NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 3 The Magic Brush of Dreams — Let us discuss

Book page 127 & 128 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Arrange the events in order of occurrence in the poem. The last one has been marked for you. Share your answers with your classmates and teacher. 1. Gopi paints a bowl of khichdi, which becomes real and amazes the villagers. 2. The Zamindar orders Gopi to paint treasures for him. 3. Gopi is told to gather food but instead sits drawing pictures in the sand. 4. Gopi returns to the village with the Zamindar and his men chasing her. 5. The Zamindar throws Gopi into prison. 6. Gopi paints a road and a horse to escape. 7. Gopi uses the magic brush to paint useful items for the villagers. 8. Gopi paints a wide river, stopping the Zamindar and his men. 9. A man gives a magic brush to Gopi to paint only for the poor. 10. Gopi scares the Zamindar away, and celebrates with the villagers. [10]

Answer

Order	Statement no.	Event
1	3	Gopi is told to gather food but sits drawing pictures in the sand
2	9	A man gives her the magic brush, to paint only for the poor
3	1	She paints a bowl of khichdi, which becomes real and amazes the villagers
4	7	She paints useful things for the villagers — a muffler, a plough, a shawl, a fan
5	2	The Zamindar hears of it and orders her to paint treasures for him
6	5	On her refusal, he throws her into prison
7	6	She paints a road and a horse and escapes
8	4	She returns to the village with the Zamindar's men chasing her
9	8	She paints a wide river, stopping the Zamindar and his men
10	10	She scares him away and celebrates with the villagers (given)

So the numbers written against the statements are: 1 → 3, 2 → 5, 3 → 1, 4 → 8, 5 → 6, 6 → 7, 7 → 4, 8 → 9, 9 → 2, 10 → 10.

The shape of the story: notice that the poem falls into three clear movements — the gift (events 1–2), the giving (3–4), and the fight to keep the promise (5–10). The turning point is event 5: the moment the news reaches the Zamindar, every later event is caused by Gopi's refusal.

Tip: when ordering events, first find the two you are certain of — the opening and the closing — and work inwards. The pairs that trap students here are 4 and 8 (the chase happens before the river) and 1 and 7 (the khichdi is painted for her own hungry family before she starts painting for the village).

Q2.

Fill in the blanks by choosing the correct answer from the box given below. [triumphant and celebratory / tension and suspense / playful and innocent] The tone of the poem shifts throughout, reflecting the different moods of the story. Initially, the tone is 1. _________________ as Gopi uses her imagination to draw in the sand, and later when the Zamindar enters the story, the tone shifts to one of 2. _________________. In the final part of the poem, the tone becomes 3. _________________ as Gopi escapes, the Zamindar is defeated, and the villagers rejoice.

Answer

Blank	Answer	Lines that create that tone
1	playful and innocent	“Gopi sits beneath the banyan, / A twig is in her hand… ‘No beans, no rice, no mangoes!' / Gopi grins and runs inside.”
2	tension and suspense	“The Zamindar roars and stamps his foot… ‘Seize this brush and seize the girl. / Throw her in the pen!'”
3	triumphant and celebratory	“Now Gopi paints for the village folk, / A feast of sweets and tea. / A courtyard bright, a band to play, / And songs of victory.”

How the poet manages the shifts: the tone is carried mainly by verbs. In the opening it is sits, draws, grins, runs — small, harmless movements. In the middle it becomes roars, stamps, bellows, seize, throw, thunders — loud and violent. At the close it turns to paints, play, sing. Read the verbs of any three stanzas aloud and you can hear the mood change without reading anything else.

Q3.

Fill in the blanks by choosing the correct option from within the brackets. 1. The poem mostly follows a simple rhyme scheme, _________________, which adds a rhythmic flow. (ABCB, ABBA, ABAB)

Answer

The rhyme scheme is ABCB.

“Go and gather wild beans, Gopi, — A
Go and fetch some rice. — B
Go and pluck the mangoes — C
And bring home something nice.” — B

Only lines 2 and 4 rhyme; lines 1 and 3 are left free. Check it in any other stanza and the pattern holds — hand / sand, poor / sure, grand / land, deep / leap.

Why a ballad uses ABCB: rhyming only the even lines gives a light, steady beat that carries a story forward without sounding sing-song, and it leaves the poet free to say whatever the plot needs in lines 1 and 3. This is the traditional scheme of folk ballads sung aloud — which suits a poem “Adapted from a Folk Tale”.

How to work out a rhyme scheme: write A against line 1. Read line 2 — new sound, so B. Line 3 — new again, so C. Line 4 rhymes with line 2, so it takes B back. Never assign a letter twice unless the sound repeats.

Q4.

2. This poem belongs to the _________________ poetry genre, which tells a story through verse. (descriptive, narrative or ballad, free style)

Answer

The poem belongs to the narrative or ballad genre.

