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NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 3 The Magic Brush of Dreams — Let us think and reflect

Book page 128 to 130 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Read the given extract and answer the questions that follow. “But on a stone there sits a man, / A brush is in his hand. / He looks around. He calls to Gopi. / ‘Come here!’ he whispers. ‘Hush! / We mustn’t let the village know / About this magic brush.’ / He slips the brush into her hand / And tells her to be sure, / ‘Paint not for the wealthy ones, / But only for the poor.’” (i) Fill in the blank by selecting the correct option from those given in the brackets. The man is whispering and telling Gopi to keep the brush a secret reflects his _______________________ (careful and secretive/magical and delightful) nature.
Answer
The man is whispering and telling Gopi to keep the brush a secret reflects his careful and secretive nature.

Three details in four lines all point the same way: he “looks around” before he speaks, he “whispers” instead of calling out, and he says “Hush!” — a word whose only job is to stop someone from speaking.

Why he is careful rather than merely mysterious: he is guarding against a real danger, and the rest of the poem proves he was right to. The moment the news does spread “far and wide, / Through forests, fields, and plains”, the Zamindar hears of it and Gopi is in a cell. His caution was not superstition; it was foresight.
Q2.
(ii) What is the significance of the man slipping the brush into Gopi’s hand?
Answer

The word slips is doing a great deal of work. It signifies three things at once.

  • Secrecy. You slip something into a hand so that no one else sees the exchange. There is no ceremony, no crowd, no announcement — power changes hands quietly, on a stone by the road.
  • Trust freely given. He does not test her, bargain with her or ask who she is. He has watched a hungry child sit under a banyan “drawing pictures, / Pictures in the sand” with nothing but a twig — and he judges her by what she does when she has nothing. Notice the echo in the lines: “A brush is in his hand” becomes, a stanza later, the brush placed in hers.
  • A transfer of responsibility. The brush arrives with a condition attached — “Paint not for the wealthy ones, / But only for the poor.” He gives away the power and keeps the rule. From that moment the promise, not the man, is what governs Gopi.
Try This: replace slips with hands, gives or presents and read the stanza again. Every one of them loses the secrecy, and presents even makes it a ceremony. One verb decides the whole mood of the scene.
Q3.
(iii) Complete the following sentence with a suitable reason. The most likely reason the man instructs Gopi to ‘Paint not for wealthy ones but only for the poor’ is because he _______________________.
Answer
…because he knows that the wealthy already have everything they need, while the poor have no other way of getting it — and because a power like this, once it starts serving the rich, will simply make the strong stronger.

The rest of the poem is really an argument for that instruction:

  • What the villagers receive are necessities — a muffler against cold, a plough to work with, a shawl for an old woman, a bowl of khichdi for a hungry house. Every one of them changes a life.
  • What the Zamindar asks for is “treasures, jewels, and riches rare, / Enough to rule this land” — things he does not need, wanted only for the power they buy over the very villagers the brush was meant to help.
The rule also protects Gopi. Because the condition is absolute, she never has to weigh up an offer or be tempted by a reward. When the order comes, her answer is already decided: “I swore to use this magic brush / To help the needy by.” A clear promise made in advance is easier to keep than a decision made under pressure.
Q4.
(iv) Select the most appropriate title for the extract from the two given below. A. The Magic Brush’s Secret B. Gopi’s Special Gift
Answer

A. The Magic Brush's Secret is the more appropriate title for this extract.

TitleDoes it cover the extract?
A. The Magic Brush's SecretYes. Secrecy is the whole atmosphere of the passage — looks around, whispers, Hush!, We mustn't let the village know, slips. And it also covers the second secret: the condition attached to the brush.
B. Gopi's Special GiftTrue but incomplete. It names the object and leaves out everything the extract actually emphasises — the hiding, the hushing and the rule.
How to choose a title: ask which one the reader could not have guessed without reading the passage. ‘A special gift' could head almost any story; ‘The Magic Brush's Secret' could head only this one.
Q5.
Read the given extract and answer the questions that follow. “And soon the news spreads far and wide, / Through forests, fields, and plains, / Until the Zamindar himself / Hears of these magic gains. / ‘I order you to paint for me, / A fortress tall and grand. / Paint treasures, jewels, and riches rare, / Enough to rule this land.’” (i) Complete the following sentence with the correct reason. The news of Gopi’s magic brush spreads ‘through forests, fields, and plains’ because of its _______________________.
Answer
The news spreads ‘through forests, fields, and plains' because of its extraordinary and unbelievable nature — a brush whose paintings turn real is something nobody has seen before, and everybody has a reason to repeat it, since what it produces is being given away free to the poor.

