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NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 The Cherry Tree (Ruskin Bond) — Let us think and reflect

Book page 166 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Why did Rakesh's parents send him to Mussoorie?
Answer

They sent him so that he could go to school. Rakesh's parents lived in a small village fifty miles away, where they grew maize, rice and barley on narrow terraced fields — 'but there were no schools in the village, and Rakesh's parents were keen that he should go to school'. Grandfather had a cottage on the outskirts of Mussoorie, so 'as soon as he was of school-going age, they sent him to stay with his grandfather'.

Why it is worth noticing: This is not a story about a child being sent away. It is about parents who farm terraced hillsides giving up their son's daily company so that he can be educated — a real and common choice in hill villages. Bond states it in two flat sentences and moves on, which makes it feel ordinary rather than tragic.
Q2.
Why did Rakesh let the praying-mantis remain on the branch of the cherry tree?
Answer

Because it did the tree no harm — and because Rakesh was pleased that his tree had at last become worth visiting. Bond writes that Rakesh 'let it remain there; it was the cherry tree's first visitor.'

Why the distinction matters: Compare what he does next. When 'a hairy caterpillar, who started making a meal of the leaves' arrives, Rakesh 'removed it quickly'. The mantis was only perching; the caterpillar was eating. Rakesh is not sentimental about every insect — he protects his tree, but he takes no more action than the situation needs, and even the caterpillar is set down gently on a heap of dry leaves with 'Come back when you're a butterfly.'
Did you know? A praying-mantis is a predator. Leaving it on the branch was, in fact, good for the tree — it eats exactly the sort of insects that eat leaves.
Q3.
How is life in the Himalayan foothills described in the story?
Answer

Bond describes it as beautiful but hard, and completely ruled by the seasons.

  • The land is difficult. 'The soil was stony, and the dry cold winds stunted the growth of most plants' — there were 'not many fruit trees', only forests of oak and deodar on the sheltered slopes.
  • Farming is small-scale and laborious. Rakesh's parents grow maize, rice and barley 'in narrow terraced fields on the lower slopes of the mountain'.
  • Winter shuts everything down. A cold wind goes 'whoo-whoo-whoo in the deodar trees', the garden is 'dry and bare', the road from the valley is blocked, and the newspaper stops coming.
  • The monsoon transforms it. 'Ferns sprang from the trunks of trees, strange-looking lilies came up in the long grass… the trees dripped and mist came curling up the valley.'
  • Life is close to wild things. Wild duck fly north to Siberia in a V-formation to announce spring; field-mice come into the roof in winter; bulbuls and scarlet minivets feast on the cherries; nightjars, crickets and cicadas fill the evenings.
  • Facilities are few. No school in the village, no newspaper when the road closes — which is precisely why Rakesh lives with his grandfather at all.
How Bond achieves it: He never sums the place up. He builds it out of sounds ('whoo-whoo-whoo'), smells, birds and jobs, so that the reader assembles the hillside piece by piece, the way a person actually comes to know a place they live in.
Q4.
What might Rakesh mean when he says, 'Is this what it feels to be God?' at the end of the story?
Answer

He means the astonishment of realising that a living thing exists because of him. He is running his hand along the trunk of a tree that is now taller than his grandfather, and remembering that all of it came from 'just one small seed' he pressed into the soil with his thumb.

  • It is a moment of wonder, not of pride. He whispers it; he does not announce it.
  • He has just been told why the tree is special: 'We planted it ourselves. That's why it's special.' The thought grows straight out of Grandfather's answer.
  • To have taken part in creating life — and then to have watched it survive a goat, a scythe and a winter of snow — feels to a nine-year-old like touching something far larger than himself.
Why Bond ends here: The story could have ended with the first blossom, or the first cherry. Instead it ends with a boy's hand on bark and an unanswered question. Ending on a question leaves the reader with Rakesh's feeling rather than with a moral — and it quietly makes the point that creating is not power over nature but partnership with it. Rakesh planted; the rain, the sun and the tree's own toughness did the rest.
Q5.
How does the writer describe the relationship between Rakesh and his grandfather?
Answer

Bond shows it as an easy, affectionate companionship between equals — and he shows it almost entirely through small actions rather than through statements.

