NCERT Solutions for Class 9th English Chapter 8 Believe in Yourself (poem by Robert Langley) — Learning Beyond the Text

Book page 256–258 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

I. Explore the stories of Indian leaders who faced significant challenges and turned them into opportunities for success. For example: 1. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar At school, Ambedkar suffered untold humiliations and discrimination but he never gave up. It was for sheer grit, hardwork, and perseverence that he went on to study Politics and Economics. His self-motivation proved to be a life-changing event not only for him but also for the nation. He is known as a great jurist, economist, and social reformer. He rose to become the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of India.

Answer

What the example demonstrates: that the obstacle Ambedkar faced was not a shortage of ability or opportunity but a society that refused him both — and that his response was to acquire more education than almost anyone of his generation, and then to use it to change the rules for everybody.

The challenge, as the book states it. “At school, Ambedkar suffered untold humiliations and discrimination.” The details are worth knowing: as a Mahar boy he was made to sit apart from his classmates, was not permitted to touch the common water pot, and could not learn Sanskrit because of his caste. The humiliation was built into the school day itself — into where he sat and whether he could drink.

What he turned it into.

The obstacle	What it became
Denied dignity in a classroom	Two doctorates — Columbia University and the London School of Economics — and training as a barrister at Gray’s Inn
Denied water at a public tank	The Mahad Satyagraha of 1927, a public assertion of the right of all to drink from a common source
Denied the protection of law	Chairperson of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution of India — the man who framed the guarantees, including the abolition of untouchability under Article 17

The point the book is making by placing him first. Notice the exact phrasing: “His self-motivation proved to be a life-changing event not only for him but also for the nation.” A challenge turned into an opportunity does not stop at the person who turned it. Ambedkar’s answer to being humiliated in one classroom was a constitutional guarantee for a fifth of India’s people — which is why he is the strongest possible example of this chapter’s claim, and also its most demanding one.

For the project: read his own account of a childhood journey in the essay Waiting for a Visa, and look up the Mahad Satyagraha and Article 17 of the Constitution. Aim to connect one specific humiliation to one specific reform — a presentation that names dates and provisions is worth far more than one that repeats the word ‘inspiring’.

Q2.

I. 2. Lal Bahadur Shastri He endured many hardships throughout his life. His father passed away when he was just a year and a half old, leaving the family in financial distress. Despite the challenges, he remained committed to his education, often walking several miles barefoot to attend school, even in extreme weather. After graduating from Kashi Vidyapeeth in Varanasi, he was honoured with the title “Shastri,” meaning scholar. Deeply involved in India’s freedom movement, Shastri was imprisoned multiple times alongside other freedom fighters for his active participation. Following India’s independence, he dedicated himself to the progress and unity of the nation. Through unwavering determination and sincere efforts, Lal Bahadur Shastri rose to become the Prime Minister of India, leaving a legacy of humility, service, and patriotism.

Answer

What the example demonstrates: that persistence in very small, daily, unglamorous acts — the walk to school, barefoot, in any weather — is what makes the later, visible achievements possible.

The challenge	The response the book records
Father died when he was eighteen months old; the family in “financial distress”	He “remained committed to his education”
No money for shoes or transport	He walked “several miles barefoot to attend school, even in extreme weather”
Repeated imprisonment during the freedom movement	Continued “active participation”; he used the prison years to read
A country short of food after Independence	Dedication “to the progress and unity of the nation”; the title Shastri, ‘scholar’, was earned at Kashi Vidyapeeth

Why the barefoot walk is the detail the book keeps. Of everything that could be said about Shastri, the writers chose a detail that is repeated every single day for years and is witnessed by nobody. That is precisely the poem’s idea of the unseen effort — “There is no crowd to see” — carried out not once but thousands of times. The barefoot walk is not a heroic moment; it is a heroic habit, and habits are what actually build a life.

