NCERT Solutions for Class 5 English Chapter 9 Vocation (PDF) – 2027

Vocation is a poem in three stanzas by Rabindranath Tagore. A school-going child sees a hawker in the morning, a gardener in the afternoon and a watchman at night. Each time he wishes he were that person, because their lives look free to him.

The speaker is a school-going child.

He tells us that he walks to school at ten in the morning, comes back from school at four, and is sent to bed by his mother when it gets dark.

The speaker wants to be a hawker because the hawker seems free, and the child is not.

“There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.” The child must walk to school by the same lane at the same time every day.

He likes that the gardener can do as he pleases, get as dirty as he likes, and nobody scolds him for it.

The gardener “does what he likes with his spade”, “soils his clothes with dust”, and nobody takes him to task (scolds him) if he gets baked in the sun or gets wet.

The speaker compares the street-lamp to a giant with one red eye in its head.

The line is: “The lane is dark and lonely, and the street-lamp stands like a giant with one red eye in its head.”

The poem gives three fixed points in the speaker’s day:

He admires them because each of them seems to have the one thing he does not have — the freedom to choose his own day.

Nobody hurries the hawker, nobody scolds the gardener for getting dirty, and the watchman is out all night — while the speaker’s own day is fixed by the school gong, the school and his bedtime.

On my way to school I pass the milk booth, the vegetable seller setting out tomatoes, and the tea shop that smells of ginger tea. A traffic policeman helps us cross the road. On my way back, the vegetable cart is nearly empty, the bangle seller has come, and the kulfi cart is waiting near our lane.

Gong → A metal disc that produces a loud sound when hit with a small hammer.

Spade → A tool used for gardening.

Lane → A narrow path.

Giant → An imaginary man-like creature of great height and strength.

Lantern → A case that holds a candle or light in any form and can be easily carried.

Here are all five pairs together. Draw your lines in the book like this.

I have recently read a new book. — this one is done for you in the book.

The mistake is the word has. It is underlined in the book, and the corrected sentence is written below it in handwriting.

The speaker goes to school at ten in the morning.

The mistake is the word for. Underline it, and put to in its place.

The fox ran faster than the others.

The mistake is the word fast. Underline it, and write faster.

Mita was sleeping when the doorbell rang.

The mistake is the word slept. Underline it, and write sleeping.

The old elephant walked slowly to the river.

The mistake is the word slow. Underline it, and write slowly.

Radhika is taller than Suman.

The mistake is the word tall. Underline it, and write taller.

Sudhanshu ran fastest of all the runners.

The mistake is the word faster. Underline it, and write fastest.

My mother is cooking.

The mistake is the word are. Underline it, and write is.

He goes to school every day.

The mistake is the word go. Underline it, and write goes.

The birds are flying.

The mistake is the word is. Underline it, and write are.

A telescope is a long tube with special glass lenses inside. It makes faraway things look big and near.

Where: in a school science lab, a planetarium or a science centre. Used for: looking at the moon, the stars and the planets, and at faraway things.

A hammer is a tool with a heavy metal head and a wooden handle. It is used to hit things — mainly to drive nails into wood.

Where: in a carpenter’s shop or the toolbox at home. Used for: driving nails into wood; the claw at the back pulls nails out.

A camera is a machine that takes photographs.

Where: at weddings and school functions, in a photo studio, and inside a mobile phone. Used for: taking photographs and recording videos.

A screwdriver is a tool with a thin metal rod and a fat handle. Its tip fits into the little slot on the head of a screw, so that the screw can be turned.

Where: in the toolbox at home, or with an electrician or a cycle mechanic. Used for: turning screws in and out.

A sickle is a curved blade with a short wooden handle, used for cutting crops and grass.

Where: in the fields at harvest time, or in a village home. Used for: cutting crops like wheat and paddy, and grass for cattle.

A stethoscope is an instrument for listening to the sounds inside a person’s body.

Where: at a clinic, a hospital or a school health check-up. Used for: listening to a person’s heartbeat and breathing.

A grater is a flat metal sheet covered with small sharp holes. Rubbing food against it shreds the food into tiny bits.

Where: in the kitchen at home. Used for: grating coconut, carrot, ginger or cheese.

Tongs are two long arms joined at one end. You squeeze them together to pick something up without touching it with your fingers.

