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

Book page 188 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

I. Complete the table given below. One example has been done for you. — Row 1: What was Said: 'It doesn't look encouraging.' / Who Said: Velu / to himself / He looked up at the sky. — Row 2: What was Said: 'The rains came all these years without any such consultations…' / Who Said: Velu / ______ / ______ — Row 3: What was Said: 'So many favourable conditions but still no rain.' / Who Said: ______ / ______ / ______

Answer

Read the completed example first: it gives the quotation, the speaker, whom it was said to, and what the speaker was doing as he said it. Fill the other rows to the same pattern.

What was said	Who said it	To whom	What was happening
1. 'It doesn't look encouraging.'	Velu	to himself	He looked up at the sky. (given)
2. 'The rains came all these years without any such consultations…'	Velu	to his neighbours, who had suggested consulting astrologers	He was disagreeing with their suggestion — he could not see how talking to astrologers would bring rain, and he decided instead to go to the weather office in the city.
3. 'So many favourable conditions but still no rain.'	the people at the weather office in the city	to Velu	They exclaimed it after admitting 'We are at a loss ourselves!' — they could not explain the drought either, and called it 'Very odd!'

What the three rows show together: Notice who Velu talks to in each. First himself, then his neighbours, then experts in the city — and none of the three produces an answer. That is the shape of Part I: a practical man exhausting every source of explanation he knows. It is only after all three have failed that he sits down under a tree and meets someone who is not trying to explain the drought at all.

Tip: Row 3 has no dialogue tag naming Velu, which is your clue that the speaker has changed. Whenever a quotation in a story does not match the person speaking just before it, look for the plural — here, 'they exclaimed'.

Q2.

II. Do you think the old woman would help Velu? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Answer

Yes — but not in the way Velu expects, and that is the point. She cannot make it rain, and she never claims she can. What she can give him is a different way of seeing the drought.

The clues that she will help, all placed before she speaks:

She is old. 'Her skin was wrinkled' — in this story age carries knowledge, and she will shortly say 'you don't realise that the earth is old'.
She is calm and warm. 'Her eyes sparkled when she smiled… her smile grew wider, her wrinkles deeper.' She is the only cheerful person in a landscape of dejected ones.
She listens. Velu 'wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, but the old lady thought that he was opening his heart to her' — she chooses to take his complaint as a confidence.
She is sheltering under the same tree, in the same heat. She is not an outsider offering advice from comfort.

Why the writer gives him an old woman and not another expert: Velu has already tried the astrologers (rejected) and the weather office (baffled). A third expert would have been repetition. Instead he meets someone with no authority at all, who reframes his question — he asks 'why is nature punishing me?' and she answers 'nothing is being done to you; something is being done for the land.' That is help of a kind no forecast could have provided.

Q3.

III. Will Velu's wait continue or will it rain?

Answer

This is a prediction, so the answer is your reasoning, not the fact. Both cases can be argued — but the story's own signals point one way.

Reasons to predict that it will rain:

The weather office said 'so many favourable conditions but still no rain' — the conditions for rain already exist.
The old woman's smile and calm suggest she knows something Velu does not.
Stories built on a long wait usually end by rewarding the person who learns something during it — and Velu is about to learn something.

Reasons to predict that the wait will continue:

Months have already passed with no change: 'Days, weeks and months passed, and still there was no rain.'
Nothing in nature has shifted yet — 'Velu scanned the sky. There was not a cloud.'

What actually happens: It rains — but only after Velu has changed his mind. He walks home thinking 'Perhaps she is right', and it is then that he feels 'a cool breeze on his back', then a tiny drop on his shoulder, then sees the clouds gathering. The writer places the change of heart before the change of weather, which is her way of saying that understanding came first and the rain was not a reward but a coincidence — a very deliberate piece of storytelling.

Was this helpful? Report an error