EN हिं

NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 11 Basic Functions of Money — THINK ABOUT IT

Book page 237 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Suppose you need to buy a book. You have ₹50 in your pocket. You visit the bookshop in your neighbourhood where the shopkeeper tells you that the book is worth ₹100. What options do you have to buy the book today?
Answer

The gap has to be closed somehow.

Price of the book = ₹100
Money in my pocket = ₹50
Shortfall = ₹100 − ₹50 = ₹50

The realistic options are:

  1. Pay ₹50 now and the remaining ₹50 later — if the shopkeeper agrees. This is a deferred payment.
  2. Borrow ₹50 from a parent, an elder sibling or a friend and pay the full amount today.
  3. Ask the shopkeeper to keep the book aside and come back tomorrow with the balance.
  4. Buy a cheaper book today that costs ₹50 or less.
  5. Wait and save the other ₹50 out of pocket money before buying.
  6. Pay digitally — if there is money in a family bank account, a UPI transfer settles the ₹100 at once.
Tip: notice that option 1 is only possible because money exists. Under barter you could not hand over “half an ox now and half an ox next month”.
Q2.
Will you request the shopkeeper to allow you to make the rest of the payment later?
Answer

Yes, that is a reasonable thing to ask — and the chapter uses this very request to introduce an important idea.

The request works only if two conditions hold:

  • Trust. A neighbourhood shopkeeper who knows my family is likely to agree; a stranger in a big store will not.
  • A promise I can keep. I must be sure I will actually have ₹50 by the date I name, and I must go back and pay on that date.

If he agrees, I take the book home today and pay ₹50 later. The shopkeeper accepts a promise of money in place of money itself.

Why it happens: the fact that money is accepted as a way of making payments later makes money a standard of deferred payment — the fourth basic function of money, alongside medium of exchange, measure of value and store of value. It works because everybody is confident that ₹50 will still buy roughly the same amount next month.
Did you know? Shopkeepers in India have kept such credit in a khata or bahi — a running account book — for centuries. Buying on credit and settling at the end of the month is deferred payment in daily life.
Was this helpful? Report an error