The poem has already shown the news beginning: “Into the house the villagers streamed / The young and old all wish to see / The magic brush of dreams.”

Look at the three nouns — forests, fields, plains. They are not places where people live; they are the distances between villages. By listing them the poet makes us feel the news travelling, not arriving — and the word “Until” at the start of the next line turns the whole journey into a countdown. The reader knows trouble is coming several lines before the Zamindar opens his mouth. That is how the poem builds suspense.
Q6.
(ii) Why does the poet refer to things painted by Gopi’s paintbrush as ‘magic gains’?
Answer

Because the things she paints are real gains — property people actually own and use — that arrive by magic instead of by work, money or trade.

  • ‘Gains' is a hard, practical word. A muffler, a plough, a shawl, a fan and a bowl of khichdi are not pictures; they are possessions. For people who had none, each is a real addition to what they own.
  • ‘Magic' marks how they came — out of paint, in a moment, from nothing.
There is an irony in the phrase too. The line is placed in the stanza where the Zamindar hears the news, and ‘gains' is exactly the word a greedy landlord would use: he does not hear about a child helping her village, he hears about profits that somebody else is collecting. The poet lets one word carry two points of view — the village's wonder and the Zamindar's greed — and the very next stanza confirms it: “I order you to paint for me…”
Q7.
(iii) Which of the following statements given below is false? Rectify the false statement. A. Gopi’s magic brush draws the attention of the powerful Zamindar. B. The Zamindar requests Gopi to paint a grand fortress and jewels.
Answer

The false statement is B.

False: The Zamindar requests Gopi to paint a grand fortress and jewels.
Rectified: The Zamindar orders (commands) Gopi to paint a grand fortress and jewels.

The poem is explicit: “I order you to paint for me, / A fortress tall and grand.” And when she refuses, he does not withdraw politely — “The Zamindar roars and stamps his foot… ‘Seize this brush and seize the girl. / Throw her in the pen!'”

Why the single word matters: a request can be refused without consequence; an order cannot. If he had requested, Gopi's “I can't comply” would have ended the matter and there would be no poem. The whole conflict — prison, escape, chase, river — grows out of the difference between those two verbs.

Statement A is true: “And soon the news spreads far and wide… Until the Zamindar himself / Hears of these magic gains.”

Q8.
(iv) What does the Zamindar’s demand for a grand fortress and jewels reveal about his character?
Answer

It reveals a man driven by greed, arrogance and a hunger for power — and, in what he does not say, by complete indifference to the people he rules.

What he demandsWhat it reveals
“A fortress tall and grand”He wants walls and height — display and defence. A fortress announces power and keeps people out.
“Treasures, jewels, and riches rare”Greed without limit. He is already a Zamindar, a landowner; he is not asking out of need.
“Enough to rule this land”The real motive. Wealth is only a means; control is the end.
“I order you to paint for me”Arrogance. He assumes the brush is his to command simply because he is powerful.
Read what is missing. He asks for nothing that any villager could use — no grain, no well, no roof, not one thing for the “forests, fields, and plains” he rules. Set his four lines beside Gopi's four gifts (a muffler, a plough, a shawl, a fan) and the poet's judgement of him needs no stating.
Q9.
Answer the following questions. 1. Explain why Gopi made the right decision by refusing to paint for the Zamindar.
Answer

Gopi was right to refuse, for three reasons that build on one another.

