Class 5 English Chapter 7: Gilli Danda

A clack behind the school

Devansh is walking home when he hears it. Clack. Then a shout, then laughter. Behind the school wall, eight children stand in a ring. One of them swings a long stick. A small wooden peg spins up into the evening light. Devansh forgets about home and runs over.

What the poem is about

The poem in this lesson is about that very game. It is called Gilli Danda. There is no ground fee and no uniform. There is no coach. There are only friends, two pieces of wood and an open space to play in.

The two pieces of wood

The long stick is the danda. The short peg is the gilli. The gilli is sharpened at both ends. Tap one end and the peg jumps up on its own. That is the moment the striker waits for.

One, two, three

The poem counts before the hit. One, two, three, and then the swing. The danda meets the gilli with a sharp clack. Up it goes, higher than the heads below. Everyone looks up. The fielders run backwards with their hands open.

The gilli in the sky

For a second the peg seems to hang there. The poem puts it under a bright blue sky and under the golden rays of the sun. That is a way of telling us where this game belongs. Not in a room. Out in the open.

How the players feel

Read the poem again and count the happy words. Joy. Fun. Laughing. Playing. Free. Nobody is keeping a careful score. Nobody wants to stop. The poem says that with friends the children never quit.

A line that puzzles many

One line calls the game "so sound" (Santoor, Gilli Danda). Sound here does not mean a noise. An old meaning of sound is strong, safe and good. So the line is praising the game, not describing a clack.

New words in the poem

Four words are worth keeping. Gather means to come together in one place. Quit means to give up or to stop. Underneath means below something. Gilli is the name of the small peg itself.

How the poem sounds

Look at the ends of the lines. Throw goes with go. Hit goes with quit. Free goes with see. Flies goes with skies. Words that end in the same sound like this are called rhymes. They give a poem its music.

Reading it aloud

Read the poem standing up. Clap once on each strong word: one, two, three, swing. Let your voice rise when the gilli flies and fall when it lands. A poem about running and hitting should never be read in a whisper.

Tip-cat, the English name

English has a name for this game too. It is called tip-cat. You tip the gilli and it jumps, like a cat. Many countries have a stick-and-peg game of their own, under many different names.

Why it matters

This poem is not really about who won. It is about friends, fresh air and a game that costs nothing. It reminds us that the best afternoons often need only an empty ground and two pieces of wood.

Scenario:

Aman says gilli danda needs no equipment, so it costs nothing. Priya says it needs something more valuable, which is space. Their teacher asks the class to measure. A good strike sends the small peg about twenty metres. The children pace that out and mark it with chalk. Then they measure the gap between the school building and the wall. It is only eight metres. Priya has proved her point. The game needs an open field and not a corridor. The class decides where in the school it could be played safely. They choose the far end of the ground, well away from the windows.

Analysis:

A game with no equipment still has a cost, and here the cost is measured in metres. Twenty will not fit inside eight.

Activity:

Pace out twenty metres in your school ground and mark it. Write two sentences about which games would fit in that space.

In English this game is usually called tip-cat.

Stick and peg games like this one are played in many countries under different names.

The order of play — Gather, Tip, Hit, Chase — The friends gather. Somebody tips the peg up. The stick hits it. Everyone chases it across the ground.

A boat that sank

Nikhil's paper boat sank in the drain on its very first trip. He shrugs and says he was unlucky, and that he will rebuild it after tea. His sister listens to the two words. Unlucky. Rebuild. She wants to know what those little beginnings are doing there.

A small piece in front

Un and re are prefixes. A prefix is a short piece that we fix to the front of a word. It never stands alone. Once it is joined on, the meaning of the whole word changes. The root word underneath stays the same.

un- means not

This prefix simply says no. Kind turns into unkind, which means not kind. Safe turns into unsafe. Tidy turns into untidy. Lucky turns into unlucky. Read each one as two pieces and the meaning appears at once.

re- means again

This prefix sends you back for a second try. Fill turns into refill, which means fill again. Build turns into rebuild. Paint turns into repaint. Use turns into reuse. Nikhil will rebuild his boat, which means he will build it once more.

Read it as two pieces

When a long word puzzles you, look for a prefix. Cover the first two letters with your finger. If a whole word is left underneath, you have found one. Unclear becomes un plus clear. Rejoin becomes re plus join.

Nouns you can touch

Nouns name things. A drum, a mango, a ladder, a whistle, a bucket. You can see them. You can touch them. Some of them you can smell or taste as well. Your five senses can reach every one of them.

Nouns you cannot touch

Now try courage. Try hunger, honesty, patience and pride. You cannot hold any of them in your hand. They are real, but they are feelings and ideas. Nouns like these are called abstract nouns.

The five senses test

Here is a quick test for any noun. Ask whether you can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it or hear it. If the answer is yes, it is an ordinary naming word. If every answer is no, the noun is abstract.

