Vocation - English-6th: Poem - 4 - Tulip Series

Poem 4: Vocation (Rabindranath Tagore)

When the gong sounds ten in the morning and

I walk to school by our lane,

Every day I meet the hawker crying, “Bangles,

crystal bangles!”

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.

I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the

road, crying, “Bangles, crystal bangles!”

When at four in the afternoon, I come back from school,

I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging the ground.

He does what he likes with his spade, he soils his

clothes with dust, nobody takes him to task, if he

gets baked in the sun or gets wet.

I wish I were a gardener digging away at the garden with nobody to stop me from digging.

Just as it gets dark in the evening and my mother

sends me to bed

I can see through my open window the watchman

walking up and down.

The lane is dark and lonely, and the streetlamp

stands like a giant with one red eye in its head.

The watchman swings his lantern and walks with

his shadow at his side, and never once goes to bed in his life.

I wish I were a watchman walking the street all night, chasing the shadows with my lantern.

THINKING ABOUT THE POEM

Q1. Your partner and you may now be able to answer these questions.

i. Who is the speaker in the poem? Who are the people the speaker meets? What are they doing?

Ans. A child (the poet as a schoolboy) is the speaker of the poem. He meets with a hawker who sells crystal Bangles. He meets with a gardener who digs the ground. He meets a watchman who is waking up and down.

ii. What wishes do the child in the poem make? Why does the child want to be a hawker, a gardener, or a watchman? Pick out the lines in each stanza which tell this.

Ans. The wish to be a hawker, a gardener or a watchman.

The child wants to be a hawker, so that to spend all day on the road by crying, “Bangles, crystal bangles”.

The child wants to be a gardener, so that nobody could stop him from digging the ground.

The child wants to be a watchman, so that he could walk the street all night, chasing the shadows with his lantern.

iii. From the way the child envies the hawker, the gardener and the watchman, we can guess that there are many things the child must do, or must not do.

Make a list of the do’s and don’ts. The first line is done for you.

The child must	The child must not
Come home at fixed time.	Get his clothes dirty in the dust.
Do all his homework neatly.	Torn out the pages of the notebooks.
Be punctual and regular to school.	Be irregular and late to school.
Go to bed at fixed time.	Watch TV for late night.
Be kind and helpful.	Rude and impolite.

iv. Like the child in the poem, you perhaps have your own wishes for yourself. Talk to your friend, using “I wish I were…”

Q2. Find out the different kinds of work done by the people in your neighbourhood. Make different cards for different kinds of work. You can make the card colourful with pictures of the persons doing the work.

Ans. Visitors are advised to do it yourself. You can search your neighbourhood people and ask them what work they do. Start this activity from your home.