Class 9 English Chapter 2: The Pot Maker

A very small amount of money received as income. Arenla uses it of what her craft has paid her over a lifetime, and it is the word on which her whole argument against teaching it rests.

An instrument used for digging, which Arenla teaches her daughter to use at the riverbank to cut the grey and red clay out before loading it into a carrying basket.

The tool a potter holds in the right hand to shape a pot while the left hand rotates the clay. Its regular tapping is what Sentila calls music as she watches the expert potters.

The oven in which dried pots are fired. They are stacked evenly spaced over a bedding of hay and dried bamboo and covered again with the same materials, and the fire has to be tended, because over firing or under firing ruins the whole batch.

Able to be shaped without breaking or cracking. Sentila turns the pounded clay into malleable dough easily, which is exactly why her failure at the next stage is so frustrating.

Because of something she overheard rather than something she was told. One night her parents were talking and her mother complained of her indifference to weaving, going on to say she would not teach her pot making at all. Nobody ever forbade the visits to the potters, and her father is telling the truth when he later assures the council that his wife never refused.

It is an economic case. The clay lies sixteen kilometres away down a sheer drop, and her back aches from carrying it uphill. Pounding it soft in bamboo cylinders is tedious, and she has lost finished work by dropping the mould from exhaustion. Months of labour produce a single batch, and the reward is a few rupees. Weaving earns far more for far less effort.

The clay is mixed with water and pounded. The potter pushes the left hand into a lump of the softened clay, rotates it deftly, and shapes it with a spatula held in the right hand. After two or three days the pots are touched up to hold their shape and test consistency, then dried in the sun, stacked on a kiln on a bed of hay and dried bamboo, and fired.

They reminded him that it was Arenla's duty to teach her daughter a skill handed down from generation to generation. Behind it lay a principle: a craft like pot making does not merely serve people's needs but symbolises their tradition and history. So it belongs to no individual, and an expert is obliged to pass it on to anyone at all who wishes to learn.

Arenla showed rather than taught. She watched her daughter fail, then took over and finished the pot herself, so nothing was ever diagnosed. Onula looked once and saw the actual fault: the girl was too tense, so the clay would not yield. What she supplied was not technique but confidence, and the first pot Sentila made afterwards was a good one.

Two neat rows of newly-made pots standing side by side, with nothing at all to tell one batch from the other. That indistinguishability convinced her they were not the work of one person alone. She stood a long time as if absorbing a new phenomenon and walked away believing she had witnessed a profound revelation in that place of wonder.

She begins with desire and nothing else. As soon as she is old enough to go to the fields she wants the craft, and since her mother wants a weaver instead, she goes to the expert potters when the house is empty. From them she gains knowledge by watching. The clay mixed and pounded, the left hand pushed into the lump, the deft rotation, the spatula, the touching up after two or three days, the sun, the kiln on its bed of hay, and a fire that must be tended or the batch is lost. From her mother, a year later, she gains the early stages and nothing more. She digs with the dao, loads the basket, soaks the clay and pounds it, turning it into malleable dough at once — and then cannot hold the lump to shape it. Arenla watches, takes over, and finishes. A year of this teaches her nothing. From Onula she gains the thing that was actually missing. Onula sees in one evening that she is too tense for the clay to yield, and what she hands over is confidence rather than method. Sentila makes a beautiful pot at once. From her mother again, on Onula's instruction, she gains the last step: how the left hand and the spatula are held at the mouth, how the rhythm slackens there, and how a strip of dough makes the rim. And on the last day she gains speed. Alone in the shed she works like a sprinter who has found momentum, and stops one pot short of her mother's tally.

Sentila's visits become village gossip, and the gossip carries a worry larger than one family. If pot makers began refusing to teach their children, there would soon be no expert potters left in the village at all.

So Mesoba is summoned. His answer is humble and carefully chosen: Arenla never said she would not teach the girl; they only wanted her stronger after an illness; and the council will soon see Sentila making the best pots in the village. It is an explanation nobody can disprove, and it shields his wife.

