NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 3 The Magic Brush of Dreams — Let us do these activities before we read
Book page 122 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Work in pairs. Discuss the following questions. Share your answers with your classmates and teacher. 1. Mention a magical object that you would like to have. Give a reason for your choice.
Answer
Answer in two parts — name the object, then give one clear reason that says what problem it would solve. A reason like “because it is nice” will not do.
Object
A reason worth giving
A bag that is never empty of food
No child in my street would go to school hungry
A book that answers any question truthfully
Arguments would end in facts instead of shouting
A cloth that cleans a river when spread on it
The stream behind our colony turned black in two years
Shoes that carry you anywhere in a step
My grandmother lives four hundred kilometres away
Sample answer: I would like a lamp that gives light without electricity and never goes out. In our village the power fails almost every evening, and my younger sister has to stop studying and wait. A lamp like that would not make anyone rich; it would simply give every child two more hours of the day.
Keep the poem in mind: Gopi's brush is powerful only because it is used for others. The best answers to this question name a magical object and then say whom it would help.
Q2.
2. What would you draw for yourself, if you had a magic paint brush? Why?
Answer
This one is deliberately about yourself — be honest, and give the reason behind the wish rather than the wish alone.
Sample answer: I would draw a small room with a window and a table of my own. At home the four of us share one room, and I do my homework on the floor with the television on. It is not a grand wish — no gold, no fortress — but a quiet corner would change my whole day. If the brush allowed me a second drawing, I would draw a bicycle, so that the three kilometres to school stopped being a decision every morning.
Notice what the poem does with this question. When Gopi finally uses the brush for herself, she paints exactly two things — “a winding road, / A horse both strong and bold” — and both are for escape, not comfort. The poem is quietly testing what a person reaches for first.
Q3.
3. Would you use the magic paint brush to draw for someone else? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Answer
Yes — and the strongest reason is not kindness alone but usefulness.
A brush that makes things real can only be used a certain number of times a day. Spending it on someone who has nothing produces far more good than spending it on someone who already has plenty. That is exactly the old man's instruction: “Paint not for the wealthy ones, / But only for the poor.”
Things drawn for others come back to you as safety. When Gopi returns, it is the villagers — “merry and kind” — who welcome her; a girl who had painted only for herself would have had no one to run to.
A gift used only for oneself becomes exactly what the Zamindar wanted it to be: private power.
If you argue ‘No': a fair point can be made that drawing for everyone would leave you exhausted and would take away people's reason to work. A balanced answer is: draw for others what they cannot get by their own effort — medicine, a bridge, a school roof — and let them do the rest themselves.
Q4.
Work in pairs. Discuss instances of acts of kindness that you have heard, read, or experienced. Share your answers with your classmates and teacher.
Answer
Tell each instance in three sentences: what happened, what it cost the giver, and what it changed. The middle sentence is what turns a nice story into an act of kindness.
Where kindness is found
Examples you can talk about
Everyday life
A shopkeeper who keeps a water pot outside in May; a neighbour who takes an elderly person to hospital; someone who returns a lost wallet
Stories and history
The langar at a gurudwara, open to anyone; villagers who sheltered strangers during a flood; the man in this poem who gives away a magic brush and keeps nothing
In school
Sharing notes with someone who was ill; standing up for a classmate being teased; a senior who taught a junior to swim
Sample answer: Last monsoon the drain outside our lane overflowed and the water rose into the ground-floor rooms. A rickshaw driver, Salim bhai, spent the whole night carrying other people's furniture and gas cylinders up to the first floor. His own room was flooded too; he went back to it only at dawn. Nobody paid him and nobody had asked him. When people talk about that night now, they do not talk about the water — they talk about him.
What makes kindness different from politeness: politeness costs nothing; kindness costs the giver something — time, money, comfort or safety — and is offered without expecting a return. That is why the old man in the poem whispers and disappears: he wants no credit at all.
Q5.
Work in pairs and guess the meanings of the words given below and draw pictures depicting their meanings. Share with your classmates and teacher. [paintbrush, joy, fortress, feast, fear, winding, twig, bows, drawing, cold] Now, arrange these words into different categories as given below. Things: ______ Actions: ______ Emotions: ______
Answer
Word
Meaning
How the poem uses it
paintbrush
A brush for applying paint
“the magic brush of dreams”
joy
Great happiness
The mood of the closing stanza — “songs of victory”
fortress
A large, strongly defended building or castle
“A fortress tall and grand”
feast
A large, special meal; (as a verb) to eat greedily
“A feast of sweets and tea”; also “it will feast / On you”
fear
The feeling caused by danger
What makes the Zamindar cry, “No, no, no more!”
winding
Turning and twisting rather than straight
“a winding road”
twig
A very small, thin branch
“A twig is in her hand”
bows
Bends the head or body to show respect
“Gopi bows and shakes her head”
drawing
Making a picture with lines
“She sits there drawing pictures”
cold
Low in temperature; (of a feeling) cheerless
“Upon a cold mud floor”
The categories:
Things: paintbrush, fortress, feast, twig
Actions: winding, bows, drawing
Emotions / feelings: joy, fear, cold
Why some words could move: English lets the same word do more than one job.
Feast is a thing (“a feast of sweets”) but also an action (“it will feast on you”) — the poem uses both, four stanzas apart.
Winding and drawing are -ing forms. In “a winding road” winding describes the road, so it works as an adjective; in “She sits there drawing pictures” drawing is clearly an action.
Cold is really a physical sensation rather than an emotion, but it belongs there because of how it is used — “a cold mud floor” is meant to make you feel Gopi's misery, not to give you the temperature.
Say which sense you are sorting by, and your answer is right.