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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 3 Seasons in your own region — LET'S EXPLORE

Book page 47 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Which are your favourite seasons? Write a short essay explaining your reasons.
Answer

This is your own essay, so no one can write it for you — but a good one does three things: it names the season, it gives reasons of at least two kinds (what the weather is like, and what you do in it), and it connects the season to your own place — the food, the festival, the flower, the game.

A plan you can follow:

  1. Name the season and the months it covers where you live.
  2. Describe the weather — temperature, rain, wind, light.
  3. Say what changes around you — trees, birds, crops, clothes.
  4. Say what you do in it — a festival, a food, a game, a holiday.
  5. End with one sentence on why it beats the other seasons for you.

Sample answer: “Varṣhā, the rainy season, is my favourite. From late June to September the sky over our town turns grey and the first shower washes the dust off every leaf. The air smells of wet earth, and the temperature drops from a hard 40°C to a comfortable 30°C. The fields behind our house turn from brown to a green so bright it hurts the eyes, and the frogs begin calling at night. We get hot bhajiyā and tea in the evening, and paper boats in the drain outside. I like the rains most because they are the season that brings everything else to life — without them there would be no crop, no festival at harvest, and no water in our well.”

Tip: avoid ‘I like summer because it is nice’. Replace every ‘nice’ with a fact — a temperature, a smell, a food, a sound.
Q2.
Discuss in groups of three or four and find out whether there are specific events connected to the seasons in your region. Collect information about them — songs, feasts with specific types of food, practices in different seasons, etc. Document these and share your discoveries with your class.
Answer

How to do the activity:

  1. Split the year between your group — one member takes each season.
  2. Ask at home and in the neighbourhood: which festival falls in this season? What is cooked for it? Is there a song, a dance, a rangoli, a special dress?
  3. Note why the event falls in that season — most are tied to sowing, harvest or the first rain.
  4. Make one chart with four or six columns (one per season) and pin up photographs or drawings.

What a good record must contain — for each event: its name, the season and month, the reason it is held, the food, the song or dance, and who takes part.

Sample answer (a group in Assam might record):

SeasonEventWhy it falls thenFood, song, practice
Spring (Bohag)Rongali BihuStart of the agricultural year, sowing timePitha and laru; Bihu dance with the dhol and pepa
Rainy seasonAmbubachiThe earth is said to rest and renew with the first rainsFarming pauses; the Kamakhya temple closes for three days
Autumn/winterMagh BihuHarvest is in; granaries are fullCommunity feasts, meji bonfires, buffalo and egg fights
Check it yourself: the chapter's own Fig. 3.11 gives you eleven such events to compare with — Bihu, Chhath Puja, Makar Sakranti, Baisakhi, Pongal, the Awe Winter Festival, Hemis, Losoong, Gudi Padwa, Lohri and Onam.
Q3.
Do you know which trees in your area change colours before the onset of winter? Are there trees that shed their leaves around this time? Why do you think this happens? Find out and document the local names of these trees.
Answer

What you will find. In most of India the great leaf-fall comes not in autumn but in late winter and early summer (February–April), and the new leaves are often red or copper before turning green. Common trees to look for:

TreeLocal namesWhat it does
Salsāl, sakhuaSheds leaves in the dry months; new leaves flush pink-brown
Teaksāgwān, tekuBig leaves turn brown and drop in the cold-dry season
Flame of the forestpalāsh, ṭesu, kiṁśukaDrops its leaves, then flowers a blazing orange on bare branches
Silk cottonsemal, śhālmaliBare in winter, then covered with red flowers
Indian almondbadām, deśhi bādāmLeaves turn bright red and yellow before falling
Amaltasamaltās, Golden Shower tree, kaṇikkonnaThins out, then hangs with yellow flowers — the monsoon signal in the south
Why it happens: shedding leaves is how a tree saves water. A leaf loses water constantly through tiny pores. When the soil is dry and cold — or dry and hot — the tree cannot replace that water, so it drops the leaves and waits. The colour change comes first: the tree pulls the green pigment (chlorophyll) and useful food back out of the leaf before letting it go, and the yellow, orange and red pigments that were always there are left showing. In cold-winter places like the Himalayan slopes the same trick protects the tree from frost, which is why the chapter says trees shed leaves or change colour as śharad approaches.

How to document: for each tree note the local name, the botanical name if you can find it, the month it drops its leaves, the month it flowers, and stick in one pressed leaf. Ask an elder or a gardener for names your books may not carry.

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