Q1.
I. In pairs, take turns to speak about the aspects of your village/town/city that you feel are an asset. It could be about geographical, cultural, traditional features, or even its history.
Use these cues to express your praise and admiration.
• One thing that I find truly wonderful about my village/town/city is...
• If I had to describe my village/town/city in one word, it would be...
• I have always been fascinated by the way the people of my village/town/city...
• What I want other people to know about my village/town/city is…
• When it comes to the scenery, my village/town/city truly shines because...
• I feel a deep sense of pride when I think about my village/town/city...
Answer
Method — borrow the poem’s structure. Bharati praises India by naming four or five specific things and refusing to generalise. Do the same: pick three assets, one from each column below, give each a concrete detail, and close with your own refrain — the last cue makes a natural one.
| Kind of asset | What to look for | Example of a concrete detail |
|---|---|---|
| Geographical | A river, hill, lake, coast, soil, climate | “The Kaveri runs along the eastern edge of our town, and in Karthigai the whole bank is lit with lamps.” |
| Cultural / traditional | A craft, festival, food, dialect, music | “Our weavers still make the border of the saree on a pit loom; the sound from those sheds is the sound of my street.” |
| Historical | A monument, an old institution, a person born there | “The town library was opened in 1932 and still has the register with the first borrower’s name in it.” |
Sample answer (about one minute):
One thing that I find truly wonderful about my town, Srirangapatna, is that history is not kept in a museum here — it is in the road. The fort wall runs along the bus stand, and the same river that made the island still floods the fields in July. If I had to describe my town in one word, it would be layered: a Ganga-dynasty temple, a fort from the eighteenth century and a sugar factory from the last one, all within two kilometres. I have always been fascinated by the way the people here treat the river — nobody is sentimental about it, everybody watches it, and in monsoon the whole town knows the water level by evening. What I want other people to know about my town is that it is not a day trip. When it comes to scenery, my town truly shines at dusk, when the Kaveri turns copper and the crowd of birds over Ranganathittu changes the colour of the sky. I feel a deep sense of pride when I think about my town — not because it is famous, but because it has been lived in continuously for a thousand years.
One thing that I find truly wonderful about my town, Srirangapatna, is that history is not kept in a museum here — it is in the road. The fort wall runs along the bus stand, and the same river that made the island still floods the fields in July. If I had to describe my town in one word, it would be layered: a Ganga-dynasty temple, a fort from the eighteenth century and a sugar factory from the last one, all within two kilometres. I have always been fascinated by the way the people here treat the river — nobody is sentimental about it, everybody watches it, and in monsoon the whole town knows the water level by evening. What I want other people to know about my town is that it is not a day trip. When it comes to scenery, my town truly shines at dusk, when the Kaveri turns copper and the crowd of birds over Ranganathittu changes the colour of the sky. I feel a deep sense of pride when I think about my town — not because it is famous, but because it has been lived in continuously for a thousand years.
What makes praise convincing: detail, not adjectives. “My city is very beautiful and has a rich culture” tells a listener nothing he could repeat afterwards. One loom, one register, one flooded field will be remembered — which is exactly why Bharati writes “Himavant” and “Ganga” instead of “our mountains and rivers”.