Class 9 English Chapter 1: How I Taught My Grandmother to Read

Every Wednesday the magazine reaches the village and the narrator reads the latest episode of the serial aloud to her grandmother, who drops all her work to listen. Afterwards the old woman joins her friends in the temple courtyard and argues about the episode, which the child watches without understanding why it matters so much.

The novel being serialised. An old lady longs to make the pilgrimage to Kashi and worship there, which most Hindus hold to be the greatest merit; a young orphan girl in the same story is in love but has no money for her wedding. At the end the old lady gives away all her savings and never makes the journey.

The narrator goes with her cousins to a wedding in a neighbouring village, meaning to stay two days and staying seven. In that week the magazine arrives as usual, the grandmother opens it, and finds she cannot read a word of the episode she has been waiting for.

The festival day the grandmother had set as her deadline. She gives her granddaughter cloth for a frock and then bends and touches her feet, which inverts a tradition in which the young touch the feet of God, of elders and of teachers. She explains that she is honouring the teacher, not the child.

Transport was poor, so the morning paper came only in the afternoon and the weekly magazine a day late, and everyone waited for the bus that carried them. In a place where news arrived like that, the next instalment of a serial became the event of the week, which is why the grandmother cared about it so deeply.

An old lady longs to reach Kashi and worship Lord Vishweshwara there, while a young orphan girl in the same story has no money for her wedding, and the old lady ends by handing over everything she has put by and never goes. The grandmother had never been to Kashi either, so she identified herself with the character.

She found her grandmother in tears. It surprised her because she had never seen the old woman cry even in the most difficult situations, so weeping was entirely out of character. When asked whether anything was wrong, her grandmother only nodded and gave no answer, and the child forgot about it until that night.

The magazine arrived as usual. The grandmother opened it and saw the picture that went with the serial, but could understand nothing of what was written beside it. She rubbed her hands over the pages, waited for her granddaughter, and was too embarrassed to ask anyone else in the village to read it to her.

She decided to learn the Kannada alphabet from the next day, setting Saraswati Puja day during Dassara as her deadline, by which she meant to read a novel on her own. Her reason was independence: the family was well-off, but she asked what use money was when she could not read for herself.

The grandmother called her granddaughter, seated her on a stool and gave her a gift of frock material. She then bent down and touched her feet, explaining that she honoured a teacher rather than a granddaughter. The narrator returned the gesture, and the old woman opened her own gift and read its title and publisher at once.

The story begins with a ritual. In a village in north Karnataka where transport was poor and the weekly magazine came a day late, the narrator read the latest episode of a serial aloud to her grandmother every Wednesday. The old woman could not read, but listened with complete concentration and could repeat the whole episode afterwards by heart.

The ritual is broken by an absence. The narrator went with her cousins to a wedding in a neighbouring village, meaning to stay two days and staying a week.

That absence exposes the problem. The magazine arrived while she was away, and the grandmother, opening it, could understand nothing beside the picture. She was too embarrassed to ask a neighbour, and waited.

The narrator returned to find her in tears — something she had never seen before. That night, on the open terrace under a full moon, the grandmother told her own life story and then named what was wrong: she felt dependent and helpless, and money could not make her independent.

So she decided to learn the alphabet, fixing Saraswati Puja day during Dassara as her deadline. The lessons began the next day, and she proved a remarkable student.

At the festival the narrator gave her the serial, now published as a novel, and the grandmother read its title and publisher at once, touching her granddaughter's feet as a teacher's.

Everything before the scene is preparation and everything after it is consequence, so the night conversation carries the whole story.

The setting is deliberately gentle. It is a summer night with a full moon, the household is sleeping in the open, and the grandmother comes and sits beside the child and puts a hand on her forehead. The narrator says she realised from this that her grandmother wanted to speak. Tenderness is established before a word is said.

What the grandmother then gives is not an explanation but a life. She lost her mother young, her father was busy and remarried, girls were not thought to need education, she married early and was soon occupied with children and grandchildren. The regret about school comes last, after everything that made it impossible.

Only then does she reach the week just past — the magazine she could not read, the pages she rubbed with her hands, the neighbour she was too embarrassed to ask.

The weight falls on one distinction. The family is well-off, and she says so. What she lacks is not money but independence, and no amount of wealth supplies it.

Placing this at night, in private, between two people of very different ages, lets an old woman confess a shame she would not admit to the village — and lets a child be trusted with it.

The ending is a reversal. At the puja place on Dassara day, the grandmother seats her granddaughter on a stool, gives her cloth for a frock, and then bends down and touches her feet.

