Class 9 English Chapter 4: Vitamin-M

Weak and easily damaged, said of a body rather than a mind. The word is used of Grandpa at the very start, and the rest of the story is about how little it explains.

Small and cramped in an unpleasant way. Grandpa applies it to his daughter's flat, and the word carries his whole objection to the city in four letters.

Moving about unhurriedly doing small jobs. It is what Grandpa was doing in his own garden when he slipped and fell, which is the accident that brought him to the city.

Showed a brief expression of discomfort or embarrassment. Ravi winces at the over-loud voice his mother uses to his grandfather, and that flinch is the first sign of whose side the story is on.

A situation in which a choice must be made between two options, neither of them satisfactory. Ravi's is that escorting Grandpa would hurt him and letting him go would break a promise.

Because everything he valued had been taken away at once. He hated the noise and bustle of city life, and the flat was poky and little compared with his own brick house, which had a big mango tree and a quiet so complete that a falling leaf could be heard at dusk. Worse, he was forbidden to go out alone, having looked after himself for most of seventy-five years.

Because of three incidents, all real and all recent. He had been admitted to hospital after absent-mindedly taking a double dose of his medicines. He had gone for a walk and forgotten the way back home. And before that he had fallen while pottering in his own garden and lain outside all night, since nobody was there to help him up. Her fear was earned rather than imagined.

No. The clearest sign is that he winces at the over-loud tone she uses when speaking to him, as though to a child who cannot hear or understand. He also tells Grandpa, loyally, that his mother would never treat him like a baby or a prisoner — and he feels guilty for a moment first, which shows he knows the charge is not groundless.

At the park he crouched behind a bush trimmed like an elephant. A small child found him and offered to show him a better hiding place. The child's mother threatened him with an umbrella, and he had to crawl out on all fours. At the tea stall he hid behind a banyan tree and was surrounded by vendors who took him for a rival and told him the area was booked by them.

He had been following a bright-yellow cap. On the bus its wearer took it off in the heat and turned out to have a full head of grey hair, while Grandpa is bald. The man was a stranger, though he wore white pyjama and shirt, Grandpa's usual attire, and the cap carried the same coffee stain on its rim. A kind old gentleman at the barber shop had pressed it on him because the day was hot.

He heard Grandpa snoring in his bedroom, knelt beside him and hugged him, and decided not to ask any questions, since asking would confess that he had followed him. The parcel was a birthday gift — Grandpa's own birthday, on which he gives a present to every child in the house. Ravi's was a book of detective stories, offered with advice on how not to be fooled while trailing a suspect.

He leaves having talked Ravi into permission, carrying a shiny black mahogany stick with a brass eagle's head and wearing a bright-yellow cap, twirling the stick jauntily. Ravi, caught between hurting him and breaking a promise, decides to follow secretly.

The first stop is the children's park. Grandpa buys a paper cone of peanuts and settles on a bench to watch the children. Ravi crouches behind a bush trimmed like an elephant, is discovered by a small child offering a better hiding place, is threatened with an umbrella by the child's mother, and crawls out of the park on all fours.

The second is the tea stall. Ravi takes position behind a big banyan and is at once surrounded by vendors who take him for a rival and inform him that the area is booked. Driven behind a silver car, he watches Grandpa work through a sugary tea, two bananas and an ice cream — every one of them forbidden at home.

Grandpa then zigzags across the traffic into a barber shop. Since he is bald as a table tennis ball this deserves investigating, so Ravi crosses, ducks into the shop next door and is thrown out of a Ladies' Hairdressing Salon.

Finally Grandpa walks briskly to the bus stop and boards. Ravi sprints and jumps on, follows the yellow cap to the front — and finds a stranger with a full head of grey hair underneath it.

The opening invites the reader to accept it. His daughter says he does not hear, see or remember too well; he sits frail in a rocking chair with the paper inches from his nose; and within a month he has taken a double dose of medicine and lost his way home from a walk.

But the evidence against the description begins almost at once.

At chess he is cool and cunning, and recalls whole games move by move — the opening Karpov made against the computer, the mistake Fischer made against Spassky. Ravi cannot reconcile that with a man who forgets the names of people he meets often.

He then handles Ravi with complete precision. One question about being kept a prisoner forces a loyal denial, and the denial becomes permission. The story supplies the adverb: craftily.

He knows the household's rules well enough to break every one of them in an afternoon, and remembers his way home through a city he dislikes, arriving well before the boy who was following him.

