NCERT Textbook - My Childhood | English Class 9 PDF Download

 Page 1


B B B B BEFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE Y Y Y Y YOU OU OU OU OU R R R R READ EAD EAD EAD EAD
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.
1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.
6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood
erstwhile: former
austere: simple,
strict and severe
innate: inborn; (a
quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
2024-25 2024-25
Page 2


B B B B BEFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE Y Y Y Y YOU OU OU OU OU R R R R READ EAD EAD EAD EAD
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.
1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.
6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood
erstwhile: former
austere: simple,
strict and severe
innate: inborn; (a
quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
2024-25 2024-25
3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I
was eight years old. For reasons I have never been
able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind
seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the
seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque
Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely
sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin
would tell me stories about the War which I would
later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani.
Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected
by the War. But soon India was forced to join the
Allied Forces and something like a state of
emergency was declared. The first casualty came
in the form of the suspension of the train halt at
Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to
be bundled and thrown out from the moving train
on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram
and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin,
who distributed newspapers in Rameswaram , to
look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as
if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me
earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still
feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for
the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited
characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and
emotional environment, and trained in certain ways
by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-
discipline from my father; from my mother, I
inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and
so did my three brothers and sister. I had three
close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry,
Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were
from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children,
none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves
because of our religious differences and upbringing.
In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi
Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the
Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the
priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his
princely sum:
generous amount
(here, ironic)
anna: an old Indian
coin, worth about six
paise
Allied Forces: the
armies of U.K.,
U.S.A. and Russia
during the Second
World War
My Childhood /69
2024-25 2024-25
Page 3


B B B B BEFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE Y Y Y Y YOU OU OU OU OU R R R R READ EAD EAD EAD EAD
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.
1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.
6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood
erstwhile: former
austere: simple,
strict and severe
innate: inborn; (a
quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
2024-25 2024-25
3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I
was eight years old. For reasons I have never been
able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind
seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the
seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque
Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely
sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin
would tell me stories about the War which I would
later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani.
Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected
by the War. But soon India was forced to join the
Allied Forces and something like a state of
emergency was declared. The first casualty came
in the form of the suspension of the train halt at
Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to
be bundled and thrown out from the moving train
on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram
and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin,
who distributed newspapers in Rameswaram , to
look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as
if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me
earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still
feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for
the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited
characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and
emotional environment, and trained in certain ways
by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-
discipline from my father; from my mother, I
inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and
so did my three brothers and sister. I had three
close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry,
Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were
from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children,
none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves
because of our religious differences and upbringing.
In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi
Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the
Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the
priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his
princely sum:
generous amount
(here, ironic)
anna: an old Indian
coin, worth about six
paise
Allied Forces: the
armies of U.K.,
U.S.A. and Russia
during the Second
World War
My Childhood /69
2024-25 2024-25
father; Aravindan went into the business of
arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and
Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the
Southern Railways.
5. During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam
ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a
special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from
the temple to the marriage site, situated in the
middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was
near our house. Events from the Ramayana and
from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories
my mother and grandmother would tell the children
in our family.
6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the
Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher
came to our class. I used to wear a cap which
marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the
front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore the
70 / Beehive
Our family used to arrange boats for carrying idols
of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site.
2024-25 2024-25
Page 4


B B B B BEFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE Y Y Y Y YOU OU OU OU OU R R R R READ EAD EAD EAD EAD
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.
1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.
6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood
erstwhile: former
austere: simple,
strict and severe
innate: inborn; (a
quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
2024-25 2024-25
3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I
was eight years old. For reasons I have never been
able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind
seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the
seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque
Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely
sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin
would tell me stories about the War which I would
later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani.
Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected
by the War. But soon India was forced to join the
Allied Forces and something like a state of
emergency was declared. The first casualty came
in the form of the suspension of the train halt at
Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to
be bundled and thrown out from the moving train
on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram
and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin,
who distributed newspapers in Rameswaram , to
look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as
if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me
earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still
feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for
the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited
characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and
emotional environment, and trained in certain ways
by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-
discipline from my father; from my mother, I
inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and
so did my three brothers and sister. I had three
close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry,
Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were
from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children,
none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves
because of our religious differences and upbringing.
In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi
Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the
Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the
priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his
princely sum:
generous amount
(here, ironic)
anna: an old Indian
coin, worth about six
paise
Allied Forces: the
armies of U.K.,
U.S.A. and Russia
during the Second
World War
My Childhood /69
2024-25 2024-25
father; Aravindan went into the business of
arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and
Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the
Southern Railways.
5. During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam
ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a
special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from
the temple to the marriage site, situated in the
middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was
near our house. Events from the Ramayana and
from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories
my mother and grandmother would tell the children
in our family.
6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the
Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher
came to our class. I used to wear a cap which
marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the
front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore the
70 / Beehive
Our family used to arrange boats for carrying idols
of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site.
2024-25 2024-25
conviction: a strong
opinion or belief
downcast: sad or
depressed
My Childhood /71
sacred thread. The new teacher could not stomach
a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In
accordance with our social ranking as the new
teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the
back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha
Sastry. He looked utterly downcast as I shifted to
my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping
when I shifted to the last row left a lasting
impression on me.
7. After school, we went home and told our respective
parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry
summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told
the teacher that he should not spread the poison of
social inequality and communal intolerance in the
minds of innocent children. He bluntly asked the
teacher to either apologise or quit the school and
the island. Not only did the teacher regret his
behaviour, but the strong sense of conviction
Lakshmana Sastry conveyed ultimately reformed
this young teacher.
could not stomach:
could not tolerate
2024-25 2024-25
Page 5