Two things to look up for the project. As Prime Minister he gave the country the slogan “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” during the 1965 conflict and a severe food shortage, and he asked citizens to fast for one meal a week — beginning with his own household. Look for the connection between the boy who had nothing and the leader who asked a nation to go without. The legacy the book names — “humility, service, and patriotism” — is not decoration; it is traceable to the childhood.

Q3.

I. 3. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Kalam’s family faced financial difficulties, which made it hard for them to support his education fully. To help with his school expenses, Kalam took on a job delivering newspapers early in the morning. He would wake up before dawn, distribute newspapers across the town, and then head to school. This job was more than just a way to earn money; it was a valuable learning experience for Kalam. Through this work, he learnt the importance of hard work, perseverance, and managing responsibilities. It also gave him a sense of independence and taught him the value of hard work. He was a renowned scientist, also known as the ‘Missile Man of India’. He rose to become the 11th President of India.

Answer

What the example demonstrates: that a difficulty can become the training itself. The newspaper round was undertaken to pay for school — but the book is careful to say that its real return was not the money.

Read the second paragraph again. “This job was more than just a way to earn money; it was a valuable learning experience.” Three things are named as its yield:

Hard work — rising before dawn, every day, before the school day had even begun.
Perseverance — a round is not finished when you are tired; it is finished when the last house has its paper.
Managing responsibilities — a boy carrying both a job and his lessons must plan his hours, which is a skill most adults acquire much later.

And a fourth, which the book states separately: “a sense of independence” — the knowledge that he was contributing rather than only receiving.

The turn that makes this a ‘challenge into opportunity’ story rather than a hardship story. Anyone can say that Kalam was poor and became President. The book instead identifies what the poverty taught him that a comfortable childhood would not have. That is the move the whole exercise is asking you to make in your own research: do not simply list the hardship and then the honour, as though the second cancelled the first. Show the line between them. In Kalam’s case, the boy who managed a paper round and a school day before eight in the morning became the man who managed the Agni and Prithvi missile programmes — the same skill, at a different scale.

For the project: read Wings of Fire, his autobiography, and look at his account of his teacher Sivasubramania Iyer, and of the day his boat-building teacher took the class to the seashore. Kalam’s own writing is generous about the people who helped him — which is a useful corrective to the poem’s claim that “There is no crowd to see”.

Q4.

I. Now, find out about such personalities from your village, town, city, or state and present their success stories in class.

Answer

How to do this well. The three examples in the book are national figures whose lives are in every library. This task asks for the opposite kind of research — somebody near enough that you can actually talk to them, or to people who knew them. That is what makes the presentation yours.

Where to look

Your own school. The oldest teacher, the office clerk who studied at night, the alumnus whose photograph hangs in the corridor.
Your street and family. A grandparent who was the first in the family to finish school; a neighbour who built a business from a cycle cart; a woman who runs a self-help group.
The district. The local library’s newspaper file, the panchayat office, the district gazetteer, a municipal award list. Sports associations and hospitals keep records of local achievers.
The state. Padma award citations, state government press releases, and the archives of your regional newspaper.

How to conduct the interview — five questions that produce a real story rather than a list of praises:

What did you want to do when you were my age?
What was the single biggest obstacle, and how old were you when you met it?
Was there a moment when you nearly gave up? What stopped you?
Who helped, and how?
What would you tell a fifteen-year-old who is where you were then?

How to present it — five minutes

1. The person	Name, place, what they are known for. One photograph if you have permission.
2. The challenge	Specific and dated. “No electricity in the village until 1998” is a challenge; “life was hard” is not.
3. The turning point	The one decision or first step that changed the direction.
4. The result	What exists today that would not otherwise exist.
5. Your line	One sentence on what you learnt. In your own words, not a proverb.