And he remembers his own birthday, together with a custom of long standing, when the daughter who circled the date in red at the beginning of the year has forgotten it entirely.

So the failing is real but narrow — names, doses, a route taken once. Judgement, wit and long memory are untouched, and the story's joke is that the one person who forgets something that matters is not the old man.

Ravi comes home frantic, having searched the barber shop and the park and failed to reach either parent by telephone, and hears the gentle whirr of Grandpa snoring in his bedroom. He kneels, puts his cheek against a face with more creases than a map has lines, and hugs him; Grandpa only grunts. Ravi decides to ask nothing, because asking would confess.

When his mother returns and asks about the day, Grandpa answers coolly that he had a quiet morning but cannot speak for Ravi, who disappeared instead of staying at home as instructed. Every word is true, and Ravi can object to none of it.

Then a gift-wrapped parcel appears. His mother protests that Ravi's birthday was three months ago — has Papa forgotten? No, says Grandpa: she knows he gives a present to every child in the house on his own birthday. Has she forgotten? She flushes and darts a stricken look at the calendar, where she had circled the date in red at the start of the year. There are gifts for both parents too, since he still considers them his babies.

And then, to Ravi's father: his daughter needs some Vitamin-M, for her memory.

Ravi's parcel holds a book of detective stories, offered with the solemn observation that it contains good tips on how to avoid being fooled while trailing a suspect.

The story ends with Ravi trying to decide whether the twinkle in his grandfather's eye is innocent or mischievous — and it refuses to tell him, because the pleasure of the ending lies in not being certain.

Showing what a person is like by what they do rather than by describing them. The story never calls Grandpa clever; it lets him trap Ravi with a single question and leaves the reader to draw the conclusion.

A gap between what is said or expected and what turns out to be true. Here the woman who jokes about failing memory is the one who forgets the birthday she had circled in red.

A situation in which the person supposed to be in charge turns out to be the one being managed. Ravi is set to mind Grandpa and spends the afternoon being led round a city.

Treating somebody as less capable than they are, usually while believing oneself kind. The over-loud voice is the story's chosen example of it.

Leaving a question genuinely open. The twinkle in the last sentence has two possible meanings and the story refuses to pick one.

By supplying incidents and letting the reader name the quality. His pride appears in the record he cites when he is forbidden the street. His independence in ten years of cooking and keeping house alone. His wit in the single question that turns Ravi's loyal denial into permission. And his generosity in the cap he hands to a stranger and the gifts he gives on his own birthday. The only label the narration offers is the adverb craftily.

It is well meant, since he is trying to protect an old man without wounding him, but it keeps his promise only in letter. By shadowing his grandfather instead of speaking to him, he does exactly what his mother had done: he makes a decision about the old man without consulting him. He repeats the very fault he had winced at an hour earlier, and the afternoon's humiliations follow from it.

No. Her fear rests on three real incidents within a month — a hospital admission after a doubled dose, a walk from which her father could not find his way back, and a night he spent lying in his garden. She locked the house and brought him away because the alternative was leaving him there. What the story criticises is her manner: a rule announced rather than discussed, an over-loud tone, and medicines handed to her son rather than her father.

That age is not a single condition. A person may need supervision over medicines and none whatever over decisions, and a family that treats the two as one question does real harm. It also insists that dignity is separate from safety: the restriction may be justified while the manner is not. It avoids preaching by containing no speech on the subject at all, making its case entirely through a chess game, a trap, an afternoon out, a cap and a parcel.

It begins as Vidya's joke, made across her father's head on the assumption that he cannot hear: somebody should invent a memory vitamin for old people. It ends as Grandpa's reply, delivered mildly to her husband, that his daughter needs some of that vitamin for her own memory. The same phrase, aimed the opposite way, with no voice raised in between — and with the calendar she had marked in January standing as proof.

Because the ambiguity is what keeps the ending generous. The evidence points one way — the cap given to a look-alike, the cool report of Ravi's disappearance, a book about not being fooled while trailing a suspect, and the word solemnly attached to the advice. But left unproved, Ravi is answered without ever being accused, and can never quite establish that he was. Proved, the same act would be a scolding.

He is seventy-five, a retired lawyer, and a widower of ten years who kept his own house until a fall ended the arrangement. The story describes him once as frail and then spends the rest of its length correcting the impression.

He is proud. Forbidden the street, he does not plead but states a record: most of seventy-five years spent looking after himself, ten of them cooking, shopping and keeping house alone. The firmness is a trace of his profession.