The elders let him go. What they send home with him is not a punishment but a reminder, and the reminder contains the largest idea in the story.

It is a mother's duty to pass on a skill handed down from generation to generation. A craft like this does not only meet the needs of the people; it symbolises their tradition and their history. And because of that, it does not belong to any individual. An expert is obliged to teach not only their own children but anyone who wishes to learn.

That is what makes the episode structural rather than incidental. Arenla has been arguing about her daughter's income. The council answers on a different level altogether: the question is not what the craft pays her family, but what the family owes the craft.

And it moves the plot. The following year, Arenla takes her daughter to the riverbank.

It begins practically. There is a limited number of sunny days left for drying, so Arenla says they must make as many pots as they can, and they go to the shed early.

She finishes a batch quickly, as always. Then she complains of a headache and a backache, tells her daughter to make as many as she can, and goes out. Sentila begins reluctantly.

And then the change comes. She beats the dough in perfect coordination with her left hand, finds the pot ready, starts the next, and goes on like a sprinter who has suddenly found momentum — with the same speed and dexterity she had watched in her mother's hands. When she looks at her row she is one pot short of her mother's tally.

She goes in for lunch and finds her mother on the floor at the threshold, not breathing.

The next morning she runs after the body crying that she did not wish it to happen this way, that it simply came to her, and asking forgiveness. Nobody who hears her understands, except Onula, who senses that something momentous has happened.

On her way back Onula sees the shed door ajar, steps in, and stops. Two rows of new pots stand side by side, and she cannot tell one batch from the other. She is certain they are not one person's work. She stays a long time, as though absorbing a new phenomenon, then walks slowly away from what she calls a place of wonder, believing she has seen a profound revelation.

And the writer stops there. She never explains what passed between mother and daughter. She shows two identical rows, gives Onula's certainty, and adds four words: a new pot maker was born.

Skill-based work that a person is drawn to rather than merely employed in. The story sets a vocation against a livelihood: Arenla judges pot making by what it pays, while her daughter is drawn to it regardless of what it pays.

Someone who holds a thing in trust for others rather than owning it. The elders treat an expert potter this way — the skill passed through her, and she is obliged to pass it on again.

Continuing in the face of repeated failure. Sentila spends almost a year being unable to shape a pot, watched by her own mother, and does not give up; the breakthrough comes only after that year.

A deliberate refusal to settle a question the story has raised. Here the writer shows two rows of pots nobody can tell apart, gives one witness's certainty, and then stops, leaving the reader to decide what happened.

That instruction reaches her through the eyes rather than through words. She learns the stages of the craft by watching the expert potters at work, she learns that she can make a pot at all by watching Onula make one, and she learns the last step by watching her own mother shape a mouth. Nobody in the story explains anything to her in detail, and she needs nobody to.

Her case is accurate in every particular: the clay lies sixteen kilometres off down a sheer drop, the pounding is tedious, exhaustion has cost her finished work, months of labour yield a single batch, and the pay is a few rupees. Her motive is her daughter's future, not her own convenience. And she hears of the secret visits and says nothing, which she was under no obligation to do.

Because she looked for a cause. Arenla demonstrated, watched the failures and finished the pots herself, so the problem was never examined. Onula watched one attempt and saw that the girl was too tense for the clay to yield. What she supplied afterwards was not a method but confidence, and the first pot Sentila made with it was a good one.

They say a craft handed down through generations symbolises the tradition and history of the people, so it belongs to no individual, and an expert must teach anyone who wishes to learn. That answers Arenla without contradicting her because they never dispute her economics. They simply change the level of the question, from what the craft pays her family to what her family owes the craft.

A necessary one, but not a sufficient one. Persistence alone did not make her a potter; a year of it produced nothing at all, and the breakthrough came from somebody else's insight. What persistence did was keep her attempting the craft long enough for Onula to find her still trying, which is the only reason there was anything for Onula to rescue.

Because an explanation would settle a question she wants left standing. The reader is given exactly three things: two rows of pots that cannot be told apart, a mother lying dead, and one woman's certainty that two people made them. Nothing unnatural is ever asserted and Sentila's own belief is never reported. The symmetry in the shed is the point, and symmetry is not an answer.