Feature of a ballad	Where you see it here
Tells a complete story with a beginning, a crisis and an end	A gift, a refusal, a prison, an escape, a victory
Written in short four-line stanzas with a regular beat	Quatrains throughout, rhyming ABCB
Plenty of direct speech	“Come here!”, “I order you to paint for me”, “My lord, I can't comply”
Simple, strong characters — often a poor hero against a powerful villain	Gopi and the Zamindar
Comes from an oral, folk tradition	The poem is credited “Adapted from a Folk Tale”

Why not the other two: a descriptive poem paints a scene and does not move — nothing would happen. Free style (free verse) has no fixed metre or rhyme, whereas this poem keeps a steady four-line, ABCB pattern from the first stanza to the last.

Q5.

Give examples from the poem for the following explanations. 1. The poem is rich in imagery, creating clear pictures in the reader’s mind. For example, ___________________.

Answer

Imagery is language that appeals to the senses. The poem is full of it — here are four examples, one for each of four different senses.

Line	Sense appealed to	Picture created
“Gopi sits beneath the banyan, / A twig is in her hand. / She sits there drawing pictures, / Pictures in the sand.”	Sight	A small figure under a huge tree, scratching in dust — poverty and imagination in one image
“She paints a mighty river wide, / Its currents fast and deep.”	Sight and movement	Water that is not decoration but a wall
“Now Gopi waits inside the cell, / Upon a cold mud floor.”	Touch	You feel the damp and the chill; the word cold does the work of a whole stanza of complaint
“A feast of sweets and tea. / A courtyard bright, a band to play”	Taste, sight and sound together	The whole village celebrating at once

Notice the poet's economy: almost every image is a list of concrete nouns — a muffler, a plough, a shawl, a fan; gold and rubies, emeralds bright. There are hardly any adjectives of feeling. The poem shows you the objects and lets you supply the emotion, which is why it moves so fast.

Q6.

2. What is the effect of repetition in the line—‘On you, and you and you!’?

Answer

The repetition turns a general warning into a personal threat aimed at each man in turn. Instead of “it will feast on all of you”, the words fall one by one, like a finger pointing along the line of soldiers — you… and you… and you.

Three things happen at once:

The threat spreads. Every man in the Zamindar's party now has to imagine the beast reaching him, not somebody near him. That is why they all break at once: “He turns and flees; his men behind / Dare not choose to stay.”
The rhythm quickens. Three short beats in a row imitate a chase closing in, so the line is heard as hurried and menacing.
Gopi's power is displayed without being used. She never paints the beast. The repetition alone is enough — words, in this poem, are as strong as paint.

Name the device: this is repetition used for emphasis. Compare the poem's other repetitions — “Go and gather… Go and fetch… Go and pluck”, and “It's Gopi! It's Gopi!” — the first sounds like a scolding mother, the second like a crowd shouting. Repeating the same words can produce quite different effects.

Q7.

Match the phrases from the poem in Column 1 with what they symbolise in Column 2. Column 1: 1. The magic paintbrush 2. The grand fortress 3. The river and the beast. Column 2: (i) greed and the desire for wealth (ii) barriers to protect Gopi from the Zamindar’s anger (iii) the power of art and imagination to change the world

Answer

Phrase	Symbolises	Why
1. The magic paintbrush	(iii) the power of art and imagination to change the world	What Gopi imagines becomes real — khichdi, a plough, a shawl, a road, a horse. Art here does not decorate the world; it feeds and frees it.
2. The grand fortress	(i) greed and the desire for wealth	The Zamindar asks for walls, jewels and “riches rare, / Enough to rule this land” — not one thing he needs, only things that increase his power.
3. The river and the beast	(ii) barriers to protect Gopi from the Zamindar's anger	Both are put between her and her pursuers. The river stops them physically; the beast stops them by fear.

1 – (iii), 2 – (i), 3 – (ii)

What a symbol is: a real object in the story that also stands for an idea. The test is that it works on both levels at once — the fortress is a building Gopi is ordered to paint, and it stands for the Zamindar's hunger for power. Note how neatly the poem opposes its symbols: a brush no bigger than a twig defeats a fortress.

Q8.

Identify whether the following statement is true or false. While Gopi uses the magic brush to help others, the Zamindar wants to use it for personal gain. This contrast drives the moral of the story.

Answer

True.

Gopi paints	The Zamindar demands
A bowl of khichdi for a hungry house	“A fortress tall and grand”
A muffler for a farmer, a plough for another man	“Treasures, jewels, and riches rare”
A shawl for a grandmother, a fan for a girl	“Gold and rubies, emeralds bright”
A feast, a courtyard, a band for the whole village	“Enough to rule this land”

Every item on the left is small, useful and for somebody else; every item on the right is large, ornamental and for himself. The contrast is stated in the poem's own words — Gopi has sworn “to help the needy by”, while the Zamindar wants enough “to rule this land”.

The moral that follows: a gift is judged not by its power but by the use it is put to. The same brush could have built a fortress; in Gopi's hand it built a plough. And the poem adds a second point — she keeps the brush precisely because she refuses to misuse it. Her promise is what protects her.

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