  1. She had given her word. The brush came with one condition — “Paint not for the wealthy ones, / But only for the poor” — and she treats it as an oath: “I swore to use this magic brush / To help the needy by.” A promise that is kept only when it is convenient is not a promise.
  2. He did not need anything. A Zamindar with land and armed men asking for jewels “enough to rule this land” is not asking to be relieved of hardship. Every stroke spent on him would have been a stroke not spent on the people the brush was meant for.
  3. Painting for him would have armed him against the village. This is the deepest reason. A fortress and a treasury do not sit idle; they buy men and enforce obedience. Gopi would have used a gift meant to relieve the poor to build the power that keeps them poor.
The cost proves the choice was a real one. She is thrown into a cell “upon a cold mud floor” and the brush is taken from her. She could have painted the fortress, walked out free and kept the brush for later — and no villager would ever have known. She refuses anyway. That is what makes it a decision and not merely a preference.
Notice how she refuses: “Gopi bows and shakes her head. / ‘My lord, I can't comply.'” She is respectful and immovable at the same time — she does not insult him, argue with him or run. Courage in this poem is quiet.
Q10.
2. Gopi threatens to draw a beast to scare away the Zamindar. Justify her action. How would you have dealt with the situation differently?
Answer

The threat is justified, and the poem is careful to show why. Gopi tries every gentler means first, and each fails:

What she triesWhat happens
A polite refusal — “My lord, I can't comply”She is imprisoned
Escape — a winding road and a horseHis men follow her: “With the Zamindar's men following behind”
A barrier that harms no one — a wide riverThey “stop short and cannot leap”, but they do not turn back
A threat — “Now should I paint a beast…?”“The Zamindar cries, ‘No, no, no more! / I'll leave, I'll go away!'”

Two further points defend her. First, it is a question, not an act — “Should I paint a beast / To leap and chase you through?” — and she never paints it. Second, she offers him a way out in the same breath: “Stop this chase or it will feast…” The threat ends the moment he stops. That is defence, not revenge.

Sample answer — how I would have done it differently: I would not have used fear at all, because fear only lasts as long as the frightened man believes you. Instead I would have painted a wide, deep river between us — as she did — and then, on his side of it, a well, a granary and a school for the villages he rules. Then I would have said: the brush is not for you, but nothing I paint will ever be against you. A man who has just been given something in front of his own men cannot go on chasing a girl. It is slower than a beast, but he would have stayed frightened only until he found more soldiers.
Either answer can score full marks, provided you (a) justify Gopi's action from the poem and (b) give a different method with a reason. What will not do is “I would have done the same thing” — the question asks for a difference.
Q11.
3. What is the significance of Gopi celebrating with the villagers at the end of the poem?
Answer

The closing stanza is short, but it settles the meaning of everything before it.

  • It shows the promise kept. The brush is back in her hand and the very first thing she paints is for other people: “Now Gopi paints for the village folk, / A feast of sweets and tea. / A courtyard bright, a band to play, / And songs of victory.” Power returned to her changes nothing about how she uses it.
  • It defines what she was fighting for. She does not paint a palace for herself, and she does not paint a punishment for the Zamindar. She paints a shared meal and shared music — the ordinary good life the poem has valued from the start.
  • It completes a circle. The poem opened with a hungry household and “No beans, no rice, no mangoes!”; it closes with a feast. The scarcity at the beginning is answered by the abundance at the end.
  • The victory belongs to everyone. She was not saved alone — the villagers had called out “It's Gopi! It's Gopi! She's back again!” — so it is right that the “songs of victory” are sung by all of them together.
The tonal work of the ending: the poem has just come through its most frightening stanzas — a cell, a chase, a threatened beast. Ending on a courtyard and a band lets the tension release into triumph, which is exactly the shift the ‘Let us discuss' exercise asks you to name. A folk ballad almost always ends this way: not with the villain punished, but with the community whole again.
Q12.
4. Compare Gopi’s use of the magic brush to how the Zamindar would have used it.
Answer
GopiThe Zamindar
Whom she/he paints forOthers — a farmer, a grandmother, a girl, the whole villageHimself alone — “paint for me”
What is paintedA muffler, a plough, a shawl, a fan, khichdi, a feastA fortress, treasures, jewels, gold, rubies, emeralds
WhyTo meet need — “To help the needy by”To gain power — “Enough to rule this land”
Under what authorityA promise she chose to makeAn order he expects to be obeyed
For herself/himselfOnly a road and a horse, and only to escapeEverything
Effect on the villageWarmth, food, tools, a celebrationA stronger master behind higher walls
The same object, two completely different tools. The poem's argument is that a magic brush has no morality of its own — it will paint a plough or a fortress with equal willingness. What decides is the hand that holds it. That is why the old man's gift comes with a condition attached rather than with instructions for use: the danger was never in the brush.
Look at scale as well as purpose. Gopi's gifts are small enough to carry — a fan, a shawl. The Zamindar's are things you cannot lift. Smallness in this poem is a sign of usefulness; grandeur is a sign of greed.
Q13.
5. What can be inferred about Gopi’s character based on her refusal to follow the Zamindar’s orders?
Answer