Her mother teaches by demonstration. She takes her daughter to the riverbank, hands over the early stages, and then sits in a corner while the girl fails at the shaping. When the failure is complete she takes the lump and turns it into a beautiful pot herself. That cycle runs for almost a year and produces nothing.

The reason is that nothing is ever examined. Finishing the pot removes the evidence. Sentila is left knowing only that her mother can do it and she cannot, which is what she knew at the start.

Onula teaches by diagnosis. She has heard of the trouble and has resolved to help before she has seen the girl touch clay. She watches one clumsy attempt and identifies the actual obstacle: Sentila is too tense, and the clay is therefore unable or unwilling to yield the right shape.

Notice that this is not a technical fault. A year of technical instruction could never have reached it.

What Onula supplies afterwards is confidence rather than method. She makes a pot, invites Sentila to try again, and the girl works with a confidence she has never felt before and produces a beautiful pot.

Then Onula does the cleverest thing in the story. She names the remaining fault, the mouth, and refuses to fix it, sending Sentila back to watch her own mother instead. The last lesson stays in the family, and the girl is given a reason to study hands she had been looking at for a year without seeing.

The question is raised by an ordinary family disagreement and answered by the village council.

Arenla's position is that the craft is hers to withhold. It has cost her a great deal and paid her very little, and she would rather her daughter had an easier trade. Nothing in the story suggests she is wrong about any of that.

The village disagrees, and the reason is practical before it is moral. If every expert refused to teach, there would soon be no experts at all, and a skill several generations old would end in a single generation.

When Mesoba is summoned, the elders set out their position in four steps. It is a mother's duty to pass on a skill handed down from generation to generation. A skill of this kind does not merely meet people's needs; it symbolises their tradition and their history. Therefore it does not belong to any individual. And an expert is obliged to teach not only her own children but anyone who wishes to learn.

The force of that is in how it answers Arenla. It does not contradict her. It accepts every word of her economics and then declines to treat them as the relevant question. She had asked what the craft gives her family; the elders reply by asking what her family owes the craft.

An expert, on this view, is a custodian rather than an owner. The skill passed through her, and passing it on again is a duty rather than a favour.

And the plot then acts the principle out. The following year, Arenla takes her daughter to the riverbank.

On her way back from the funeral, Onula sees the shed door slightly ajar, steps in out of curiosity, and stops in her tracks. Two neat rows of newly-made pots stand side by side, and she can find nothing to tell one batch from the other. She is certain that one pair of hands did not make them both.

She stands a long time, as though absorbing a new phenomenon, then walks slowly away from what she considers a place of wonder, believing she has witnessed a profound revelation in the two batches standing in perfect symmetry.

That is everything the reader is given, and it is worth noticing what is withheld. The story never says that anything unnatural occurred. It never says the skill passed to the daughter at the moment of the mother's death. It never reports what Sentila herself believes — only that she ran after the body crying that she had not wished it this way and that it simply came to her, and that nobody but Onula understood her.

So the ending consists of two facts and one conviction. The pots cannot be told apart. The mother is dead. And one woman is sure that two people made them.

The writer then stops and adds four words announcing that a new pot maker has been born.

An explanation would ruin it, because the uncertainty is the effect. If the story said the skill was inherited, the ending becomes a piece of folklore. If it said the girl had simply learned at last, the symmetry becomes a coincidence and Onula's awe becomes a mistake. Leaving it open lets both readings stand, which is exactly the state Onula is in when she walks away.

A subordinate clause that behaves exactly as a noun would, filling the slot of a subject or an object. In the story, what she realised and what she sensed are both expressed this way, the whole clause standing where a single noun could have stood.

Also called an adjectival clause: a subordinate clause that describes a noun already named in the main clause. Where the clay was found describes a riverbank; who had suddenly found momentum describes a sprinter.

A word placed before a noun that settles something about it — how much or how many there are, whether a particular one is meant, or whose it is. Articles, demonstratives, possessives and numerals are all determiners.

