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The Pot Maker – Class 9 English Chapter 2 Notes & NCERT PDF

Class 9EnglishChapter 2NCERT book: Kaveri - English Class 9

Notes and a simple summary of Chapter 2 of the NCERT Class 9 English book, with the official chapter PDF, flashcards, an MCQ quiz and an AI tutor for your doubts.

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Chapter 2: The Pot Maker

Chapter Overview

Chapter 2 honours traditional skills and vocations. It has two main texts:

  • The Pot Maker — a story by Temsula Ao (abridged) about Sentila, a girl in a Naga village who dreams of becoming a pot maker like her mother and grandmother.
  • Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations — a poem (anonymous) that celebrates the many vocations of Bharat.

    • Additional reading in the chapter: John Galsworthy's story "Quality" (the bootmaker Mr Gessler) and R.L. Stevenson's poem "The Lamplighter".

    The Pot Maker (Temsula Ao)

    Type: short story (abridged), third-person narration.

    Part I — a forbidden dream

  • Sentila wants to be a pot maker; her mother Arenla wants her to become a weaver. Sentila secretly visits expert potters to learn.
  • She overhears Arenla complain: pot making brought "no joy" and "only a pittance". The grey and red clay is found at a riverbank sixteen kilometres away, down "a sheer drop"; pounding the "stubborn clay inside bamboo cylinders" is tedious; a batch takes months and earns "a few rupees". Weaving is cleaner, can be done indoors in all seasons, and earns a "handsome" return.
  • Sentila watches the process: clay mixed with water and pounded; the left hand pushed into the lump; the pot shaped with a spatula in the right hand ("tap, tap… was music to her ears"); touch-up after two or three days; drying in the sun; firing in a kiln on a bed of hay and dried bamboo — over firing or under firing ruins a batch.
  • Village gossip spreads. The village council summons Sentila's father Mesoba, who humbly explains that they wanted her to "grow stronger after her illness". The elders remind him that such skills "did not 'belong' to any individual" — experts must pass them on to their children and to anyone who wishes to learn.

    • Part II — the pot maker is born

  • Arenla takes Sentila to the riverbank, teaches her to dig clay with a dao, carry, soak and pound it into malleable dough. But Sentila cannot shape a pot; for almost a year she learns nothing — her mother just watches.
  • In the girls' dormitory, the kind widow Onula ("Aunty") sees Sentila's tense, clumsy efforts and shows her how. Sentila makes a beautiful pot, but Onula says "The mouth of the pot is all wrong" and tells her to watch her mother's hands when shaping the mouth.
  • Sentila observes how her mother holds her left hand and spatula, slackens the rhythm for the mouth, and adds a strip of dough for the rim.
  • On a sunny day Arenla leaves Sentila to work, saying she has a headache and backache. Sentila works "like a sprinter who had suddenly found momentum", making pots with her mother's dexterity — just one short of her mother's tally.
  • Going in for lunch, she finds her mother lying on the floor, not breathing. At the funeral she cries, "Mother, I did not wish it to happen this way; it simply came to me."
  • Onula enters the shed and sees two rows of pots that cannot be told apart — a "profound revelation".
    • A new pot maker was born.

    Message: Traditional skills are a community heritage that must be passed on; observation, patience and perseverance turn a dream into mastery.

    Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations (Anonymous)

    I hear Bharat celebrating, the varied vocations I hear;
  • A free-verse poem (no strict rhyme; lines of varying length) where the speaker "hears" the whole nation at work: craftspersons ("woven with colours and myriad hues"), artisans with lutes, carpenters ("mathematical precision"), electricians humming as they "brighten our lives", boatmen singing at sea, shoemakers affirming quality for feet that "walk, dance, run, jump, return home", the cook's "delicious singing", the designer and mason.
  • Key line: "The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity."
  • Tone: reverential and celebratory; mood: joyful. Devices: repetition (opening/closing line), auditory imagery (lutes, humming, singing), metaphor ("delicious singing"), personification of vocations, symbolism — each job stands for identity and contribution to society.