Where: in the kitchen at home. Used for: picking up hot things, like a roti from the flame, and serving food.

The compass in this picture is the geometry compass — two arms joined at the top, one ending in a sharp point and the other holding a pencil. It is used to draw circles.

Where: in my geometry box and in the maths class. Used for: drawing circles and arcs.

This is a computer mouse — a small hand-held device with buttons and a wire, used to control a computer.

Where: in the school computer room, at a cyber café, or beside a computer at home. Used for: moving the pointer on the screen and clicking.

A saw is a long flat metal blade with sharp teeth along one edge. It is used to cut wood.

Where: in a carpenter’s workshop or a timber shop. Used for: cutting wood and thick branches.

Make two questions with two different WH-words (who, what, when, where, why, which, whose, how). The answer to each question must be in the poem.

Sample answer — questions made by the groups, with their answers:

All eight words end with the very same sound — “shun”. They are spelt in three different ways, but your mouth does exactly the same thing at the end of each one.

Last Saturday I wanted to do many things but could not. My cousin had come from Kanpur, my school project on water was due on Monday, and my friends had planned a cricket match. I had only a few hours, and I wanted to be in three places at once.

I wanted to do four things. First, I wanted to finish my water project. Second, I wanted to play in the cricket match. Third, I wanted to take my cousin to the fair. Fourth, I wanted to read my new library book.

The first difficulty was time — each thing needed an hour or more, and I had only about five hours. The second was that my mind was never fully on one thing. The third was that people were waiting for me. In the end my chart was untidy.

At first I felt excited. By the afternoon I felt hurried and tense. At night, when I saw my untidy chart, I felt disappointed. I learnt that it is better to do two things properly than four things badly.

“Last Saturday I wanted to do four things, but I could not do them all, because I had only five hours. My mind was never fully on one thing, and I felt disappointed with my untidy chart. Now I choose two things and do them well. Has this happened to any of you?”

The child sees only the free side of each job. The hawker walks for hours in the heat, and some days nobody buys. The gardener digs in the hot sun and the rain until his back aches, and does the same work every day. The watchman stays awake all night, alone and cold. These are hard jobs that deserve respect.

Sample answer (one of the three paragraphs):

My mother. My mother is a homemaker. She runs our whole house. She wakes at five, cooks breakfast and packs three tiffins, then washes clothes and cleans the rooms. In the afternoon she stitches blouses for two neighbours on her sewing machine and earns a little from it. Her work never stops, and nothing in our home would run without her. (59 words)

Write two more like this (samples below).

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was a scientist and an engineer — and later the President of India.

He is called the “Missile Man of India”, and he was the eleventh President of India (2002–2007).

M. Visvesvaraya was a civil engineer.

He built dams such as the Krishna Raja Sagara dam on the Kaveri. His birthday, 15 September, is celebrated as Engineers’ Day.

Janaki Ammal was a botanist — a scientist who studies plants.

She is remembered for her work on sugarcane and on the wild plants of India.

M.S. Subbulakshmi was a singer — a great Carnatic classical vocalist.

She was the first musician to receive the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award.

Salim Ali was an ornithologist — a scientist who studies birds.

He is called the “Birdman of India”, and he wrote The Book of Indian Birds.

This one is done for you in the book:

What is strange: A doctor is stopping the traffic at a road crossing.

What is strange: A police officer is checking a boy’s heartbeat with a stethoscope.

What is strange: A lawyer is drawing a building plan on a drawing board.

What is strange: A firefighter is teaching a class at the blackboard.

What is strange: A construction worker is mending shoes.

I would choose to be a teacher. I like explaining things — I once taught my younger cousin subtraction with borrowing, and it made me very happy. A teacher must be patient and correct many notebooks, but helping children learn is worth it.

Yes. My dream job is to be a veterinary doctor, a doctor who treats animals. When our buffalo fell ill, the vet made her well again, and I saw how relieved my grandfather was. Animals cannot tell us where it hurts, and I want to learn how to help them.

Sample answer (what one child drew): Myself as a teacher in a blue kurta, with chalk in my raised hand, beside a green blackboard with a sum on it. Three children sit at desks in front of me, and one has her hand up. Under the picture I have written “teacher”.