Her refusal, and the manner of it, reveal four things.

  • Integrity. She keeps a promise made privately to a stranger who has vanished and will never check on her. Nobody would have known if she had broken it. She measures herself by the promise, not by who is watching.
  • Courage. A landless girl says no to the most powerful man in the district, standing in front of his men, knowing what he can do. And she does not run first — she answers to his face.
  • Calm self-possession. “Gopi bows and shakes her head.” The bow is real respect and the shake is a complete refusal, both in one line. She neither insults him nor pleads with him; there is no anger in her answer at all.
  • Clear priorities. Freedom, comfort and even the brush itself matter less to her than what the brush is for. She loses all three and does not change her mind in the cell.
The proof comes afterwards, not before. Anyone can refuse once. What settles Gopi's character is that when she has the brush back and is safe, she paints “for the village folk” again — the same choice, made freely, with nobody threatening her. Character is what survives both the punishment and the reward.
Q14.
6. Justify the appropriateness of the title of the poem.
Answer

‘The Magic Brush of Dreams' is exactly right, because each of its three key words earns its place.

WordWhy it belongs in the title
BrushThe object round which every event turns. It is given, used, envied, seized, returned and used again — the plot is simply the history of a brush.
MagicWhat is painted becomes real. Without that one rule there is no story: a hungry girl drawing “pictures in the sand” that “the winds blow by and sweep away”.
DreamsThe deepest word of the three. The brush does not make wealth — it makes people's ordinary hopes come true: warm clothes, a plough that works, a full bowl, a night of music. And the poem sets those dreams against the Zamindar's, who “lies in bed, / Dreaming of his gold” and loses everything.

The phrase is also the poem's own. The villagers stream into the house wishing to see “The magic brush of dreams” — so the title is the name the ordinary people give it, not the poet's label from outside.

Test it against alternatives. ‘Gopi and the Zamindar' would make it a quarrel between two people. ‘The Magic Brush' would leave out the whole point of what it is used for. The word dreams is what tells you, before you begin, that this is a poem about wishes and who is entitled to have them.
Q15.
7. If you had the magic brush, how would you use it in today’s world?
Answer

Answer this in three parts: the rule you would set yourself (Gopi had one), two or three things you would paint and why, and one thing you would refuse to paint. The refusal is what shows you have understood the poem.

What today's world lacksWhat the brush could paint
Clean water and airFilters at every drain that feeds a river; forests on bare hillsides
Health care that is far awayA small hospital with a doctor in every block, and medicines that do not run out
Schooling interrupted by povertyBooks, a bag and a bicycle for every child who has to walk
DisasterShelters and boats before the flood, not after
Sample answer: I would keep Gopi's rule and add one of my own: paint only what people cannot get by their own effort. I would begin with water. Our town's river is a drain for eight months of the year, so I would paint filters at every outlet and a row of trees along both banks — nobody can build that alone, and everyone needs it. Next I would paint a small clinic in every village that is more than ten kilometres from a hospital, with medicines that refill themselves, because distance is the reason many illnesses become deaths.

What I would refuse to paint is money. Money does not feed anybody by itself; it only decides who gets fed first, and a brush that printed it would simply make prices rise and leave the poor exactly where they were. I would also refuse to paint weapons for any side, however good the cause looked — that is the modern shape of the Zamindar's fortress.
Why the refusal matters: the poem's test is not what you would create but what you would decline to create under pressure. Gopi's answer to power is one line long — “My lord, I can't comply.” A good answer to this question has a line like that in it.
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