Class 5 English Chapter 9: Vocation

The boy at the window

It is nine at night. A boy has been sent to bed. He is not asleep. Outside his window a man walks slowly past with a swinging light. The boy watches him and thinks: how lucky he is. Have you ever wished you had somebody else's day instead of your own?

Who is speaking

The speaker of this poem is a schoolboy. We never learn his name. We do learn his timetable. He leaves for school in the morning, returns in the afternoon, and is sent to bed in the evening. Three times in that day he stops and stares at somebody at work.

What vocation means

Vocation is the work a person does. It is a warm word, not a cold one. It suggests work a person feels made for. Every worker in this poem has a vocation, and so, one day, will the boy.

Ten in the morning

The first stanza opens with a gong. A gong is a metal disc that rings when it is struck. It is ten, and the boy walks to school along his lane. Every day he passes the same hawker, calling out that he has bangles to sell.

Why the hawker looks free

Nobody hurries the hawker along. No road is fixed for him, no place waits for him, no hour calls him home. The boy notices all of that, because his own morning is the opposite. His bell, his lane, his classroom. So he wishes he were the hawker.

Four in the afternoon

School ends. On his way back the boy looks through the gate of a house. Inside, a gardener is turning the earth with a spade. A spade is a flat digging tool with a long handle. The boy stops to watch.

Why the gardener looks free

The gardener does exactly as he pleases with that spade. His clothes are covered with dust and nobody minds. He can be baked by the sun or soaked by rain, and no one scolds him. To a boy in a clean uniform, that looks like freedom.

Night at the window

Evening comes, and his mother sends him to bed. He can still watch through his open window. Below, a watchman paces from one end of the street to the other. Nothing else moves out there. A watchman guards a street all night while everybody else sleeps.

A giant with one eye

Here the poem gives us its best picture. The street lamp is described as "a giant with one red eye" (Santoor, Vocation). Say that aloud and you can see it: tall, still, glowing. A poet can make you see a thing by calling it something else.

The lantern and the shadow

The watchman swings his lantern as he walks, and his shadow moves along at his side. He never goes to bed, says the boy. So the third wish arrives, exactly like the first two.

What the boy does not see

Read the poem again and something appears. The boy sees the fun part of each job. He does not see the hawker's sore feet, or the gardener's aching back, or the watchman's cold and sleepless night. Wishing is easy from a window.

Why the poem stays with us

Everybody has felt this. Somebody else's day always looks lighter than our own. The poem does not scold the boy for it. It simply shows him watching, and lets us smile, because we have all stood at that window.

Scenario:

Arun says the boy in the poem is lazy. He wants any work except his own. Sara disagrees. She says the boy admires three people who are all outdoors and free. Their teacher asks the class to look at the hours instead. The hawker calls out from the morning. The gardener digs in the middle of the day. The watchman walks all night. The children draw a clock face and mark the three of them on it. Between them the whole day and night are covered. Sara makes her point. The boy is shut indoors while the world outside is busy.

Analysis:

Marking the three workers on a clock turns an argument about character into a fact about time. None of the three is idle at any hour.

Activity:

Draw a clock face. Mark the hours when three workers near your home are busy. Write one sentence about each of them.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote this poem, and also wrote our national anthem.

A hawker carries goods about and calls out, instead of waiting inside a shop.

The three workers in order — Morning bangles, afternoon spade, night lantern — Ten in the morning brings the hawker. Four in the afternoon brings the gardener. Bedtime brings the watchman.

The shape of each stanza — Clock, Worker, Wish — Every stanza names a time, shows a worker, and ends with the same wish.

A note with one wrong word in each line

Ruhi found a note from her cousin on the fridge. The birds is flying near your window. My mother are cooking. He go to the market. Ruhi laughed, because she could hear that something was wrong. Could she say exactly what? Hunting for one wrong word in a line is a game worth learning.

Doer and doing word

Every sentence has a doer and a doing word. The parrot flies. The children run. Most mistakes in that note came from one place. The doer and the doing word had not been matched.

One doer or many?

A single doer takes is. Many doers take are. The bird is flying. The birds are flying. So her cousin's line should have read: the birds are flying. Count the doers first, every time.

He, she and it take an s

Here is the odd rule of English. Add s to the verb only for he, she and it. He goes to the market. She reads at night. It rains in June. For I, you, we and they, no s at all.

Has and have

The same pattern rules has and have. He has a cycle. They have a cycle. I have a cycle. So a line that says I has read a book is wrong. It needs have.

An action going on in the past

To show an action that was going on, use was or were with an ing word. Mira was sleeping when the bell rang. Not was slept. The ing word carries the action; was only sets the time.

How did he do it?

To say how an action happened, we need a different word. The elephant walked slowly to the river. Not walked slow. Slow describes the elephant; slowly describes his walking. Adding ly usually does the job.

Two of a kind

When you compare exactly two things, add er and then than. Radhika is taller than Suman. The fox ran faster than the others. Never say more taller. One ending is enough.

Three or more

When you compare three or more, use the with est. Sudhanshu ran the fastest of all the runners. He is the tallest boy in our row. The word the is part of the pattern.