A warning about long words

Do not judge a noun by its length. Chessboard is long, but you can touch one. Fear is short, but you cannot. Length tells you nothing. Only the five senses test can sort a noun properly.

Whose is it?

A possessive pronoun answers one question: whose? Mine. Yours. His. Hers. Ours. Theirs. Each one stands on its own and carries the whole answer, so you do not have to name the owner twice.

One word does the work

Look how much shorter a sentence becomes. "The whistle belongs to me" turns into "The whistle is mine." "The bats belong to our team" turns into "The bats are ours." Remember that these words never take an apostrophe.

Why these three matter

Prefixes let you build new words instead of learning every one. Abstract nouns let you name what you feel. Possessive words settle arguments in the playground quickly. Together they make your English shorter, richer and clearer.

Scenario:

The class is writing rules for the games cupboard. Their first rule says: do not leave the bat out. Faiz suggests a shorter way. Return the bat and rewind the rope. He points out that re means doing a thing again. Then Nita adds a rule about care. Do not be unkind about a poor shot. The class notices that un turns a word into its opposite. Kindness and fairness go on the list next, and nobody can hold either of them. The class keeps a count for two months. Eleven things went missing in March. After the rules went up, only two went missing in April.

Analysis:

Re and un are small pieces that change a whole word. Kindness and fairness name things nobody can touch, and they still went on the cupboard door.

Activity:

Write six rules for a cupboard or shelf at home. Use one word beginning with re and one beginning with un.

Title:

Build a word in two pieces

What You Notice:

Some pairs make real words and some do not. Un joins far more roots than re does.

English has dozens of prefixes, but un is the one used most often of all.

The word abstract comes from a Latin word that means drawn away.

What un and re do — UN says no, RE says go again — Un turns a word into its opposite. Re sends the action back for a second try.

Nobody could explain it

Two new girls join Class 5 in June. At break they watch the others play. Then one of them asks a simple question. How do you play this? Six children begin at once, all talking over each other. After two minutes the new girls still have no idea what to do.

A game in five parts

Describing a game is easy if you keep to five parts. Its name. Whether it is played indoors or outdoors. How many players it needs. What you need to play it. Last, the rules, with one line about staying safe.

Begin with the aim

Before any rule, say what a player is trying to do. Send the peg as far as you can. Reach the last square without stepping on a line. Once your listener knows the aim, every rule after it makes sense.

Listening with your body

Sometimes the best answer is not a word. Your teacher says swing and hit, and you mime a swing. She says shade your eyes, and your hand goes to your forehead. Acting it out proves that you understood.

One step at a time

Instructions come in an order. First, mark the circle. Next, place the peg across it. Then, tap one end. Finally, swing. The little words first, next, then and finally hold the whole set together.

Meeting a new word

When a word stops you, open a dictionary. Words there sit in alphabetical order, so look at the second letter and the third. Read the meaning, then read your own sentence again. A word often has more than one meaning, so pick the one that fits.

From a jumble to a question

Word order matters. Take these words: land did where the gilli. Put the question word first, then the helper, then the doer, then the rest. You get: Where did the gilli land?

Three checks for a question

Check three things before you stop. A capital letter on the first word. The right order of words. A question mark at the end. Read it aloud too, because your voice naturally rises at the end of a question.

Twin letters

Look at the word gilli. Two letter l's sit side by side. English is full of such twins. Summer and hammer have twin m's. Kettle and bottle have twin t's. Grass and lesson have twin s's. Carrot and mirror have twin r's.

The odd one out

Some questions ask you to find the word that does not belong. Look at huge, enormous and tiny. The first two mean the same. Tiny means the opposite, so tiny is the odd one out. Read all three before you choose.

Writing the rules down

Write rules as short numbered lines, one action to each line. A player who is standing in the sun will not read a paragraph. Add a safety line at the end, such as: keep well behind the striker.

Speak, listen, write

These three skills let a game travel. You speak, and your friend learns it today. You listen, and you learn hers. You write, and a child you never meet can play it next year from your card.

Scenario:

The youngest children at a school in Bhubaneswar had nothing to do at break. Class 5 decided to help. Over one week they asked grandparents and neighbours about the games they had played as children, and wrote down six of them. For each game they made a card. The card gave the name, whether it was indoors or outdoors, the number of players, the things needed and four short rules. Each card ended with one safety line. They measured a corner of the field and marked two circles with chalk. Every Friday two of them now run a games hour for Class 1, using the cards. Three of the games had almost been forgotten in that town.

Analysis:

Speaking to elders, listening carefully and writing clearly turned fading games into something a five year old can play today.

Activity:

Ask an older person at home about a game they played as a child. Make a card for it with the five parts and a safety line.

A dictionary sorts words by the second and third letters too, not just the first.

Rule cards for playground games are often kept short enough to read standing up.

The five parts of a game description — N-P-P-M-R: Name, Place, Players, Materials, Rules — Name the game, say where it is played, how many play, what it needs, and the rules with a safety line.