The narrator's own reaction is part of the effect. She is surprised and taken aback, and states the rule plainly: elders never touch the feet of youngsters, since the feet of God, of elders and of teachers are touched as a mark of respect. She calls the act not correct before it is explained.

The explanation reclassifies the person rather than breaking the rule. The grandmother says she is honouring a teacher, not a granddaughter — one who taught her so well and so affectionately that she can now read any novel confidently — and asks whether the scriptures do not require a teacher to be respected irrespective of gender and age.

The preparation runs through the whole story. The deadline was announced in advance, so the reader is waiting for this day. The narrator was called the only teacher and the grandmother the first student, so the roles are already named. The gift is the serial itself, published as a novel, so the present doubles as the examination.

The proof is immediate: the old woman opens it and reads the title, the author and the publisher on the spot. The narrator closes with an examiner's phrase, saying her student had passed with flying colours.

The distinction on which the whole portrait of the grandmother rests. Before she learns anything she is shown absorbing an instalment completely and giving it back from memory, and arguing about it with her friends. Nothing she lacks is a capacity; what she lacks is the schooling her generation withheld from girls.

The grandmother's own account of what reading is for. She is not poor and does not need money. What she cannot do is reach a printed page without permission from somebody else, and it is that dependence, rather than any material want, that she refuses to accept.

The principle by which the ending is defended. The custom is that the young touch the feet of God, of elders and of teachers. By naming her granddaughter a teacher, the grandmother places her inside the rule rather than breaking it, and appeals to scripture that requires a teacher to be honoured irrespective of gender and age.

The serialised novel is about an old lady who longs to make a pilgrimage and never makes it. The grandmother, who never reached that city either, recognises herself in the character — so the inner story supplies the mirror that explains her attachment to a magazine.

She set aside all her work to listen, followed each instalment with complete attention, and could afterwards repeat the whole of it from memory. She then debated it confidently with her friends. Memory, attention and judgement were therefore all intact, and the only thing she lacked was the alphabet, which her generation had not thought girls needed.

She raises it in order to rule it out. Without that sentence her complaint might be mistaken for one about hardship, and she wants the real loss named exactly. What she has lost is the power to reach a printed page unaided, and she asks what use money can be when it cannot make her independent.

She stayed a week at a wedding when she meant to stay two days, and she made fun of her grandmother's grey hair, wrinkled hands and spectacles, calling this childish. The admissions strengthen the story because the grandmother's dignity is measured against them, and because an adult judging her younger self is easier to trust.

The custom is that the young touch the feet of God, of elders and of teachers. The grandmother does not claim an exception; she reclassifies the person, saying she honours a teacher rather than a granddaughter and appealing to scripture that requires a teacher to be respected irrespective of gender and age. The girl has become someone the rule already covers.

The serialised novel concerns an old lady who longs to make a pilgrimage and never makes it. The grandmother had never reached that city either, so she recognises her own life in the character. Without that mirror her hunger for each instalment would look like idle curiosity rather than something capable of changing how she lived.

Because the character with the least schooling then makes the clearest case for what schooling is worth, which is a pointed irony. It also keeps the story from moralising: the child does the teaching while the old woman does the arguing, so the lesson arrives as a person's conviction rather than as the author's comment.

She is, first, deprived rather than incapable. Before she learns a letter she listens with total concentration, repeats a whole instalment from memory and argues about it with her friends. Her mind was never the obstacle; her generation simply did not think girls needed schooling.

She is honest, and in two directions. She admits she was too embarrassed to ask a neighbour to read to her, which is not a flattering thing to confess. She also states that her family is well-off, ruling out in advance any misreading of her complaint as poverty.

She is clear-sighted about what she has lost. Not comfort and not security, but independence — the power to reach a page without depending on anyone.

She is determined in a practical way. She decides what to learn, when to begin, by when to finish and how success will be judged, and then reads, repeats, writes and recites until the amount of homework astonishes her teacher.

She is dignified under mockery. Laughed at for her age, she does not defend her pride but makes a claim about learning instead.

And she is humble enough to bow to a child, yet precise about why — she honours a teacher, on an authority higher than her own feelings.

It makes three claims. The first is that literacy is independence: the household wants for nothing, and what the grandmother cannot do is reach a printed page by herself, which she refuses to accept. The second is that learning has no age bar, a claim the plot demonstrates rather than asserts, since a woman of sixty-two does the homework while the literate child of twelve has to be corrected. The third is that respect follows the role rather than the years.

