Class 7 English Chapter 13: A Homage to Our Brave Soldiers

A chapter made of two letters

Soumya writes from Bengaluru after a school trip to Delhi. Ananda writes back from Chandigarh a week later. Everything in the chapter is inside those two envelopes, and the second one is the half most readers skip.

How the first letter opens

Not with the monument. It opens with a question she has been carrying since their last conversation: who were the people who fought for this country, and does anybody remember their names? The memorial arrives as an answer to something she wanted to know already.

The guessing game

She gives her friend the dates first, as clues. Begun in April 2018, finished in February 2019, inaugurated by the Prime Minister, 40 acres near India Gate. Then she lets her guess: the National War Memorial.

What a tablet is

Every brick of the walls is called a tablet. There are 29,000 of them, and more than 26,000 names are etched on them so far, each one a soldier who fought for India since 1947. A single tablet carries a single name, in golden letters, so the wall is a list of people rather than of battles.

More tablets than names

That difference is deliberate and worth noticing. The memorial was built with room on its walls for the names that are not there yet.

Which wars the names come from

Every one since Independence. The Indo-China conflict of 1962, the wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971, and the Kargil War of 1999, among others.

The four circles

Four concentric rings round a 15-metre obelisk: Amar Chakra, Veerta Chakra, Tyag Chakra and Raksha Chakra. Immortality, bravery, sacrifice and protection, from the middle outwards. Learn them in that direction and the memorial makes sense. Learn them from the trees inwards and it does not, because the argument runs the other way.

The innermost

Amar Chakra, the Circle of Immortality. The obelisk stands here with the eternal flame, which says that the spirit of the fallen does not end and that the country will not forget.

The second

Veerta Chakra, the Circle of Bravery. A covered gallery with six murals crafted in bronze, showing actions of the armed forces in battle.

The third

Tyag Chakra, the Circle of Sacrifice. Its concentric walls recall the Chakravyuh, the old battle formation, and they carry the granite tablets with the names in golden letters.

The outermost

Raksha Chakra, the Circle of Protection. It is a row of trees, and each tree stands for the soldiers who keep the borders. A circle of living things round a circle of names.

The flame, and where it used to be

The Amar Jawan Jyoti was lit beneath the India Gate arch in January 1972, to mark the victory of 1971. In 2019 a new flame was lit at the memorial, and the old one merged into it.

What Soumya notices that a guidebook would not

The lighting. It is designed so that the look of the place changes as the light moves from dawn to dusk. She says the flame struck her as a metaphor for stories of courage that do not end.

How her day ends

In tears, partly. She says the talks during the day brought them, because of the scale of the loss, and that the visit made her want to live a life worth the sacrifices. That last sentence is the first thing in the chapter that anybody promises to do.

Now the second letter

Ananda replies, and she is not simply agreeing. She starts by separating two ways of seeing a war memorial: as a monument to a victory, or as an expression of gratitude for a sacrifice.

Her own city’s memorial

She remembers finding one in Chandigarh by accident, in the middle of a garden in Sector 3, with people laying flowers. That memory is what sends her to a Hindi poem about a flower that asks to be thrown on a soldier’s path.

The six things she means to do

Visit the memorial. Use the app. Share the idea with her class. Make a collage of people who inspire her. Look up Captain Anuj Nayyar. And join the armed forces. The book’s own table asks a reader to find all six.

Why the chapter needs both letters

Soumya reports and Ananda responds. One letter would have given us a monument and a feeling; two letters give us a monument, a disagreement about what it is for, and a list of things somebody is going to do about it.

Scenario:

Two pupils write up the same school trip for a class noticeboard. Pranav writes twelve sentences of facts: the dates of construction, the acreage, the number of tablets, the names of the four circles and the height of the obelisk. Every figure is right. Rachita writes eight sentences. Four are facts, chosen because something follows from each: there are more tablets than names, so room was left; the outermost circle is trees, so the ring of names is surrounded by living things. The other four say what she now means to do about it. Their teacher pins both up and asks the class which one made them want to go.

