Class 6 English Chapter 10: Change of Heart

A boy who had to win

Prabhat always wanted to win. His parents, his teachers and his friends all said the same thing about him, which is that defeat was something he could not accept. Three separate groups of people, and no disagreement between them. The story is exact about how far this went. He could not bear losing at anything, and marbles is named to show that nothing was too small. One small example doing the work of a paragraph.

Why winning mattered so much

Winning gave him a feeling he did not want to give up. Losing made him feel terrible, and he believed nothing worse could happen to anybody. That is a large claim, and he believed it.

How he protected himself

So he simply would not play games he might lose. He took part only when he was sure, which meant sticking to things like badminton, where he was genuinely good. Safe, and very narrow.

The new boy

Then Surya joined the school, and Surya was an excellent badminton player. For the first time there was somebody who might beat him. Prabhat began waiting for the last Friday of the month.

Why that Friday

That was when the coach held friendly matches during the games period. Teams were decided on the Monday, and the two of them were drawn against each other. Four days to wait, and to think about it.

The job he was given

Prabhat was also made responsible for keeping the score. That detail is not decoration. Everything that follows depends on it. He is handed the trust before he uses it.

Two different preparations

Prabhat prepared with great seriousness. Surya walked about smiling and cracking jokes, and did not appear to be taking any of it seriously. Two boys, and two completely different ideas of a game.

On the court

Surya turned out to be a phenomenon, which means somebody with quite special qualities. He won point after point, laughing and joking the whole time. The joking was not a pose. It was how he played.

The moment it happens

Because Surya was paying so little attention, Prabhat changed the scoreboard while Surya was looking the other way. He won by cheating, and nobody noticed. Not the coach, not the class, not Surya.

Two reactions

Prabhat made a great deal of his win. It did not matter to Surya at all, who simply said it had been fun and that they should play again. No suspicion, and no complaint either.

The night after

Everybody talked about how well Prabhat had played. Yet he could not sleep, and he did not feel as happy as a win usually made him feel. He had got exactly what he wanted, and it failed.

Two surprises

The first was that Surya did not mind losing. The second came the next day, when he saw Surya playing basketball and unable to score for ten whole minutes. A completely different game, and the same boy.

Hopeless, and happy

Surya was hopeless at it, meaning he had no skill in it at all, and he enjoyed every minute. If enjoyment needed skill, that could not have happened. The smile never left his face.

Days of watching

Prabhat kept a close watch on him. Surya was great at some things and terrible at others, and the one thing that never varied was the enjoyment. Days of watching, and the same result every day.

What he worked out

You do not need a scoreboard to enjoy a game. You do not need to worry about winning or losing either. Enjoy it for its own sake. What counts is the effort, and the enjoyment of each moment.

How we know he changed

He began playing hide and seek, a game with no score at all, and was sorry when it ended. He joked during badminton, and the others said he had a great sporting spirit. The change had become visible from outside him.

Scenario:

A class is asked why Prabhat cannot sleep. Several answers come quickly. He is afraid of being caught. He thinks somebody saw. He is worried the coach will check the board. Their teacher asks whether any of those is supported by the story, and the class has to admit that nobody suspects anything and nobody ever does. Kritika offers a different answer. She says he cannot sleep because the win is not worth anything, and that he knows it, and that he is the only person who needs to know.

Analysis:

Three explanations from fear, and not one of them is in the story.

Activity:

Write what Prabhat might say to Surya a week later, without confessing anything.

Title:

Two games, one week

What You Notice:

Most people find the two columns match less closely than they expected, and the best line of the week is often from a game they lost. Writing the enjoyment down before the result matters here, because once you know you lost, the memory quietly adjusts itself. That adjusting is exactly what Prabhat had been doing for years.

The chapter's explore pages introduce Deepika Kumari, an archer from Jharkhand who practised with homemade bamboo bows before winning a Commonwealth Games gold.

They also introduce Neeraj Chopra of Haryana, the first athlete from Asia to take an Olympic gold in the javelin.

A friendly match is one played without a trophy at stake, which is exactly the kind Prabhat cheated in.

