NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 7 Carrier of Words (prose) — Check Your Understanding

Book page 210 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

I. Complete the table given below with the situations given in Column 1 and the reasons in Column 2. Column 1 (situation) | Column 2 (reason) ______ | When the temperature is recorded as 50 degrees celsius and above, a state holiday has to be declared. Khetaram can dwell on any threshold. | ______ BSF always gave Khetaram a lift. | ______

Answer

Read the table the right way round: Column 1 holds the situation, Column 2 the reason for it. Row 1 gives you the reason and asks for the situation; rows 2 and 3 give the situation and ask for the reason.

Column 1 — Situation	Column 2 — Reason
On the hottest days the temperature is officially recorded as 49.9 degrees celsius, and Khetaram is sent out to deliver even though his body tells him it has crossed 50.	When the temperature is recorded as 50 degrees celsius and above, a state holiday has to be declared. (given)
Khetaram can dwell on any threshold. (given)	Because the villagers trust him completely — “Such aspects of trust make Khetaram a warmly received man.” He reads out their letters and drafts their replies, so “Everyone feels comfortable asking him to read the letters and draft the replies,” and no door is closed to him.
BSF always gave Khetaram a lift. (given)	Because he delivers the jawans’ dak at their camp and they know how far he must walk in that heat — “People are kind to me; the BSF always gives me a lift. Since their camp came here last year, when I distribute their dak, I get a cup of tea.”

Look hard at row 1. The rule is a protection: 50°C means a state holiday. The response is not to protect the worker but to record the number just below the line — 49.9. In one decimal point the writer shows you who actually pays for a public service, without stating an opinion at all. That is the sharpest sentence in the chapter.

Q2.

II. Why was a piece of jaggery offered in the village when he brought news of a birth or weddings?

Answer

Because sweets are shared on happy news, and in that arid land a piece of jaggery is the sweet a family can afford. The text is precise about this: “In the village, a piece of jaggery is all that can be offered when he brings news of a birth or weddings.”

Custom: across India, good news is marked by muh meetha karna — sweetening the mouth. The messenger is the first person to be given the sweet.
Poverty: “all that can be offered” is the key phrase. This is a region of akaal, where one bajra crop in a good year is the harvest. Gur is what the household has.
Gratitude: it is a thank-you to the man who walked 20 km to bring the news — a payment of affection, since there is no other payment to give.

Why the detail is placed there: it comes just before the paragraph about the letter with the torn corner. The jaggery and the torn envelope are the two halves of the same job — the sweetness he is offered for good news, and the grief he must hand over outside the door. Putting them side by side is how the writer shows the whole weight of the work.

Q3.

III. How would phone lines help Khetaram in his job?

Answer

They would turn him into a Gramin Sanchar Sewak — a carrier of voices as well as of letters. The text says the phone lines are “now only 50 km away, for then he might become Gramin Sanchar Sewak, when his duty will entail carrying a cell phone and the post, from home to home.”

News would stop depending on a 20 km walk. A villager could speak to a son in Jodhpur the same day instead of waiting for a letter to travel by train, bus and shoulder.
It would help those who cannot read or write. At present a message must pass through Khetaram’s eyes and his “slightly shaky hand”; on a phone the family speaks for itself, in its own voice.
Urgent news — a death, an illness, a delayed money order — would arrive at once, and would not have to be broken outside a doorway from a torn envelope.
It would extend his own working life and status, giving him a second, lighter set of duties to carry alongside the mailbag.

Notice his reaction. A man whose job could be made smaller by the telephone answers “Main tayyar hoon” — I’m ready. He sees the change as more service, not less work, which tells you how he understands the job.

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