Analysis:

The class chose Rachita’s, and the reason is in the structure rather than the writing. Pranav has the same facts and no consequences. A figure with nothing following from it is a figure, and twelve of them in a row is a list that the reader forgets at the bottom. Rachita keeps fewer facts and makes each one lead somewhere: the gap between 29,000 tablets and 26,000 names becomes a decision about the future, and a circle of trees becomes a thing to look at. Then she does what Ananda does in the second letter, which is to turn a visit into intentions. Notice that neither pupil wrote better English. Rachita simply asked, of every fact she kept, what it was evidence FOR, and threw away the ones with no answer.

Activity:

Take any six facts from this chapter and write beside each one what follows from it. Cross out the ones where you cannot think of anything.

Title:

Walk the circles outwards

Safety:

None needed.

What You Notice:

The memorial goes from the one flame at the centre to a ring of living trees at the edge, and the names sit between them. The order is an argument, not a layout.

The National War Memorial has an app that answers questions in twenty-one languages, which Ananda mentions in her reply.

Philately is the collecting of postage stamps, and it is Ananda’s hobby. She likes letters partly for the stamps on the envelopes.

Kartavyapath, the avenue beside the memorial, was renamed in 2022, and the lawns and buildings along it are part of what Soumya describes.

The four chakras — Amar, Veerta, Tyag, Raksha - inside out — Immortality at the centre with the flame, then bravery with its murals, then sacrifice with the tablets, then protection as a ring of trees.

The numbers — 29,000 tablets, 26,000 names, 40 acres — More tablets than names, because the memorial was built with room for the ones still to come. Forty acres, and a 15-metre obelisk at the middle.

Twenty-six thousand names, and a few of them

The memorial carries more than 26,000 names. The chapter picks out six or seven soldiers, and the reason is not that they were braver than the rest. It is that their records survive in a form a reader can study.

The medals, in order

The Param Vir Chakra is India’s highest wartime gallantry award. The Maha Vir Chakra is the second highest. The teacher also names the Kirti Chakra, the Vir Chakra and the Shaurya Chakra. Five awards, and every soldier the chapter names is tied to one of them.

Why the order matters

Because almost every question about a soldier in this chapter turns on which medal he received. Twenty-one people are mentioned as having received the Param Vir Chakra.

The first of them

Major Somnath Sharma, for the Battle of Badgam in 1947, in the first year of independent India. It was awarded posthumously, and so were most of the others in the chapter.

That word, posthumously

It means after death. It appears so often here for a plain reason: the acts that earn the highest awards are usually the ones the person does not come back from. Read it carelessly and a memorial turns into a prize list.

The 1971 names

Four Param Vir Chakras for that war, all posthumous. Major Hoshiar Singh and Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal of the army; Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon of the air force; and Lance Naik Albert Ekka, whose citation the chapter prints.

And one from the Navy

Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla received the Maha Vir Chakra for the same war. The chapter mentions him to make the point that the names are not from one service only.

The two Kargil officers

Major Padmapani Acharya of 2 Rajputana Rifles and Captain Anuj Nayyar of 17 Jat, both awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for 1999, and both posthumously. Each is also remembered outside the official record, and by a different hand.

Now the citations

The chapter prints two of them in full, for Albert Ekka and for Padmapani Acharya. They are official documents, and they are built the same way as each other.

What a citation does, in order

It names the person, with the unit and the service number. It gives the date and the place. It sets out what the situation was. It states what the person did. And it records what followed from it.

The last line of each

A notification number from the Gazette of India. That is how an award can be checked in the official record years later, and it is the clearest sign that a citation is a document and not a tribute. Nothing else in the chapter ends with a reference number, and nothing else in it has to.

Why it reads so flatly

Because a citation has to be verifiable. The writing is deliberately plain: positions, weapons, distances, injuries. A reader supplies the feeling, and the document supplies the facts. That division of labour is the whole design, and it is why a citation read aloud sounds colder than the act it records.

What both citations have in common

In each one the officer or the soldier is wounded and keeps going, and in each one the objective is taken and the man does not survive it. The document reports both halves in the same tone.

Why that is the right choice

Because a citation that praised would be harder to trust. The flatness is what makes it evidence, and a reader who notices the flatness understands the document rather than only the deed.

