Q1.
You just read vivid descriptions of the natural wonders of our country. Write a descriptive essay for your school magazine describing anything from nature that attracted your attention. It may be an object, a place, or an event experienced by you. Remember to give a title to your essay. Use proper format and content organisation—begin with a title, include introduction (one paragraph), body (two to three paragraphs), and conclusion (one paragraph).
Answer
Plan the structure before the sentences.
| Part | What it must do |
|---|---|
| Title | Name the subject in three or four words, and hint at the mood |
| Introduction (1 para) | Place the reader — where, when, and why you were there. End with the thing you are about to describe |
| Body (2–3 paras) | Describe in an order the eye can follow — far to near, or before to during to after. Use all the senses, not only sight |
| Conclusion (1 para) | What it left you with. One thought, not a summary |
Sample answer
The Night the River Caught Fire
Every summer we go to my grandmother's village on the Kerala backwaters, and every summer the evening is the same: the boats come in, the water turns the colour of weak tea, and by eight o'clock there is nothing to look at but the dark. Last April was different. My cousin shook me awake at half past ten and said only one word — “Come.”
The canal behind the house was on fire. That is what it looked like from the steps. Where the water was still, it was black; but wherever anything disturbed it, a cold blue-green light ran outwards in a ring. A fish moved somewhere below and drew a line of light behind it like a matchstick across a wall. My cousin put his hand in and lifted it, and the light poured off his fingers in drops, and then his hand was ordinary again. There was no heat in it at all. The whole canal smelt of wet rope and fish, exactly as it always does, and that was the strangest part — nothing had changed except the light.
We stayed on the steps for nearly an hour, throwing in small stones just to watch the rings widen and fade. An old man from the next house told us it was kadalinte velicham, the light of the sea, and that it came some years and not others. Later my science teacher gave me the other name for it: bioluminescence, caused by millions of micro-planktons that flash when the water around them moves. Both explanations turned out to be about the same thing, and I found that neither of them made the night smaller.
I have seen photographs of glowing water since, and they are all wrong. A photograph makes the light look painted on. What a picture cannot give you is the darkness in between — the long minutes when the canal is only a canal, until something moves and the water remembers what it can do.
The Night the River Caught Fire
Every summer we go to my grandmother's village on the Kerala backwaters, and every summer the evening is the same: the boats come in, the water turns the colour of weak tea, and by eight o'clock there is nothing to look at but the dark. Last April was different. My cousin shook me awake at half past ten and said only one word — “Come.”
The canal behind the house was on fire. That is what it looked like from the steps. Where the water was still, it was black; but wherever anything disturbed it, a cold blue-green light ran outwards in a ring. A fish moved somewhere below and drew a line of light behind it like a matchstick across a wall. My cousin put his hand in and lifted it, and the light poured off his fingers in drops, and then his hand was ordinary again. There was no heat in it at all. The whole canal smelt of wet rope and fish, exactly as it always does, and that was the strangest part — nothing had changed except the light.
We stayed on the steps for nearly an hour, throwing in small stones just to watch the rings widen and fade. An old man from the next house told us it was kadalinte velicham, the light of the sea, and that it came some years and not others. Later my science teacher gave me the other name for it: bioluminescence, caused by millions of micro-planktons that flash when the water around them moves. Both explanations turned out to be about the same thing, and I found that neither of them made the night smaller.
I have seen photographs of glowing water since, and they are all wrong. A photograph makes the light look painted on. What a picture cannot give you is the darkness in between — the long minutes when the canal is only a canal, until something moves and the water remembers what it can do.
What makes description work:
- One subject, closely seen. A single canal on a single night beats ‘the beauty of nature' every time.
- More than one sense. The essay uses sight, touch (“no heat in it at all”) and smell (“wet rope and fish”). Smell is the sense most students forget and readers remember longest.
- Comparisons that are exact. “Like a matchstick across a wall”, “the colour of weak tea” — a simile should make the reader see more clearly, not merely sound poetic.
- An ending that thinks. The last paragraph does not repeat the description; it says something about it.