EN हिं

NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 1 Bharat Our Land (poem) — Reflect and Respond

Book page 23 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.
I. Recall the lines of the National Anthem and complete the table given below with the names of the states, mountain ranges, and rivers mentioned in it. (Table columns: States/Provinces — seven blanks; Mountain Ranges — two blanks; Rivers — two blanks.)
Answer
States/Provinces (7)Mountain Ranges (2)Rivers (2)
PunjabVindhyaYamuna
Sindhu (Sindh)Himachal (the Himalaya)Ganga
Gujarat——
Maratha——
Dravida——
Utkala (Odisha)——
Banga (Bengal)——

The names come from the second line of the anthem — Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravid, Utkal, Banga — and from the third — Vindhya, Himachal, Yamuna, Ganga.

Why the table has exactly this shape: Tagore is sweeping across the whole country in two lines. The seven provinces move from north-west to south to east; the two mountain ranges are the country’s northern wall and its central spine; the two rivers are the ones that water the plain between them. The next phrase, uchchala-jaladhi-taranga (“the leaping waves of the ocean”), closes the map at the coast — but it names the sea, not a river, so it does not go in the third column.
Tip: This activity is a warm-up for the poem you are about to read. Bharati does the same thing in four lines — Himavant, Ganga, the Upanishads, the land — naming a few things and letting them stand for the whole country. Compare the two lists when you finish the poem.
Q2.
II. Work in pairs. Discuss what the words ‘जय हे’ (Jaya he) in the last two lines of the National Anthem convey. Share your answer with your classmates and teacher.
Answer

‘Jaya he’ means “Victory to you!” or “Hail!” — jaya is victory, and he is the vocative, the form used when calling out to someone. It is addressed to the bharata-bhagya-vidhata, the dispenser of India’s destiny, and it is a blessing and a salutation rather than a piece of information.

What the words convey, in three layers:

  • Triumph and hope. The anthem does not end by describing the country; it ends by wishing it well. “Victory” here is not victory over anyone — it is the country’s flourishing.
  • Reverence. The phrase belongs to the language of prayer and of stuti, praise-song. Saying it turns the singer from a spectator into a devotee.
  • Unity through repetition. The words are repeated seven times in the closing lines — “Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he, jaya jaya jaya, jaya he” — until they stop being sentences and become a chant that a crowd can carry together. Nobody sings a chant alone.
Connect it to the poem ahead: Bharati ends two of his three stanzas with “she’s peerless, let’s praise her!” — the same move. Both poets close a list of a country’s glories with a shared exclamation, because a fact can be read silently but a refrain has to be joined in.
Q3.
III. Read the underlined words in the given lines of the poem. Choose the odd one out that does not correspond with the meaning of the underlined word. 1. She’s peerless, let’s praise her! — valuable, incomparable, unmatched 2. Many a sage has sanctified this land. — blessed, purified, applauded 3. And here all auspicious things are found. — fortunate, fantastic, favourable 4. Of hoary antiquity is Bharat, — ancient times, recent past, time immemorial
Answer
No.Underlined wordWhat it meansOdd one outWhy it does not fit
1peerlesshaving no equal; without a peervaluableValuable is about worth, and many things can be valuable at once. Peerless is about rank — it says nothing is equal to it. Incomparable and unmatched both carry that same idea of no rival.
2sanctifiedmade holy or sacredapplaudedApplauded means praised aloud by others — an act of an audience. Sanctified is a change in the thing itself: it has been made pure and holy. Blessed and purified both describe that change.
3auspiciouspromising good fortune; favourablefantasticFantastic in everyday use just means excellent, and in its older sense means imaginary or fanciful — neither has anything to do with good omens. Fortunate and favourable both point to good fortune ahead.
4hoary antiquityextremely great and venerable agerecent pastThe odd one is a plain opposite. Hoary means grey with age, so the phrase means age so great it is honoured. Ancient times and time immemorial agree with it; recent past contradicts it.
Tip for odd-one-out items: do not ask which word is unusual — ask what the underlined word is about. Item 1 is about rank, item 2 about holiness, item 3 about omens, item 4 about age. The odd word is always the one that has quietly changed the subject.
Was this helpful? Report an error