Q1.
Can you name some towns and cities near you? Find out some interesting traditions, cuisines, and customs specific to those areas, and discuss them in class.
Answer
Answer this for your own district, but collect it properly — a list of names is not an answer; a list of names with a tradition attached to each is.
How to gather the material:
- List the towns and cities within about 100 km of you — your district headquarters, the nearest big city, and two or three smaller towns.
- For each, find one dish, one craft or trade, and one festival or custom. Ask grandparents, shopkeepers and the local library; a sweet shop owner usually knows more local food history than a website does.
- Ask the question this chapter would ask: why here? A craft usually exists because of a raw material, a ruler’s patronage, a pilgrimage or a trade route.
Use the chapter’s own examples as your model of how much detail is enough:
| Place | What it is known for | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Mumbai | Vaḍā pāv — a Maharashtrian-style potato dumpling inside a pāv | Pāo (bread) and potatoes both came through the Portuguese; the snack spread because it was easy to make, carry and eat, and became popular with workers in the textile mills |
| Kolkata | Durga Puja — a five-day autumn festival | Inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021; the city also keeps British-era institutions such as the Indian Museum and Victoria Memorial |
| Varanasi | Banarasi sarees, and bazaars where pilgrims buy souvenirs and items for pūja | A sacred city — pilgrims sustain transport, hospitality, food vending and handicrafts |
| Kanchipuram · Channapatna · Moradabad · Jaipur | Silk sarees · wooden toys · brass work · handicrafts and gem jewellery | Smaller urban centres that specialise in one craft rather than doing everything |
Sample answer: Three places near us. Bhadohi, 40 km away, is a carpet-weaving town; almost every second household has a loom, and the trade grew because weaver families settled along the old route and the finished carpets could be shipped out through Varanasi. Varanasi, 50 km away, is known for Banarasi sarees and for the evening Ganga āratī; the sarees are sold in the same bazaars where pilgrims buy their pūja items, so the craft and the pilgrimage support each other. Mirzapur, our district town, is known for its brassware and for the Kajali songs sung in the monsoon month of Sāwan, when women return to their parents’ homes. What all three share is what the chapter says about cities as cultural hubs: the tradition survives because enough people are gathered in one place to keep buying it.