NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 Waiting for the Rain (Kamakshi Balasubramanian) — Let us discuss

Book page 191 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

I. 1. Velu asked the old woman to stop smiling because _________________.

Answer

Velu asked the old woman to stop smiling because he could see nothing at all to smile about — the rains had failed, his fields lay cracked and untended, and he had just come back from the city with no answer. His words are: 'What are you smiling at, Amma? Without the rains, there's nothing to smile about.'

Why her smile irritates him: He has spent the whole day being told that nobody knows anything, and he is 'tired, and dejected', thirsty and coughing with dust. A cheerful face in that moment looks to him like someone who has not understood how serious things are. Notice that she does not argue: 'Yes, yes, you're right,' she says, 'the smile leaving her lips.' She puts her smile away rather than defend it — which is the first sign of how she will deal with him throughout.

Q2.

I. 2. Velu said that it was hard not being able to work since _________________.

Answer

Velu said that it was hard not being able to work since work was the whole shape of his life — for nearly six years he had cultivated his land season after season 'never thinking of rest or taking a holiday', and this was the first season in six that he had neither sown nor ploughed. His own words: 'I shall work and never rest until I am too old. This is the first season in five, no, six years that I have not sown, nor ploughed. Oh, it is hard not to be able to work…'

What is really being said here: Velu is not complaining about lost income in this line — he complains about that separately, when he asks how he will feed his family. This is something else: idleness itself distresses him. His land 'never failed him' and he never failed it, and now, for the first time, he has nothing to do with his hands. Notice the small correction in the middle of his sentence — 'in five, no, six years' — a man counting up his own record, and startled by how long it is.

Q3.

I. 3. Velu was confused when the old lady said that the land needed rest because _________________.

Answer

Velu was confused when the old lady said that the land needed rest because he had always thought of the land as the thing he worked on, never as something that works and therefore gets tired. 'Rest? Let the land rest? I don't understand,' he says, looking at her 'a little puzzled'.

Why the idea is genuinely hard for him: A moment earlier he had said, 'Can anyone work too hard?' — for Velu, working hard is a virtue with no upper limit. The old woman then applies his own standard to the soil: 'The earth works, too, when you plough, and sow, and plant. The earth has worked for years, centuries, in fact, thousands of years.' She has not contradicted him; she has extended his own idea to include something he never counted as a worker. That is why he is puzzled rather than annoyed — and it is why he ends up persuaded.

Q4.

I. 4. The old lady said that it was good for the land when it didn't rain as _________________.

Answer

The old lady said that it was good for the land when it didn't rain as the land is then left alone and undisturbed, and can recover its strength — so that when the rains do return it 'will spring back into activity, fresh and ready for your crop'. Her words: 'When the rains don't come, you are dejected. But in that way the land is left alone. The land lies undisturbed, staring at the sky, resting…'

The idea behind it — and it is good science, not only comfort: Leaving land unsown for a season is called fallowing, and the book's own Let us explore page explains why it works: the soil recovers its nutrients, retains moisture, and pests and diseases are broken up because there is no crop for them to live on. Farmers have used the method for centuries, planting one half of a field and resting the other, then reversing it the next year. So the old woman is not offering a consolation; she is naming a practice.

Notice how she says it: 'staring at the sky, resting' gives the land a face and a posture. Throughout her speech she treats the earth as a living, ageing person — 'Nature is a mother to all of us… She takes care to give her children the rest they need.' That is personification, and it is how she gets an abstract idea into Velu's head.

Q5.

I. 5. Velu ran home laughing and happy because _________________.

Answer

Velu ran home laughing and happy because the rain had at last begun — he felt 'a cool breeze on his back', then 'a tiny drop on his shoulder', and looking up he saw the clouds gathering in the distance and the sky growing dark, with lightning, thunder and 'sweet, fragrant rain' on the way.

Why the joy is bigger than the rain alone: Two things arrive together in that last paragraph. He has just accepted the old woman's idea — 'Perhaps she is right,' he thinks as he approaches the village — so the drought has stopped feeling like a punishment aimed at him. And then the rain comes anyway. He is relieved as a farmer and released as a man. The writer keeps the ending to four short sentences and gives us no description of his feelings at all; she simply lets him run.

Notice the order of the senses: he feels the breeze, then feels the drop, and only then looks up and sees the clouds. The rain reaches his skin before it reaches his eyes — which is exactly how it happens, and far more convincing than 'suddenly it began to rain'.

Was this helpful? Report an error