B B B B BEFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE EFORE Y Y Y Y YOU OU OU OU OU R R R R READ EAD EAD EAD EAD
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.
1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.
6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood 6. My Childhood
erstwhile: former
austere: simple,
strict and severe
innate: inborn; (a
quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
2024-25 2024-25
3. The Second World War broke out in 1939, when I
was eight years old. For reasons I have never been
able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind
seeds erupted in the market. I used to collect the
seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque
Street. A day’s collection would fetch me the princely
sum of one anna. My brother-in-law Jallaluddin
would tell me stories about the War which I would
later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani.
Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected
by the War. But soon India was forced to join the
Allied Forces and something like a state of
emergency was declared. The first casualty came
in the form of the suspension of the train halt at
Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to
be bundled and thrown out from the moving train
on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram
and Dhanuskodi. That forced my cousin Samsuddin,
who distributed newspapers in Rameswaram , to
look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as
if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me
earn my first wages. Half a century later, I can still
feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for
the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited
characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and
emotional environment, and trained in certain ways
by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-
discipline from my father; from my mother, I
inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and
so did my three brothers and sister. I had three
close friends in my childhood — Ramanadha Sastry,
Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were
from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children,
none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves
because of our religious differences and upbringing.
In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi
Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the
Rameswaram temple. Later, he took over the
priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his
princely sum:
generous amount
(here, ironic)
anna: an old Indian
coin, worth about six
paise
Allied Forces: the
armies of U.K.,
U.S.A. and Russia
during the Second
World War
My Childhood /69
2024-25 2024-25
father; Aravindan went into the business of
arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and
Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the
Southern Railways.
5. During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam
ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a
special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from
the temple to the marriage site, situated in the
middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was
near our house. Events from the Ramayana and
from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories
my mother and grandmother would tell the children
in our family.
6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the
Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher
came to our class. I used to wear a cap which
marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the
front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore the
70 / Beehive
Our family used to arrange boats for carrying idols
of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site.
2024-25 2024-25
conviction: a strong
opinion or belief
downcast: sad or
depressed
My Childhood /71
sacred thread. The new teacher could not stomach
a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In
accordance with our social ranking as the new
teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the
back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha
Sastry. He looked utterly downcast as I shifted to
my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping
when I shifted to the last row left a lasting
impression on me.
7. After school, we went home and told our respective
parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry
summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told
the teacher that he should not spread the poison of
social inequality and communal intolerance in the
minds of innocent children. He bluntly asked the
teacher to either apologise or quit the school and
the island. Not only did the teacher regret his
behaviour, but the strong sense of conviction
Lakshmana Sastry conveyed ultimately reformed
this young teacher.
could not stomach:
could not tolerate
2024-25 2024-25
72 / Beehive
8. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram
was very rigid in terms of the segregation of different
social groups. However, my science teacher
Sivasubramania Iyer, though an orthodox Brahmin
with a very conservative wife, was something of a
rebel. He did his best to break social barriers so
that people from varying backgrounds could mingle
easily. He used to spend hours with me and would
say, “Kalam, I want you to develop so that you
are on par with the highly educated people of the
big cities.”
9. One day, he invited me to his home for a meal. His
wife was horrified at the idea of a Muslim boy being
invited to dine in her ritually pure kitchen. She
refused to serve me in her kitchen. Sivasubramania
Iyer was not perturbed, nor did he get angry
with his wife, but instead, served me with
I always sat in the front row next
to Ramanadha Sastry.
ritually pure: kept
protected from all
outside influences
for the observances
of religion
2024-25 2024-25