NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 Waiting for the Rain (Kamakshi Balasubramanian) — Let us think and reflect
Book page 193 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
How does the old woman convey Nature's wisdom to Velu?
Answer
She conveys it by changing the picture in his head rather than by arguing with him — and she does it in four moves.
She starts from his own words. Velu says he has worked too hard to deserve this. She replies, 'Perhaps you have worked too hard' — using his sentence, but turning it round to point at the land.
She widens the scale of time. He is counting six seasons. She answers, 'The earth has worked for years, centuries, in fact, thousands of years.' Beside that, his six years look small — and the land's tiredness suddenly looks reasonable.
She personifies the earth. The earth 'works' when you plough and sow; it lies 'undisturbed, staring at the sky, resting'; and 'Nature is a mother to all of us… She takes care to give her children the rest they need.' By giving the land a body and a mother's role, she makes a scientific idea — fallowing — something Velu can feel.
She reframes the loss as a gift. 'When the rains don't come, you are dejected. But in that way the land is left alone… And when the rains come, it will spring back into activity, fresh and ready for your crop.' The drought stops being a punishment and becomes a pause.
And notice her manner: she speaks 'softly, smiling', calls him 'my son', asks rather than instructs, and then simply gets up and walks away — 'Go home, my son, Nature knows a thing or two… go home.' She leaves the idea with him instead of pressing for agreement. That is why it takes hold on the walk back rather than under the tree.
Q2.
The writer says, 'The fields lay untended…' Why couldn't the farmers tend to their fields in the absence of rain?
Answer
Because without rain there is simply nothing a farmer can do to a field. The sentence continues and explains itself: 'the earth hardened, crusted and cracked.'
Baked earth cannot be ploughed. A plough needs soil that will break. Crusted, cracked ground resists the share — as Velu puts it, 'Without the rains I can't till the land.'
Sowing into dry soil would waste the seed. A seed needs moisture to germinate; sown into dust it simply dies, and seed costs money the farmer does not have.
There is no crop to tend. Weeding, watering and guarding are all work done around a growing plant. With nothing sown, those jobs do not exist.
They had no other water. These are rain-fed fields; the only source is the monsoon, and 'Days, weeks and months passed, and still there was no rain.'
What the phrase does in the story: 'Untended' is the sad half of an idea the old woman will later turn over. To Velu the fields are neglected and reproachful; to her the same fields are 'left alone… resting'. One landscape, two readings — and the whole story turns on which of the two Velu chooses.
Q3.
Support the old woman's perspective that the land needs rest just like people do.
Answer
Her perspective is not merely comforting — it is correct, and it can be supported both from the story and from what farmers actually know.
From the story:
She points out that the land is a worker too: 'The earth works, too, when you plough, and sow, and plant.' Anything that works can be worn out.
She points out how long it has been working — 'years, centuries, in fact, thousands of years' — while Velu has managed only six seasons without a holiday and is already exhausted.
She predicts a specific result: rested land 'will spring back into activity, fresh and ready for your crop'. Rest is not idleness; it is recovery.
From farming practice — the book's own Let us explore page:
Leaving land unsown for one or more cycles is called fallowing, and it lets the land 'recover its nutrients and retain moisture'.
It also 'helps to avoid spreading of diseases and controlling pests', because pests and crop diseases starve when there is no host crop.
It is not new. The method 'has been applied for centuries' — a field is halved, one half cropped and one half rested, and the halves swapped the next year.
The comparison holds because the mechanism is the same. A person who works without rest depletes something that must be rebuilt — sleep restores the body. Soil that crops without a break loses nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter faster than they are replaced, and the yield falls year on year no matter how hard the farmer works. In both cases, resting is not the opposite of working. It is part of how the work gets done.
Did you know? Modern farmers achieve the same result by crop rotation — the practice Ravi follows in the grammar exercise later in this chapter, where legumes are planted to 'help restore the nutrients in the soil'. Rest and rotation are two ways of solving one problem.
Q4.
What can be inferred about Velu's character based on his reaction to the drought?
