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Unit 4 of Kaveri, the new NCERT English textbook for Class 9, pairs a funny story about a grandfather with a quiet poem about a mother. Together they ask one question: what does it mean to remember someone? New to the book? Start with our overview of the Kaveri Class 9 English textbook.
What happens in Vitamin-M?
The story is by Asha Nehemiah (page 97 of the NCERT chapter PDF) and falls into three parts.
Grandpa moves in. Ravi's grandfather, a former lawyer of seventy-five, has moved into the family's cramped city flat after a fall at his small brick house in town. His daughter Vidya worries about his memory and wishes someone would invent a memory vitamin for old people. She tells Ravi, whose holidays have just begun, never to let Grandpa out alone.
The chase. Grandpa walks out anyway, for the Tamil newspaper, he says. Ravi trails him in secret through a park, a tea stall where Grandpa eats foods banned at home, and a barber's shop, getting scolded and thrown out of a ladies' salon. He jumps onto a bus behind Grandpa's yellow cap and finds a stranger under it. Grandpa had given the cap away.
The twist. Ravi searches the barber's and the park, then goes home and finds Grandpa asleep. That evening Grandpa calmly reports that Ravi was the one who disappeared, then hands out gifts because it is his birthday, a date Vidya had marked on the calendar and still forgot. Ravi's gift is a detective book, and he cannot tell whether Grandpa's twinkle is innocent or knowing.
What is the poem I Cannot Remember My Mother about?
The paired poem is by Rabindranath Tagore, on pages 126-127 of the same NCERT chapter. The speaker cannot remember his mother, yet she returns through a different sense in each stanza.
Sound: a tune she hummed over his cradle seems to drift around his toys while he plays.
Smell: on autumn mornings, shiuli flowers and the temple service bring her back.
Sight: when he looks at the far sky from his window, her calm gaze seems to fill it.
The repeated opening line is a refrain, and the poem has no rhyme scheme. For a method that works on any poem, see how to write a poem appreciation.
What are the main themes of Vitamin-M?
The book's introduction describes the story as one about dignity, independence and empathy for the elderly.
Dignity: Grandpa hates being treated like a child, and Ravi winces at his mother's over-loud tone with him.
Selective memory: Grandpa forgets names but recalls the moves of famous chess matches.
Care versus control: Vidya's rules come from real fear after a fall, a medicine overdose and a day he got lost. The story asks where safety ends and freedom begins.
Memory as love: a child keeps a mother alive through the senses; a grandfather remembers his own birthday and gives every child in the house a gift on it. We remember people through what they gave us.
Unit 1, How I Taught My Grandmother to Read, also pairs a child with an elder, so expect cross-text links.
How can Vitamin-M come in the CBSE Class 9 exam?
In the CBSE Class 9 English syllabus for 2026-27, the R1 paper gives Language through Literature 30 marks: two extracts, one from prose or drama and one from poetry (10 marks); five of six short answers in 40-50 words (10 marks); and two long answers of about 120-150 words (5 marks each). One long answer tests theme, plot or character; the other asks you to think beyond or across texts.
Our practice questions:
Short: How does the author use comedy to show a serious worry about old age?
Short: Why does Ravi follow Grandpa in secret rather than stop him?
Short: How does each stanza bring the mother back through a different sense?
Long (character): Is Vidya a caring daughter or a controlling one? Use two moments from the story.
Long (across texts): Compare how memory works in Vitamin-M and in Tagore's poem.
A plan for question 5: open with one sentence naming both texts and your claim, for example that memory lives in habits and senses rather than facts. Give one paragraph to each text with one exact detail, such as Grandpa's birthday gifts or the shiuli scent. Close with what the pairing says about elders.
The unit also has two pieces for self-reading in the chapter PDF: The Lost Child by Mulk Raj Anand (pages 120-125), about a boy separated from his parents at a spring fair, and the poem I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood (page 136).
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