What keeps it from lecturing is the distribution of voices. Every one of these claims is spoken by the grandmother — the character with the least schooling — and none by the narrator. The child does the teaching; the old woman does the arguing.

The method is demonstration rather than statement. We are shown her recall and her debating before we are told anything about her ability, so the conclusion is one the reader has already drawn.

The ending is handled the same way. The narrator voices the reader's objection, calling the reversal not correct, and only then does the grandmother answer it by naming the girl a teacher and appealing to scripture.

Because the argument is answered inside the story, nothing has to be added at the end, and the last line is not a moral but a verdict: the student had passed.

The ending is built in three deliberate movements.

First the reversal. At the puja place the grandmother seats her granddaughter, gives her cloth for a frock, and then bends down and touches her feet.

Then the objection, and it is the narrator who raises it. She is taken aback and states the custom plainly: the young touch the feet of God, of elders and of teachers, and elders do not touch the feet of youngsters. She calls the act not correct. This is the reader's own objection, and placing it inside the story means the explanation will be answering something real rather than defending a point nobody disputed.

Then the justification. The grandmother does not ask for an exception, which would leave the custom damaged. She reclassifies the person instead: she is honouring a teacher and not a granddaughter — one who taught her so well and so affectionately that she can now read confidently. She adds the authority: scripture requires a teacher to be respected irrespective of gender and age.

The result is that nothing has been broken. The girl has become one of the three kinds of person the rule already names.

The narrator's response confirms it. She returns the gesture and hands over her gift, and the old woman reads its title and publisher at once — so the argument ends with a demonstration rather than with the last word.

An expression made of two words, usually linked by a conjunction such as and or or, which are commonly used together and in a settled order. The order cannot be swapped: one says hide and seek, never seek and hide. The story supplies that example when the children play in the temple courtyard.

A syllable placed before a word to reverse or negate its meaning. This unit works with un-, ir-, in-, im-, dis- and mis-, and draws its examples straight from the story, where unhappy, unusual, unfortunately, irrespective and independent all appear.

The tense used for the earlier of two completed actions in the past. The action that happened first takes the past perfect and the one that happened later takes the simple past, so that the order of events is clear even when the sentence does not report them in order.

A speaking format in which a single speaker argues a motion in both directions. The speaker begins in favour for a fixed time, switches sides when the teacher signals, and then argues against for the same length of time, so that the exercise tests the ability to see a case from both sides.

A binomial is an expression of two words, usually joined by a conjunction such as and or or, which are habitually used together in a fixed order that cannot be reversed. The story supplies hide and seek. Two others are sink or swim, meaning to succeed or fail without help, and by leaps and bounds, meaning to develop very quickly.

A prefix such as un-, im-, dis-, in- or mis- is placed before a word to give it an opposite or negative sense, as in unhappy and independent from the story. The choice is fixed by the word itself: respect takes dis-, possible takes im- and understand takes mis-, so unrespect and unpossible are both wrong.

Where two past actions are both completed, the earlier one takes the past perfect and the more recent takes the simple past. In the sentence about reaching the party, everyone had finished eating before the speaker arrived, so had finished is past perfect while reached is simple past, even though the arrival is mentioned first.

Literacy once meant reading and writing and now also covers using digital tools responsibly — accessing, creating and sharing information, judging sources and protecting personal data. It matters because it empowers individuals, promotes safe internet use against misinformation, scams and cyber threats, and prepares people for a digital future.

A single speaker argues one topic in both directions, beginning in favour for a minute, switching when the teacher signals, then speaking against for a minute. What it tests is not the ability to win but the ability to state a case the speaker may not personally hold, since the sides are changed mid-way.

It opens with the writer's name, designation and address, then the date, then a subject line of four or five words in title case, then the salutation Sir or Madam. The body runs to at least three paragraphs stating the problem, analysing it, and offering solutions with a request to publish. It closes with Yours truly.

The unit works on three kinds of expression, and each begins from a word actually used in the story.

The first is the binomial: two words, usually joined by a conjunction, habitually used together in an order that cannot be reversed. The story supplies hide and seek, from the children's game in the temple courtyard. Eight more are collected with their meanings, among them sink or swim for succeeding or failing unaided, part and parcel for something inseparable from a whole, and by leaps and bounds for very rapid development.

The second is the negating prefix. Five words in the story already carry one: unhappy, unusual, unfortunately, irrespective and independent. The exercise then asks for the right prefix to be attached to ten further words, and the point is that the choice is not free. Respect takes dis-, possible takes im- and understand takes mis-, while extraordinary is the odd case in which the prefix intensifies rather than negates.