The letter and the memoir

Two of these soldiers are also remembered outside the official record. Major Padmapani Acharya wrote to his father before the battle, saying he was not afraid, and quoted the Gita.

And Captain Anuj Nayyar

His mother, Meena Nayyar, wrote a memoir about him. She has said that writing about the smallest things shook her, and that she did it because otherwise nobody would know what he had done.

Two kinds of record

A citation can be checked and a memoir cannot, and a memoir can say what a person was like and a citation cannot. The chapter uses both, and a good answer about any soldier here uses both as well. Neither kind of record is the better one; they answer different questions.

What the names are for

The chapter is called a homage. A medal is a decision taken by a government; a name on a tablet is a promise not to forget. The citations are how the one becomes the other.

Scenario:

A school magazine asks two pupils to write 150 words on Lance Naik Albert Ekka. Divya copies the citation almost exactly, keeping the positions, the weapons and the gazette number, and changes about ten words. Eshan reads the citation and then writes his own account. The attack, the machine gun stopping his company, the two bunkers, the wound he kept fighting with, and the objective taken. He ends with one sentence about what the citation does not say, which is anything at all about the man himself. The teacher accepts Eshan’s and asks Divya to write hers again.

Analysis:

Divya has not written anything. Changing ten words of an official document leaves a document with ten words changed, and the parts she kept are exactly the parts that are not hers: the service number, the weapon types, the gazette notification. Eshan did three things instead. He took the facts and arranged them in his own order, which required understanding which ones mattered. He left out the material that only a document needs, since a magazine reader has no use for a notification number. And he noticed the silence: a citation records what a man did and nothing about who he was, and saying so out loud is the most interesting sentence in his piece. That is also the honest use of a citation. It is evidence, and evidence is something you write FROM, not something you write out.

Activity:

Take any six facts from a citation in this chapter and write your own paragraph from them, with nothing in it that only an official record would need.

Title:

Mark up a citation

Safety:

None needed.

What You Notice:

The six parts come in the same order in both citations, and the longest part is always what the person did. Nothing anywhere in either document says what he was like.

A citation ends with a gazette notification number, which is how an award can be verified in the official record years afterwards.

Major Padmapani Acharya wrote to his father before the battle and quoted the Bhagavad Gita, which the chapter prints in Sanskrit and in English.

Meena Nayyar, the mother of Captain Anuj Nayyar, said that writing about her son was hard but that otherwise nobody would know of his sacrifice.

The order of the awards — Param first, Maha second — Param Vir Chakra is the highest, Maha Vir Chakra the second highest. Then Kirti Chakra, Vir Chakra and Shaurya Chakra.

What a citation holds — Who, when, where, what happened, what he did, what followed — Six things in that order, and both of the citations in this chapter are built from them.

Most sentences here have two halves

Take the sentence in which Soumya says she hopes to be as brave as Albert Ekka one day, when she joins the army. Cut it at the word when and read the two pieces. Only one of them can stand up by itself, and knowing which is the whole of this half of the chapter.

The test, in one move

Read each half aloud on its own. She hopes to be as brave as he was is a sentence. When she joins the army is not; it leaves you waiting. That is the whole of the distinction.

What the two halves are called

The half that stands alone is the main clause. The half that depends on it is the subordinate clause. A sentence can have the subordinate half first, which is why reading rather than counting is the test.

The joining word is the clue

When, because, though, so that, unless, where. If one of those is in the sentence, it is almost certainly the seam, and the piece that begins with it is the subordinate half. That is a shortcut rather than a rule, and the reading test settles any case where it fails.

And the joiner carries a relation

When says time. Because says reason. Though says contrast. So that says purpose. Unless says condition, and where says place. Six words, six jobs.

Why that matters when you write

Because choosing the joining word is choosing what the two halves have to do with each other. Himani was nervous though she gave a great presentation says something quite different from Himani was nervous because she gave one.

The name for those words

Subordinating conjunctions. The name is worth knowing and the work is worth more: a sentence with one in it has two halves, and a question about it usually asks you to name them. There are only a handful in common use, so spotting one is quick.