    • Word Power

  • outgrow – lose interest as one grows older (बड़े होकर छोड़ देना)
  • indifference – lack of interest (उदासीनता)
  • pittance – a very small amount of money (नगण्य राशि)
  • tedious – tiring, boring (थकाऊ)
  • deftly – skilfully (कुशलता से)
  • spatula – potter's shaping tool (थापी)
  • kiln – oven for firing pots (भट्ठी)
  • malleable – easily shaped without cracking (लचीला)
  • dexterity – skill with the hands (निपुणता)
  • momentum – driving force (गति/वेग)
  • intuitively – based on feelings (सहज बोध से)
  • revelation – moment of realisation (रहस्योद्घाटन)
  • myriad – countless (असंख्य)
  • precision – exactness (सटीकता)

    • Grammar & Language Focus

  • Classifying words: tools (dao, spatula, kiln, bamboo cylinders, basket), raw materials (clay, dough, bamboo, bed of hay), process (pounding, shaping, rotating).
  • Economy words: bankrupt, credit, currency, debt, fiscal, inflation, investment, interest.
  • Noun clauses act as subject/object: She sensed that something momentous had happened.
  • Relative (adjectival) clauses describe a noun: the riverbank where the grey and red clay was found; skills such as pot making, which catered to the needs of the people.
  • Determiners: articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that…), possessives (my, her…), numerals (one, some, many, few…), distributives (each, every, either, neither).
  • Poem vocabulary: vocations such as ASHA worker, confectioner, sericulturist, welder, horticulturist, goldsmith; odd synonyms — myriad ≠ countable, hues ≠ drawing, varied ≠ uniform, delicious ≠ inedible.

    • Speaking & Writing Tasks

  • Role-play between Sentila and Arenla, Mesoba, Onula or a village elder (her desire, challenges, advice).
  • Reflective writing on your skills and passions — introduction, skills, passion into profession, examples, conclusion.
  • Poem tasks: each student speaks as one vocation; design a Career Mela poster (about 50 words, in a box).
  • Beyond the text: regional pottery — Khurja (UP), Blue pottery (Jaipur), Terracotta (West Bengal), Andretta (Himachal Pradesh), Karigari (Tamil Nadu), Longpi Black (Manipur).

    • Common Mistakes

  • Saying Arenla refused outright to teach — Mesoba told the council she had never said she would not teach; they wanted Sentila to grow stronger after her illness.
  • Thinking Sentila made more pots than her mother — she made one short of her mother's tally.
  • Believing Onula taught the rim — she only pointed out the mouth was wrong; Sentila learnt it by watching her mother.
  • Confusing noun clauses (act as subject/object) with relative clauses (describe a noun).
  • Calling "Gifts of Grace" a rhyming poem — it is in free verse.

    • 💡 Key Learning Points

    • ✓Retell Sentila's journey from secret watcher to skilled pot maker, including Onula's help.
    • ✓Describe the traditional pot-making process: digging, pounding, shaping with a spatula, drying and kiln firing.
    • ✓Explain why the village elders say traditional skills belong to the community, not to individuals.
    • ✓Appreciate the free-verse poem 'Gifts of Grace' and its message that vocation is identity.
    • ✓Use noun clauses, relative clauses and determiners correctly.

    👨‍🏫 Teaching Tips

    • →Show pictures (or a video) of a potter's wheel and ask students to list vocations before reading.
    • →Make a flow chart of the pot-making process from the text, with tools and materials labelled.
    • →Pause after Part I and ask: will Sentila fulfil her dream? Will Mesoba and Arenla support her?
    • →Discuss the ending sensitively — focus on Onula's 'revelation' and the idea of skill passing between generations.
    • →Run the role-play between Sentila and another character using the sentence prompts.
    • →For the poem, let groups of five each speak as one vocation for 1–2 minutes.
    • →Research regional pottery styles (Khurja, Blue pottery, Longpi Black) as a mini-project.

    📋 Assessment Questions

    1. Why did Arenla want Sentila to become a weaver? Give two reasons from the text.
    2. How did Onula help Sentila, and what did she ask her to watch?
    3. What is the significance of the line 'A new pot maker was born'?
    4. Explain 'The voice of their vocation is the voice of their identity.'
    5. Underline the main clause and circle the relative clause: 'skills such as pot making, which not only catered to the needs of the people…'

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    Keep learning

    All chapters in Kaveri - English Class 9

    1. 1. How I Taught My Grandmother to Read
    2. 2. The Pot Maker
    3. 3. Winds of Change
    4. 4. Vitamin-M
    5. 5. The World of Limitless Possibilities
    6. 6. Twin Melodies
    7. 7. Carrier of Words
    8. 8. Follow That Dream