The third is the idiom, and here the connection is closest of all. The story's final sentence says the student had passed with flying colours, meaning an outstanding performance, and the unit then teaches six idioms about studying — hitting the books, drawing a blank, learning the ropes, racking one's brain, learning by heart and burning the midnight oil.

One of those describes the grandmother precisely. Long before she could read a word she could learn by heart.

The unit isolates the past perfect by setting two sentences from the story side by side. In the first the narrator bought the novel, which is a simple past. In the second her student had passed with flying colours, which is a past perfect.

The rule is this. Where two actions in the past are both complete, the earlier of them takes the past perfect and the more recent takes the simple past.

Two model sentences show the shape. By the time the speaker reached the party, everyone had finished eating. When she returned home, her brother had finished the project.

Notice what is happening in both. The event marked by had is mentioned second but happened first. That is the whole usefulness of the tense: it carries the order of events inside the verb, so the sentence is free to report them in whatever order reads best.

Collapse both verbs into the simple past and that information is lost. To write that the brother finished the project when she returned home suggests that he finished as she walked in, which is a different claim altogether.

For a reader this matters because stories rarely tell events in strict order. A narrator who is remembering, as this one is, constantly reaches backwards, and the past perfect is the signal that allows a reader to place each event correctly without being told explicitly.

The listening passage is a talk on digital literacy. It argues that literacy once meant reading and writing and now also includes using digital tools effectively and responsibly, which involves understanding platforms, judging reliable sources and protecting personal data. Three reasons are given for its importance: it empowers individuals, since students research critically, professionals handle transactions and senior citizens stay connected. It promotes safe use by helping people recognise misinformation, scams and cyber threats. And it prepares people for a future in which online services, job applications and governance all demand such skills. The talk ends by naming the Digital Saksharta Abhiyan, or National Digital Literacy Mission, which imparts IT training across the country. The speaking task is Turncoat, a solo debate in which one speaker argues a motion in favour for a minute, switches at the teacher's signal, and then argues against it. One of the topics offered asks whether learning can happen only when you are young. The writing task is a letter to the editor about students helping at adult literacy camps, written formally in at least three paragraphs: the problem, its causes and consequences, then solutions and a request to publish. All three return to the story's subject. The talk widens the meaning of literacy exactly as the story widens what reading is for; the debate topic is the question the grandmother settles in practice; and the letter concerns adult literacy, which is what she was.

Transport was poor, so the morning paper came only in the afternoon and the weekly magazine a day late, and everyone waited for the bus that carried them. In a place where news arrived like that, the next instalment of a serial became the event of the week, which is why the grandmother cared about it so deeply.

An old lady longs to reach Kashi and worship Lord Vishweshwara there, while a young orphan girl in the same story has no money for her wedding, and the old lady ends by handing over everything she has put by and never goes. The grandmother had never been to Kashi either, so she identified herself with the character.

She found her grandmother in tears. It surprised her because she had never seen the old woman cry even in the most difficult situations, so weeping was entirely out of character. When asked whether anything was wrong, her grandmother only nodded and gave no answer, and the child forgot about it until that night.

She set aside all her work to listen, followed each instalment with complete attention, and could afterwards repeat the whole of it from memory. She then debated it confidently with her friends. Memory, attention and judgement were therefore all intact, and the only thing she lacked was the alphabet, which her generation had not thought girls needed.

She raises it in order to rule it out. Without that sentence her complaint might be mistaken for one about hardship, and she wants the real loss named exactly. What she has lost is the power to reach a printed page unaided, and she asks what use money can be when it cannot make her independent.

She stayed a week at a wedding when she meant to stay two days, and she made fun of her grandmother's grey hair, wrinkled hands and spectacles, calling this childish. The admissions strengthen the story because the grandmother's dignity is measured against them, and because an adult judging her younger self is easier to trust.

A binomial is an expression of two words, usually joined by a conjunction such as and or or, which are habitually used together in a fixed order that cannot be reversed. The story supplies hide and seek. Two others are sink or swim, meaning to succeed or fail without help, and by leaps and bounds, meaning to develop very quickly.

A prefix such as un-, im-, dis-, in- or mis- is placed before a word to give it an opposite or negative sense, as in unhappy and independent from the story. The choice is fixed by the word itself: respect takes dis-, possible takes im- and understand takes mis-, so unrespect and unpossible are both wrong.

Where two past actions are both completed, the earlier one takes the past perfect and the more recent takes the simple past. In the sentence about reaching the party, everyone had finished eating before the speaker arrived, so had finished is past perfect while reached is simple past, even though the arrival is mentioned first.