The shape of the story — WIN - CANNOT SLEEP - WATCH - CHANGE — Four steps. Notice that being caught is not one of them. Nobody ever finds out.

What Surya proved — Great at some, terrible at others, happy at both — If enjoyment depended on being good, that could not happen. Prabhat watched it happen for days.

Two actions, both past

Look at this sentence from the story. Everybody was discussing the game, and how well Prabhat had played. Two things happened, and both are over.

Which came first

Both things are over. But the playing happened first and the discussing afterwards, and the sentence tells you so without saying a word about order. Nothing in it mentions time at all.

How it manages that

The two verbs are built differently. Was discussing is an ordinary past. Had played is something else, and it is the something else that carries the order. One form doing a job the words never state.

The past perfect

That form is called the past perfect. It is made from had and a past participle: had played, had won, had finished, had practised. Two pieces, and the second one has to be a participle.

The rule underneath

When a sentence contains two past actions, the earlier one takes the past perfect. The later one stays in an ordinary past tense. That is the whole rule, and it has no exceptions to learn.

An easy way to hold it

The older action wears had. If you can decide which thing happened first, you already know which verb needs building with had. The thinking is about time, not about grammar.

One form for everybody

Had does not change at all. I had played, she had played, they had played. Very few words in English behave so simply. One form covers everybody, which is one less thing to learn.

Words that give it away

Some words almost always signal an order being set. Before. By the time. Already. Never, in the phrase never before. Wherever one of these turns up, look for a past perfect near it.

Try them out

Prabhat had already finished his homework before going to the match. Surya had played basketball for years before joining the school. In both, the earlier action is the one built with had.

Two more

By the time Prabhat arrived, Surya had already won several matches. Before the games period, Prabhat had practised badminton extensively. Four sentences, and four signals doing the same work.

What happens without it

Say Prabhat finished his homework and went to the match. That works, but only because the sentence lists them in order. The reader is following the words, not the grammar.

Where it really matters

Now put the homework second. Prabhat went to the match after he finished his homework. The reader has to work harder, and a longer sentence may lose them completely. This is where the past perfect earns its keep.

The second job

Now something quite different. Your book takes a long word and asks you to find smaller words hiding inside it. Badminton, phenomenon and basketball are the three it offers.

The rule of the puzzle

The letters must be next to each other, and they must stay in their original order. You may not jump about and you may not rearrange. Read left to right and take only letters that touch.

Badminton

Working through it gives bad, admin, mint, in, ton and on. Six words out of one, and every one of them read straight off the line. The longer the word, the richer it usually is.

Why the rule matters

Without it, badminton would give band and note and dozens more, and the puzzle would stop being a puzzle. The rule is what makes it worth doing. A puzzle without a limit is not a puzzle at all. The restriction is not an obstacle placed in your way. It is the only reason there is anything to find.

Scenario:

A teacher collects three sentences about the story and writes them on the board. Ravi writes that Prabhat had went to the court before the bell rang. Neha writes that Prabhat had practised badminton before the games period began. Imran writes that Surya smiled and had laughed at his own joke. The teacher says one of them is correct, one has the wrong verb form, and one has put had in the wrong place altogether. She asks the class to sort out which is which before she explains anything.

Analysis:

Two mistakes, and they are not the same mistake. One is about the shape of the verb and the other about which action deserves the form.

Activity:

Write three sentences about the story, one with a past perfect and two without, and ask a partner to find the one that has it.

Title:

Mine a long word

What You Notice:

Almost everybody loses two or three finds at the checking stage, and they are nearly always words where a letter was quietly skipped. The words that survive tend to be short, ordinary ones, because those are the ones common enough to turn up inside other words by accident. A long find is worth more than three short ones.

The past perfect is the only tense in English that can reach behind another past action, which is why stories lean on it so often.

Had is the same for everybody. English has very few forms that do not change at all, and this is one of them.

Which action takes the past perfect — The older action wears had — Of two past actions, the one that happened first is the one you build with had.

The puzzle rule — Next to each other, and in order — Badminton gives bad and mint and ton. It does not give band or note, because those would need letters moved.