  • They share. The very first thing Rakesh does on reaching home is offer a cherry: 'Have a cherry, Grandfather.'
  • They trade skills. Grandfather tells stories of ghosts and jumping beans; Rakesh reads him the newspaper, 'Grandfather's eyesight being rather weak'. Each supplies what the other lacks.
  • Grandfather teaches without lecturing. 'Nothing is lucky if you put it away.' 'Don't drown it!' 'Never mind… cherry trees are tough.' Short, practical, never preachy.
  • He is affectionate in his own dry way. He calls Rakesh's eyes 'blackberry eyes'; he goes after the grass-cutter and scolds her; he calls out, 'Come quickly before it falls!' when he sees the first blossom.
  • They are comfortable in silence. At the end, 'Grandfather came back and sat down beside Rakesh, and they waited in silence until the stars came out'. Sitting together saying nothing is the story's final picture of them.
Why it is written this way: Bond never once tells us that Rakesh loves his grandfather. He gives us a shared cherry, a shared fire, a shared tree and a shared silence — and lets the reader do the arithmetic. That restraint is why the ending lands as it does.
Q6.
What can you infer about the connection between humans and nature based on the story?
Answer

The story suggests that humans and nature are partners, and that the partnership is unequal in nature's favour — we can begin something, but we cannot make it grow.

  • Small human acts have large natural consequences. One thumb-press produced a tree that fed bees, bulbuls, minivets and two people's afternoons.
  • But nature does the real work. Rakesh watered it 'now and then' and put pebbles round it. The monsoon, the mountain soil and the tree's own toughness did everything else — 'the cherry tree had no intention of dying.'
  • Watching does not hurry anything. Rakesh learns to stop staring at the sapling. Growth happens on nature's clock, not on ours.
  • Caring changes the carer. The boy who grows up beside the tree becomes someone who moves a caterpillar instead of crushing it, and who lies in the grass looking at the sky through leaves.
  • What we make ourselves, we value. 'There are so many trees in the forest. What's so special about this tree?' — 'We planted it ourselves.'
Link across the unit: This is the same idea the old woman gives Velu in Waiting for the Rain, from the other direction. Rakesh learns that nature will grow if you let it; Velu learns that nature must rest if you let it. Both lessons are about human patience.
Q7.
Imagine Rakesh reflects on his wonderful experience of watching a seed being transformed into a full-grown cherry tree. Write how he must have felt.
Answer

Write this in the first person, as Rakesh, and take it through the same stages the story does: forgetting, discovering, fearing, and finally wondering. A good answer names at least three particular moments from the text rather than talking about 'the tree' in general.

Sample answer:
I had forgotten the seed completely. I pushed it into the soft earth that afternoon, ate my lunch, and ran off to play cricket, and the whole winter went by with Grandfather's stories and the wind in the deodars, and I never once thought of it.

Then one morning in spring I bent to pick up a twig, and it would not come. It was rooted. I remember shouting for Grandfather — 'Dada, come and look, the cherry tree has come up!' — and how he had to bend almost double to see it. Four inches. That was all it was.

After that I was afraid for it constantly. I watered it too much and Grandfather told me not to drown it. I put pebbles round it for privacy. Then the goat came and stripped every leaf, and then a woman's scythe cut it clean in two, and I was sure it was finished. Grandfather only said, 'Maybe.' But it wasn't finished. It sent out new shoots as though nothing had happened, and I began to understand that the tree was tougher than my worrying.

Now I lie under it and look up through the leaves at the sky, and I can put my hand flat on bark that is taller than Grandfather. Six years ago it was a seed I rolled on my tongue. I did almost nothing — I pressed it in with my thumb and I remembered to water it. And still, all of this is here because of that. I do not know what to call the feeling. It is bigger than being proud.
What a good answer needs: a clear sequence of feelings (indifference → surprise → anxiety → awe); real details from the story, not invented ones; and Rakesh's own plain, boyish voice — Bond's Rakesh does not use grand words, and neither should you.
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