He is fiercely independent. Everything he misses about his brick house is an image of self-sufficiency — his own garden, his own routine, a quiet so complete that a falling leaf could be heard. The flat is poky, and the word carries both a size and a verdict.

He is witty, and the story shows it rather than saying it. He does not argue the rule away; he asks whether his daughter has told Ravi to keep him a prisoner, and the loyal denial that follows becomes the permission he wanted. The narration supplies one word for the manoeuvre: craftily.

He is generous without calculation, or at least without any the reader can prove. He presses his cap on a stranger in a barber shop because the day is hot, and he gives presents to every child in the house on his own birthday — counting his grown daughter and her husband among the children.

And his memory is not what anyone has called it. He loses doses, routes and the names of people he meets often. He holds whole chess games, every household rule, his way home through a city he dislikes, and a birthday his daughter had circled in red and forgotten.

What emerges is a man whose failings are narrow and real, and whose judgement is entirely intact — which is exactly the distinction the family around him has stopped making.

It begins by giving her a case that cannot be dismissed. Three things happened to her father inside one month. He doubled his medicines absent-mindedly and was taken to hospital; he set out for a walk and could not find his way back; and, earliest of the three, he fell in his garden and lay there till morning with nobody in the house to help. She locked that house and brought him to the city because the alternative was to leave him in it. At no point does the story suggest her fear is invented.

Having granted her the argument, it then attacks the delivery.

The rule is announced rather than discussed; her father is informed of a decision about his own life. The tone is over-loud, as though addressed to a child who cannot hear or follow. The medicines are handed to her son rather than to the man who will take them. Each detail says the same thing: decisions about him are made around him.

And the story places its verdict early, in a single gesture. Ravi winces. That flinch tells the reader whose side the narrative is on before any of the action has started.

Yet the ending refuses cruelty. When the parcel arrives and she realises whose birthday it is, she flushes and darts a stricken look at the calendar where she had circled the date in red at the beginning of the year. She is not exposed as unloving. She is exposed as forgetful — she, who had opened the story laughing about forgetfulness in old people.

So the correction lands exactly where the fault was, and nowhere else. She is answered, not condemned, and there are gifts for her too.

The twist reverses the whole arrangement. A boy is left in charge of an old man said to be failing. By evening it is the boy who has lost his charge, searched half a city, failed to reach either parent and come home frightened — while the old man has found his own way back and gone to sleep.

The cap is the instrument, and it is well chosen. It is given away in the one place Ravi cannot follow him into, to a stranger wearing the white pyjama and shirt that are Grandpa's own habitual dress, with a plausible and entirely characteristic reason attached: it was such a hot day. Ravi has been tracking a colour rather than a face, and the colour walks onto a bus without him.

Then the evidence accumulates. Grandpa reports coolly that Ravi disappeared instead of looking after him — every word true, and impossible to contest without confessing. He gives a book of detective stories. He attaches advice about how to avoid being fooled while trailing a suspect. And he delivers it solemnly.

Any one of these could be innocent. Together they are hard to read as accident.

But the story never says, and the final sentence makes the refusal deliberate: Ravi is left trying to decide whether the twinkle in his grandfather's eye is an innocent gleam or a mischievous one, and answers his father's unrelated question absent-mindedly because of it.

The reason for leaving it there is a matter of tone. Proved, the afternoon becomes a punishment and the gift becomes a rebuke; the old man would have won by humiliating a boy who meant well. Unproved, Ravi is answered without ever being charged — he knows what he did, he cannot be certain anybody else does, and nothing needs to be said aloud. The doubt is what keeps the victory a kind one.

One set tells you how a body travels — pottering, crawling, darting, zigzagging. The other tells you what the air carries — boomed, shrieks, thudded, whirr. Sorting them is a way of noticing that a scene is built from both at once.

A word showing how a noun or pronoun stands in relation to the rest of the sentence — its direction, location, time or manner. Across, over, under and behind all appear in phrases taken straight from the story.

A sentence that asks. The lesson separates two kinds: those opening with a wh-word, answered with information, and those answered with yes or no.

Somebody repeating another person's words at a different time and place. Tenses shift back, pronouns change, and words of time and place move with them — here becomes there, today becomes that day.

The pitch of the voice as it rises or falls. It carries meaning on its own: the same words can express certainty or doubt depending on where the voice goes at the end.