Sample answer (an outline, to show the shape): Smt. Kamala Devi, Ward 7, our town. She was married at seventeen and widowed at twenty-six, with two children and no income. In 1996 she borrowed ₹2,000 from a self-help group and began selling pickles from a basket outside the bus stand. The turning point was not the loan but the decision, two years later, to register a licence and buy a second-hand sealing machine instead of expanding the basket — she told me she was “tired of being asked whose pickles they really were.” Her unit now employs eleven women, nine of them from families like hers, and two of her original customers still order by the crate. When I asked what she would tell someone my age, she said: “Do the frightening thing on a Monday. If you wait for a good day it becomes a good year, and then it becomes never.”

Why the local story is worth more than the famous one. Ambedkar, Shastri and Kalam are so far above an ordinary student’s life that they can be admired without being imitated. A woman from Ward 7 is close enough to be copied — and the poem’s claim is precisely about the ordinary person at the foot of the stairs, not about the exceptional one at the top. Notice, too, that Kamala Devi’s advice — do it on a Monday — is Langley’s “first step is the hardest”, translated into something you could act on tomorrow.

Two courtesies that matter. Ask permission before you record or photograph anyone, and show the person what you have written before you present it. A life is not raw material; the interview is itself a small exercise in the respect the chapter has been teaching.

Q5.

[Printed page 258, at the end of the chapter, the book closes with a second poem, given without any heading or exercise.] Always Believe in Yourself Always believe in yourself. Do not limit yourself. Be kind to yourself And always believe in all that is good. You have all the intelligence and ability that you need. You can attain whatever you are after. Even though it may not always come the way you believe it should. Be ready to achieve your dreams. Believe in yourself when you’re tested beyond your endurance, continue and persist. Hold on to courage. Let laughter and encouragement surround you. The world has much to give; Always think big, And keep your hands and heart open For then you will receive All of life’s gifts. Dorothy Hewitt

Answer

The book prints this poem on the last page of the chapter with no heading and no questions — it is offered simply to be read. But it has been placed there deliberately, and reading it against the two pieces you have just studied is the best way to close the chapter.

What kind of poem it is. Notice what it does not have: no rhyme, no fixed line length, no stanza divisions — this is free verse, and it reads like advice spoken aloud rather than a lyric. Its unity comes from repetition instead of rhyme: yourself ends four of the first five lines, and Always opens the poem, returns in line 4 and again in line 13. The word ‘always’ is doing the work that a refrain would do in a rhymed poem.

The three claims it makes

Lines	The claim
“Do not limit yourself… You have all the intelligence and ability that you need.”	The limit is self-imposed. What you lack is not capacity but permission — from yourself.
“You can attain whatever you are after. / Even though it may not always come the way you believe it should.”	Success arrives, but rarely in the form you had pictured. This is the poem’s most honest line and its least quotable one.
“keep your hands and heart open / For then you will receive / All of life’s gifts.”	Self-belief is not self-enclosure. What you get depends on staying open — to help, to laughter, to other people.

Why the book ends the whole textbook here — and how the three pieces answer one another.

Langley insists on solitude: “There is no crowd to see… It’s just you and the future.” He is right about the moment of decision.
Irene Chua insists on company and on cost: “for one winner, there is a group of people who stood by him/her”, and “Count the cost.” She is right about the years that follow.
Hewitt holds both. She begins alone — four lines of yourself — and ends open-handed: “Let laughter and encouragement surround you… keep your hands and heart open.” Self-belief begins in solitude and has to end in company, or it turns into mere self-sufficiency.

And one line of hers speaks directly back to the mother’s letter. Chua wrote that “life itself may change a person’s dreams” and that the later hopes “are no less than the original dream”. Hewitt says the same thing in a single qualification: “Even though it may not always come the way you believe it should.” That is the chapter’s last and best piece of advice — hold the dream firmly and hold its shape loosely.

Read it aloud once. The lines are of very unequal length — three words, then eleven, then three — which forces changes of pace, and the two longest lines are the two that admit difficulty (“tested beyond your endurance”, “not always come the way you believe it should”). Free verse controls a reader through line length instead of metre, and this poem slows down exactly where the going gets hard.

Was this helpful? Report an error