Answer
Velu is a hard-working, rational and honest man — proud of his labour, easily hurt by the sense that it has been wasted, but open enough to change his mind when he is given a better idea.
Trait
How the drought reveals it
Hard-working
'Rain or no rain, a farmer wakes up early.' Six years 'never thinking of rest or taking a holiday'.
Rational, not superstitious
He refuses the astrologers with a reason: 'The rains came all these years without any such consultations.'
Resourceful
He travels to the city weather office rather than sitting at home and hoping.
Responsible
His fear is not for himself: 'How shall I feed my family?'
Proud, and therefore vulnerable
'I have worked hard and honestly. Yet I am being punished' — he speaks 'somewhat bitterly'. He believes effort ought to be rewarded, so failure feels unjust.
Restless without work
'Oh, it is hard not to be able to work…' Idleness distresses him almost as much as the loss.
Open-minded
He listens to a stranger with no authority, admits 'I don't understand', and then walks home thinking 'Perhaps she is right.'
Why the last trait is the important one: A man who rejects astrologers and cross-examines the weather office could easily have dismissed an old woman under a tree as well. That he does not is what makes him the right person for this story — his openness is not softness, it is the same practical mind that took him to the city, now applied to an idea instead of a forecast.
Q5.
What does the story suggest about the life of farmers and their relationship with nature?
Answer
It suggests that a farmer's life is one of relentless work and complete dependence — and that the relationship with nature works best when it is treated as a partnership rather than as ownership.
The work never stops. 'Season after season he cultivated it, harvesting jowar one season and dhal the next. Throughout the year he worked, never thinking of rest or taking a holiday.'
Everything depends on one thing they cannot control. Rain decides whether there is a crop, an income or a meal. Neither astrologers nor a government weather office can supply it.
Hope is the farmer's main resource. 'The farmers lived entirely on hope. Every day they hoped that the rains would come.'
Nature is not a machine and does not answer to effort. 'So many favourable conditions but still no rain.' Working harder cannot force a result.
The land is a partner, not a possession. This is the old woman's central point — the earth works alongside the farmer and, like him, must be allowed to recover. Velu's mistake was to think of his land as something that owed him a yield.
And there is deep attachment in it. The story calls it 'his beloved piece of land', and Velu imagines it 'breathing peacefully'. This is not a job he does; it is a relationship he is in.
Where the story places the fault: Not with Velu's effort — his land 'never failed him' — but with his assumption that effort alone is the whole of farming. The correction comes from an old woman with no expertise at all, which is the writer's way of saying that this knowledge is old, ordinary and available to anyone willing to sit down and listen.
Q6.
How might the rest and care of land contribute to a balanced and sustainable ecosystem?
Answer
Resting and caring for land keeps the soil alive, and living soil is what holds an ecosystem together.
What rest and care do
Why it matters to the whole system
Nutrients are restored
Continuous cropping strips nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter faster than they are replaced. A fallow season lets them build up again, so yields hold instead of falling year after year.
Moisture is retained
Undisturbed soil holds water better and cracks less. It also lets rain soak in and recharge groundwater instead of running off.
Pests and diseases are broken
Pests and crop diseases die out when their host crop is absent for a season — so far less pesticide is needed.
Soil life recovers
Earthworms, fungi and bacteria rebuild the soil's structure. They are the reason soil behaves like a living thing rather than dust.
Erosion is reduced
Roots and ground cover hold the topsoil in place; bare, over-worked land blows and washes away.
Other species return
Uncultivated ground supports insects, birds and small animals, and that variety keeps crop pests in check naturally.
The practical methods farmers use:fallowing (leaving land unsown for one or more cycles, as the book explains); crop rotation (following a grain with a legume, which returns nitrogen to the soil); returning crop residue and compost to the field; and mixed cropping instead of the same crop endlessly.
Why this is what 'sustainable' means: A field farmed without rest may give good harvests for a decade and then very poor ones for a generation. A field that is rested gives slightly less in any one year and keeps giving indefinitely. Sustainability is not about producing less — it is about not spending the soil faster than it can be rebuilt. That, in one sentence, is what the old woman tells Velu under the tree.