One column holds movement words, which describe what a body does or the manner in which it does it — pottering, zigzagging and sprinting, for instance. The other holds sound words, which describe what reaches an ear — boomed, whirr and shrieks. The distinction matters because a scene is built from both at once: remove the sound words from the barber-shop episode and the shrieks that get Ravi thrown out disappear with them.

A preposition shows how a noun or pronoun stands in relation to the other words around it, indicating direction, location, time or manner. In the practice paragraph each does a distinct job. Through a village is a path taken inside something, over a brook crosses above it, and near a cottage is proximity only. In the garden is containment, along a riverbank follows a line, and towards the unknown gives direction without arrival.

First convert the interrogative into a declarative sentence, with the subject before the verb and no question mark. Then, if it is a yes-or-no question, join it to the reporting verb with if or whether. If it is a wh-question, repeat the same wh-word instead. So a direct question asking Priya whether she helps at home becomes: Arvind asked Priya whether she helped in taking care of her grandparents at home. The tense has moved back and your has become her.

Wh- and how questions fall at the end, because information is being requested. Yes-or-no questions rise, because the answer is genuinely open. An affirmative clause with a negative tag rises, showing the speaker is fairly sure of the answer. A negative clause with an affirmative tag falls, showing the speaker is unsure. And a question offering a choice takes a rise-fall — up on the first option, down on the second.

It presents meditation as an important yogic practice used for relaxation and stress management. It gives rest and peace to the mind by clearing away the thoughts that cause stress, which improves well-being both physically and emotionally. A person feels fresh afterwards and gains a new perspective on stressful situations. It also reduces negative emotions and increases self-awareness. Practised daily it becomes a routine, influences memory power, and helps in handling exam-related pressure with ease.

Because both turn on the same failure, seen from opposite ends of a lifetime. An old man is treated as less capable than he is, and quietly proves otherwise. A small boy is offered a roundabout, music, a balloon, a garland and sweets, and refuses every one of them, because the only thing he needs is his parents. In both, the people meaning well attend to what a person might be given instead of listening to the person.

The first task divides a box of twenty words in two. The movement column holds pottering, ducked, evicted, jumping, crawl, briskly, darted, twirling, creeping, zigzagging, sprinting, trailing and crouch. The sound column holds boomed, bustle, shrieks, thudded, whirr, grunted and snoring. A gap-fill then uses them in a passage about a detective following a suspect — feet that thudded, a man who had to crouch behind stalls and go zigzagging through lanes, and the distant whirr of a sleeping city.

The second task takes the word dilemma from the sentence describing Ravi at the door and asks for two synonyms given as letter puzzles: quandary and predicament. All three name a position in which no available choice is comfortable.

The third is a table of six words to be completed with meaning, part of speech, synonym and antonym. Craftily is an adverb meaning in a cunning, indirect way. Dilemma is a noun. Furious is an adjective meaning extremely angry. Boomed is a verb meaning sounded loudly and deeply. Humiliation is a noun meaning loss of dignity before others. And attire is a noun meaning clothing — the white pyjama and shirt of the man on the bus — not a verb.

The fourth matches five emotion words to meanings, with one meaning deliberately left over. Embarrassed means felt uncomfortable; countered means replied to an argument; flushed means became red in the face; stricken means affected severely by an unpleasant feeling; and gleam is an expression of emotion. The unused meaning is to be confused.

Three of those five words carry the story's final page, where the mother flushes, darts a stricken look at the calendar, and is countered by her father.

The lesson begins by sorting quoted sentences from the story. All of them are interrogative, and they fall into two kinds. Yes-or-no questions expect confirmation or denial: one asks whether they should play chess or watch the cricket match, another whether somebody has forgotten, a third whether a boy is playing hide and seek. Wh-questions ask for information: who somebody is, and what two people did that day. So there are two kinds of interrogative sentence, not three.

The words inside quotation marks are the speaker's own, and are called direct speech. Indirect or reported speech is somebody else repeating those words at another time and in another place — and because both the time and the place have moved, three sets of things shift with them.

Tenses move one step back: present to past, present progressive to past progressive, past to past perfect, past progressive to past perfect progressive.

Pronouns change person: I becomes he or she, we becomes they, our becomes their.

Words of time and place follow: here becomes there, today becomes that day, tomorrow becomes the following day, now becomes then.

For questions specifically there are three steps. Convert the interrogative into a declarative sentence, so that the subject comes before the verb and no question mark remains. Then bridge it to the reporting verb — with if or whether for a yes-or-no question, and with the same wh-word for the other kind.

