messages sent out into the world
(ii) paper boats
He writes his name and village on them and hopes a stranger will find them — they are messages, not toys.
2. purity, beauty, and the start of a new day
(iii) shiuli flowers
The poem itself calls them 'these blooms of the dawn'; the shiuli is white and falls at daybreak.
3. the vast universe and the child's dreams continuing through the night
(i) midnight stars
'my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars' — the sky becomes the ocean the dreams sail across.
Tip: A symbol is a real object that stands for an idea. The test is simple — remove the object and the idea disappears with it. Take away the boats and the child has no way to send himself out into the world.