Writing that examines your own experience rather than an external subject. The unit sets it in five steps, moving from what you enjoy, through what you practise, to what might become a profession, with examples and a conclusion.

Tools and implements include the dao used for digging and the spatula used for shaping, along with the bamboo cylinders, the kiln and the carrying basket. Raw materials include the clay itself and the dough it is turned into, and also the bed of hay on which the pots are stacked. Processes include pounding the clay soft and rotating and shaping the lump into a pot.

A noun clause is a subordinate clause that does a noun's job, standing as the subject or object of the main clause. A relative or adjectival clause describes a noun that is already in the main clause. The test is to ask whether the clause names a thing or describes one: remove it, and a hole left behind means it was a noun clause, while a sentence that still stands means it was relative.

A determiner comes before a noun and specifies something about its quantity, its definiteness or its ownership — how many, which one, whose. An adjective instead describes the noun's qualities. The two are easy to confuse, but a determiner always stands in front of any adjective, as in those three beautiful pots, where the first two words are determiners and only the third is an adjective.

Choose the stone; choose it by the weight and dimensions the statue requires. Remove the large unwanted portions; bring out the imagined shape using different tools; detach the work from the block; and refine it with finishing touches. The three that do not belong are setting up the tools, leaving the statue in water overnight, and beginning to carve from the centre.

In pairs, one student takes Sentila and the other takes Arenla, Mesoba, Onula or a village elder, and each speaks from that character's point of view. The conversation must cover her wish to learn the craft, the difficulties she meets and the advice the other offers. What it asks a student to supply is feeling: all three sentence prompts are about emotion, which is precisely what the story itself almost never reports.

His boots last so long that customers rarely return, and every order takes a long time. He uses the finest leather, lets nobody else touch the work and never advertises, while the large firms win the trade by advertisement rather than by work. It relates to the main story because Arenla's complaint — months of labour for a few rupees — is his situation described in advance.

Both are subordinate clauses, which means neither can stand alone as a sentence. What separates them is the job each does inside the sentence.

A noun clause behaves exactly as a noun would, filling the slot of a subject or an object. The story supplies two: she realised that the pot was ready, and she intuitively sensed that something momentous had happened. In each case the clause occupies a position a single noun could have occupied — she realised the truth, she sensed danger.

A relative clause, also called an adjectival clause, behaves as an adjective does: it describes a noun that is already present in the main clause. Three come from the story. The riverbank where the grey and red clay was found. A sprinter who had suddenly found momentum. Skills such as pot making, which catered to the needs of the people.

The usual mistake is to try to decide by the linking word, and that cannot be done, because the words overlap. The reliable test is to ask what the clause is for: does it name a thing, or describe one?

Removal makes the test practical. Delete a noun clause and the sentence collapses, because something the verb needed has gone. Delete a relative clause and the sentence still stands, only with less information: there is still a riverbank, still a sprinter, still skills.

So the question is never what a clause begins with. It is what would be missing if the clause were not there.

The speaker begins with a definition. A stone statue is made of stone, usually by carving or by assembling, to form a visually interesting three-dimensional shape.

He then gives a short history. Stone has been used for sculpture on the outsides of buildings since early civilisation, and is used now mainly for sculpture on its own. The earliest societies to work stone include those of India, Egypt, Iran and Greece, and he insists that some of the most fascinating surviving evidence is Indian, visible in stone monuments all over the country.

The second part sets out the process. The sculptor chooses a stone, and chooses it according to the weight and dimensions the statue will need. The carving begins by removing the large unwanted portions. Then, using different tools, the sculptor works to bring the imagined shape out of the block. Finally the work is detached from the block and refined with finishing touches.

Three of the nine options offered are wrong, and each is wrong for a different reason. Setting up the tools is not a step, though tools are mentioned. Leaving the statue in water overnight appears nowhere in the talk at all. And beginning from the centre contradicts the sequence, which runs from the outside inward.

The real claim of the talk is easy to miss. The shape first comes into being in the stone and nowhere else, as the sculptor cuts material away, sketches on the block and develops the work along the way. Nothing is planned and then copied. The shape is not transferred into the stone — it is found in it.