So a direct question asking somebody whether they help in taking care of their grandparents at home is reported as: he asked her whether she helped in taking care of her grandparents at home. Every rule is visible in that one line — statement order, tense moved back, your turned to her, and whether providing the join.

It is the festival of spring, and crowds are moving towards a fair. A small boy walks with his parents, running ahead and falling behind, and is called along again and again.

Five times he is drawn to something. A toy in a roadside shop, which he pleads for and is refused with a look. Burfi at the sweet stall, which he murmurs for, knowing he will be called greedy. A garland of gulmohur, which he half-murmurs for, knowing the flowers will be called cheap. Balloons on a pole, which he does not ask for at all, knowing he will be told he is too old for toys. And a snake-charmer's flute, which he approaches and then leaves, because such music is forbidden him. Each time the refusal is anticipated rather than spoken, and each time he moves on.

At the roundabout he finally makes a bold request — and there is no reply. His parents are not ahead of him, not to either side, not behind. He runs in panic, his turban comes untied, and his crying subsides into sobs.

A man lifts him out of a crush near a temple entrance and tries, one by one, to comfort him: a ride on the roundabout, the snake-charmer's music, a rainbow-coloured balloon, a garland for his neck, sweets from the counter. The same five attractions, offered in reverse order, and refused every one. His only answer is that he wants his mother and his father, and there the story stops.

What it shares with Vitamin-M is a single failure, viewed from the two ends of a life. An old man is treated as less capable than he is, decided about rather than consulted, and answers by quietly proving otherwise. A small boy is offered everything the fair contains and none of it is what he needs. In both, people who mean no harm attend to what a person might be given instead of listening to the person in front of them — and in both, the story makes that point without ever stating it.

Because everything he valued had been taken away at once. He hated the noise and bustle of city life, and the flat was poky and little compared with his own brick house, which had a big mango tree and a quiet so complete that a falling leaf could be heard at dusk. Worse, he was forbidden to go out alone, having looked after himself for most of seventy-five years.

Because of three incidents, all real and all recent. He had been admitted to hospital after absent-mindedly taking a double dose of his medicines. He had gone for a walk and forgotten the way back home. And before that he had fallen while pottering in his own garden and lain outside all night, since nobody was there to help him up. Her fear was earned rather than imagined.

No. The clearest sign is that he winces at the over-loud tone she uses when speaking to him, as though to a child who cannot hear or understand. He also tells Grandpa, loyally, that his mother would never treat him like a baby or a prisoner — and he feels guilty for a moment first, which shows he knows the charge is not groundless.

By supplying incidents and letting the reader name the quality. His pride appears in the record he cites when he is forbidden the street. His independence in ten years of cooking and keeping house alone. His wit in the single question that turns Ravi's loyal denial into permission. And his generosity in the cap he hands to a stranger and the gifts he gives on his own birthday. The only label the narration offers is the adverb craftily.

It is well meant, since he is trying to protect an old man without wounding him, but it keeps his promise only in letter. By shadowing his grandfather instead of speaking to him, he does exactly what his mother had done: he makes a decision about the old man without consulting him. He repeats the very fault he had winced at an hour earlier, and the afternoon's humiliations follow from it.

No. Her fear rests on three real incidents within a month — a hospital admission after a doubled dose, a walk from which her father could not find his way back, and a night he spent lying in his garden. She locked the house and brought him away because the alternative was leaving him there. What the story criticises is her manner: a rule announced rather than discussed, an over-loud tone, and medicines handed to her son rather than her father.

One column holds movement words, which describe what a body does or the manner in which it does it — pottering, zigzagging and sprinting, for instance. The other holds sound words, which describe what reaches an ear — boomed, whirr and shrieks. The distinction matters because a scene is built from both at once: remove the sound words from the barber-shop episode and the shrieks that get Ravi thrown out disappear with them.

A preposition shows how a noun or pronoun stands in relation to the other words around it, indicating direction, location, time or manner. In the practice paragraph each does a distinct job. Through a village is a path taken inside something, over a brook crosses above it, and near a cottage is proximity only. In the garden is containment, along a riverbank follows a line, and towards the unknown gives direction without arrival.

First convert the interrogative into a declarative sentence, with the subject before the verb and no question mark. Then, if it is a yes-or-no question, join it to the reporting verb with if or whether. If it is a wh-question, repeat the same wh-word instead. So a direct question asking Priya whether she helps at home becomes: Arvind asked Priya whether she helped in taking care of her grandparents at home. The tense has moved back and your has become her.