Words that change completely

A few words refuse the rule. Good becomes better and then best. Bad becomes worse and then worst. Little becomes less and then least. These three simply have to be learnt.

How to hunt for the mistake

Read the line aloud first. Find the doer. Check the verb against it. Then look at any comparing word, and at any word telling how. The mistake is nearly always in one of those four places.

Why it is worth the trouble

A reader who meets a wrong verb stops and reads the line again. Your meaning gets delayed. Getting the doer and the verb to agree is a small thing that keeps a reader moving.

Scenario:

The class writes captions for a photo wall about work. Ravi writes that the gardeners waters the plants. Sana spots it at once. There are two gardeners, so it must be water. Then a second caption reads that this tree is more taller than that one. Ravi has compared twice over. Taller is enough on its own. A third caption says the watchman walk slow at night. The class fixes both halves of it. It becomes: the watchman walks slowly at night. They count the mistakes on the whole wall. There were fourteen at first and three after checking.

Analysis:

Every mistake on the wall was found by reading aloud. Eleven of the fourteen went in one pass, which is why reading aloud is worth the minute it costs.

Activity:

Write five captions for pictures in your classroom. Swap with a partner and count the mistakes each of you finds.

Title:

One wrong word a line

What You Notice:

Reading aloud finds a wrong verb far faster than reading with your eyes alone.

English is unusual in adding an s to the verb for he, she and it only.

Fast is both a describing word and an ly word, yet fastly does not exist.

Which verb form? — One takes the s — One doer takes the verb with s: he runs. Many doers drop it: they run.

Two or many? — Two get er, many get est — With two things say bigger than. With a whole group say the biggest of all.

A notebook at the tea stall

Asha stood at a tea stall with a notebook and one question ready. Do you like your work? The man said yes. That was the whole answer, and her notebook was still empty. Her teacher smiled. Ask him what the hardest hour of his day is, she said. This time he talked for five minutes.

Six keys to every question

Six words open almost any question. Who asks about a person. What asks about a thing. When asks about time. Where asks about a place. Why asks for a reason. How asks about a way of doing something.

Building the question

The order matters. Put the question word first, then the helper, then the doer, then the rest. Where did the postman go? Start with a capital letter and finish with a question mark. Say it aloud and your voice rises at the end.

Yes or no gets you nothing

Some questions can be closed with a single word. Do you like your work? Yes. Ask instead what, why or how, and the other person has to explain. Those are called open questions, and they fill a notebook.

Three questions and two ears

An interview is mostly listening. Plan three good questions, then follow whatever the speaker says. If a gardener mentions a difficult season, ask about that season. The best question is often the one you did not plan.

A sound with three spellings

Now listen to the end of the word vocation. That shun sound turns up again and again in English. The trouble is that it is written in three different ways, and your ear cannot tell them apart.

The shun family

Most of them end in tion: nation, attention, mention, action. A few end in sion: tension, mansion. And a small group ends in shion: cushion, fashion. Read the three groups aloud and notice that they sound alike.

Tools tell you the job

A worker's tools are a clue to the vocation. A stethoscope belongs to a doctor. A chisel belongs to a carpenter. A whisk belongs to a cook. Name the tool and you have very nearly named the job.

Tools in this poem

The poem gave us two of them. A spade in the hands of a gardener, and a lantern in the hands of a watchman. Neither worker is named by a title. The tool does the telling.

Famous Indians and their work

Every vocation can be done greatly. Kalpana Chawla flew as an astronaut. Verghese Kurien built a dairy movement. Amrita Sher-Gil painted. Bismillah Khan played the shehnai. Ela Bhatt organised women who work in the streets.

The hard half of a job

The boy in the poem saw only the pleasant half. When you write about a job, give both halves. A pilot sees sunrise above the clouds. A pilot also works while the rest of us sleep.

A frame for your paragraph

Try this shape. Name the vocation. Say what the good part looks like. Then say what the hard part is. Finish with one sentence saying whether you would choose it. Four sentences, and your reader learns something.

Scenario:

Class 5 of a school in Bhuj decided to find out who kept their street running. Over three weeks, pairs of children interviewed fourteen workers with three open questions each. They spoke to a tailor, a cobbler, a milk seller, a mason, a school cook and others. Each pair wrote a half page and drew the main tool of that worker. Two facts surprised everybody. Nine of the fourteen had begun the work before they were twenty. Eleven said the hardest part was not the work but the uncertain money. The class made a wall display called Our Street at Work. The cobbler came to see it and stayed an hour.

Analysis:

Open questions, patient listening and short writing turned fourteen familiar faces into fourteen vocations the class could name and respect.

Activity:

Interview one worker you meet every week, using three open questions. Write half a page and draw the tool of that vocation.

A good interviewer plans only three questions and then listens for the rest.

Ela Bhatt spent her life organising women who work as street sellers.

The six question words — Five W's and one H — Who, what, when, where and why all begin with w. How is the only one that does not.

The shape of a question — Word, helper, doer, rest — Where did the postman go? Question word, then the helper, then the doer, then the rest, then the mark.