Quality, by John Galsworthy, is told by a customer who has known the bootmaker Mr Gessler since childhood. Gessler makes only what is ordered, and what he makes never fails to fit. Asked once whether the work is difficult, he answers that it is an art.

His boots last so long that the narrator can rarely find a reason to visit — and that is the trap the whole story rests on. Quality destroys its own demand.

The one time the narrator appears wearing boots bought in a hurry from a large firm, Gessler recognises them without being told. Says the only bitter thing he says in the story: such firms have no self-respect, they take the trade by advertisement rather than by work, they take it from people who love their craft, and before long he will have no work left.

He is proved right. His brother dies, the shop grows slacker, and the final pairs he makes are the best he has ever made and come very late. A week after they arrive, his name is gone from the shop. The young man who has taken it over explains that the old man starved himself slowly: he kept the shop on, would let nobody else touch his boots, took so long over an order that customers went elsewhere, insisted on the best leather, did everything himself, and never advertised. And then, having called all that foolishness, he adds that the old man made good boots.

The two stories sit together because both are about a craft that cannot pay for itself and somebody who wants it anyway. Arenla's complaint — months of labour, a few rupees — is Gessler's position stated in advance.

But the endings diverge, and the difference is the community rather than the craftsman. The Naga village treats the skill as its own inheritance and orders its expert to pass it on. London treats it as one man's business and lets the shop close.

Because of something she overheard rather than something she was told. One night her parents were talking and her mother complained of her indifference to weaving, going on to say she would not teach her pot making at all. Nobody ever forbade the visits to the potters, and her father is telling the truth when he later assures the council that his wife never refused.

It is an economic case. The clay lies sixteen kilometres away down a sheer drop, and her back aches from carrying it uphill. Pounding it soft in bamboo cylinders is tedious, and she has lost finished work by dropping the mould from exhaustion. Months of labour produce a single batch, and the reward is a few rupees. Weaving earns far more for far less effort.

The clay is mixed with water and pounded. The potter pushes the left hand into a lump of the softened clay, rotates it deftly, and shapes it with a spatula held in the right hand. After two or three days the pots are touched up to hold their shape and test consistency, then dried in the sun, stacked on a kiln on a bed of hay and dried bamboo, and fired.

That instruction reaches her through the eyes rather than through words. She learns the stages of the craft by watching the expert potters at work, she learns that she can make a pot at all by watching Onula make one, and she learns the last step by watching her own mother shape a mouth. Nobody in the story explains anything to her in detail, and she needs nobody to.

Her case is accurate in every particular: the clay lies sixteen kilometres off down a sheer drop, the pounding is tedious, exhaustion has cost her finished work, months of labour yield a single batch, and the pay is a few rupees. Her motive is her daughter's future, not her own convenience. And she hears of the secret visits and says nothing, which she was under no obligation to do.

Because she looked for a cause. Arenla demonstrated, watched the failures and finished the pots herself, so the problem was never examined. Onula watched one attempt and saw that the girl was too tense for the clay to yield. What she supplied afterwards was not a method but confidence, and the first pot Sentila made with it was a good one.

Tools and implements include the dao used for digging and the spatula used for shaping, along with the bamboo cylinders, the kiln and the carrying basket. Raw materials include the clay itself and the dough it is turned into, and also the bed of hay on which the pots are stacked. Processes include pounding the clay soft and rotating and shaping the lump into a pot.

A noun clause is a subordinate clause that does a noun's job, standing as the subject or object of the main clause. A relative or adjectival clause describes a noun that is already in the main clause. The test is to ask whether the clause names a thing or describes one: remove it, and a hole left behind means it was a noun clause, while a sentence that still stands means it was relative.

A determiner comes before a noun and specifies something about its quantity, its definiteness or its ownership — how many, which one, whose. An adjective instead describes the noun's qualities. The two are easy to confuse, but a determiner always stands in front of any adjective, as in those three beautiful pots, where the first two words are determiners and only the third is an adjective.