Supplying a missing half

A question may give you one clause and ask for the other. Farheen was late to work because — anything that gives a reason finishes it. The test is the same: the finished sentence has to stand up.

Now the prefixes

Disregard, inconsequential, immortal, undaunted. All four come from this chapter, and all four are a prefix in front of a root: regard, consequence, mortal, daunt.

Seven more, with their meanings

Re- is do again. Mal- is badly or wrongly. Un- is lacking or not. Anti- is opposed to. Extra- is beyond or outside. Ex- is former. And de- is remove.

Building with them

Deactivate is de- plus activate, and it means to remove the action from something, which is what a bomb disposal team does. Redefine is define again. Antisocial is against society. Ex-serviceman is a former one.

Why a prefix is cheaper than a new word

Because the root keeps its meaning and the prefix turns it. A pupil who knows twenty roots and seven prefixes has more words than one who has learnt a hundred and forty separately. It also lets a reader take an unfamiliar word apart and make a fair guess at it.

Nine words for brave

Valiant, courage, heroic, valour, gallant, fearless, daring, bold, undaunted. The chapter gives them as a puzzle with the vowels missing, which is a good way to notice how alike they look and are not. Filling in the vowels is also a reminder that most of them share a root.

They do not all do the same job

Valiant, gallant and heroic describe a person. Courage and valour are the quality itself. Fearless, daring, bold and undaunted describe the way somebody acts.

Which matters in a sentence

She showed great valour fits, and she showed great valiant does not. The slot decides, exactly as it does in a word-form table. Ask whether the sentence wants a person, a quality or a manner, and the choice is made.

And four opposites

Fear, cowardly, timid, afraid. Three of them describe a person or a state, and one of them is the thing itself. His cowardly refusal, the timid child, she felt afraid, and Anjali’s fear of heights. The same test applies: ask whether the slot wants a person or a feeling.

Why this topic sits in this chapter

Because the subject matter is courage and the writing task is a letter about it. A pupil who has the clause test and the nine words can write the letter the chapter asks for, which is about the armed forces in peacetime rather than in war.

Scenario:

Three pupils write the letter the chapter asks for, about the armed forces in peacetime. Tarun writes eight sentences with no joining words at all: the army helps in floods. It builds bridges. It runs medical camps. Usha writes four long sentences in which every joiner is and or but, so nothing in them says why or when anything happens. Vikram writes five sentences, and in three of them the joiner does real work. Because the roads are cut, the army arrives by air. Although the camp is temporary, the records are kept. So that villages are not left isolated, bridges are built first. Their teacher reads all three and says that only one pupil has explained anything.

Analysis:

Vikram has, and the difference is in the joining words rather than in the facts. All three pupils know what the armed forces do in peacetime. Tarun lists it; eight sentences with no joiners leave a reader to work out the connections, and most readers do not. Usha has joiners and they are the weakest ones available: and adds, but contrasts a little, and neither says why, when or in order to. Vikram uses because, although and so that, and each of those forces him to state a relation he could otherwise have left vague. Notice that he also wrote fewer sentences than the others. A subordinating conjunction is a way of putting two facts into one sentence AND saying what they have to do with each other, which is why the piece that explains most is the shortest of the three.

Activity:

Write four facts about any job you admire, then join them in pairs using because, although, when and so that. Count the sentences you end with.

Title:

Cut ten sentences in two

Safety:

None needed.

What You Notice:

The subordinate half is as often first as second, and the main clause is not always the longer of the two. The relation column fills up with four words, over and over.

Valour and valiant come from the same Latin root as the word value, which once meant to be strong.

Undaunted is built from a prefix and a root: un- plus daunt, where to daunt somebody is to make them lose courage.

The mottos of the three services are in Sanskrit, and the army’s means service before self.

Finding the main clause — Cut at the joiner, read each half — The half that stands on its own is the main clause. The half that leaves you waiting for more is the subordinate one.

The four joiners and their jobs — When time, because reason, though contrast, so that purpose — Four relations and four words. Pick the relation you mean, and the joining word follows from it.