Three words everybody knows

Please. Thank you. Sorry. The chapter calls them magic words, and every one of you has been using them since you could talk. Knowing the word is the easy half. Because knowing the word is the easy half. The chapter gives you frames to use, and every single frame has a gap in it. That gap is not an accident.

The gap is the point

Could you please. Thank you, because you. I am sorry for. The words before the gap are courtesy, and what goes into the gap is the message. Courtesy is free. The message is not.

A request

Could you please take me into your team. Kindly pass me that file, please. Both name the thing being asked for, so the other person knows what they are agreeing to. Nobody has to guess anything.

Why that matters

A request with no object in it is not really a request. Could you please help puts all the work of guessing onto the person you are asking. They may agree, and still not know what to do.

Now the apologies

Here your book does something careful. It gives two separate sets of words, one for rude behaviour and one for a mistake. Most books give one list. This one gives two.

For how you behaved

I am very sorry for the way I behaved. Or else: I apologise, I was out of line. These are for the times you were unkind or sharp with somebody. Something you chose, however quickly.

For something you did

I am sorry, that was my fault. This one is for the accident, the forgotten file, the spilled water. Nobody was unkind. Something simply went wrong. Nothing was chosen at all.

Why keep them apart

They are not interchangeable. Saying that was my fault after speaking rudely sounds like an accident, and it quietly refuses to own the rudeness. It is a way of appearing to apologise without doing it.

Sorting the situations

Sumit spilled water on a desk, which was an accident. Kriti spoke rudely to somebody, which was not. The same word, and two different sentences after it. Choosing the wrong one changes what you admit to.

Thanking

The frames here are the longest in the chapter. Thank you, it means so much that you. Next: I truly appreciate your help with. And: I wish to thank you because you. All three of them are built to be finished.

Every one has a reason in it

Notice what they have in common. Not one of them stops at thank you, and every one leaves room to name what the person actually did. That room is the point of the frame.

Why a reason proves something

Thank you is politeness and anybody can say it. Thank you for staying behind to explain that chapter is evidence that you noticed and remembered. It could not have been said to anybody else.

Then a diary

The writing task is different again. Prabhat could not sleep after the match, and wrote his feelings down that night. The sleepless night from the inside.

What makes it a diary

It carries a date, a day and a time. It is addressed to nobody. It records what he felt, not only what happened. Those three things together make it a diary.

What that lets him do

He admits he does not understand himself, and wonders whether it is because he changed the score. A sentence nobody would send to another person. No letter to anybody else could have held that.

And what he still avoids

He never once writes the word cheating, though nobody was ever going to read the page. Even with no reader, he cannot quite say it. Even alone, he cannot quite say it.

Scenario:

Three things go wrong in one morning. Sumit knocks a bottle over and water runs across Nupur's desk. Hitesh forgets to bring Simran's art file, which she needed for a lesson. Kriti loses her temper and speaks rudely to Nupur in front of several people. At break all three decide to apologise, and all three use the same sentence: sorry, that was my fault. Nupur accepts one of the apologies easily and feels oddly unsatisfied by the other. Their teacher, who has heard all three, says two of the pupils chose well and one did not.

Analysis:

Two accidents and one choice. One sentence covers the accidents perfectly and cannot cover the choice at all.

Activity:

Write three apologies of your own for three different situations, then read them to a partner and ask which one was for something deliberate.

Title:

One page, only feelings

Safety:

Keep this page private if you want to. A diary only works if you are honest in it, and honesty needs to feel safe.

What You Notice:

The second lines are almost always harder to write than the first ones, and they are also the ones worth keeping. The line you underlined is the one a diary exists for. When you read the page a week later, the events will be things you already remembered, and the feelings will be things you had forgotten completely.

The book gives eight situations to practise on, and no two of them need the same one of the three words.

Prabhat's diary page carries a date, a day and a time, which is what makes it a diary rather than a letter.

Making any of the three work — Fill the gap — Please what. Sorry for what. Thank you for what. All three fail in exactly the same way, which is being left empty.

Which apology to use — HOW YOU WERE, or WHAT YOU DID — Rudeness is how you were. A spilled glass is what you did. Choose the frame to match.