It So Happened

Chapter 1 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "How the Camel Got His Hump", is a humorous moral tale by Rudyard Kipling (abridged). Set at the very beginning of the world, when animals had just started working for Man, it follows a lazy Camel who lives in the Howling Desert and refuses every request to work, replying only with "Humph!". When the Camel says "Humph!" one time too many to the Djinn of All Deserts, his back puffs up into a great hump — a punishment for three days of idleness.

• 1The story is set at the very beginning of the world, when animals were just starting to work for Man.
• 2The Camel lived alone in the Howling Desert because he did not want to work; he ate sticks, thorns, and prickles and only ever said "Humph!".
• 3The Horse (with a saddle), the Dog (with a stick), and the Ox (with a yoke) each visited the Camel on Monday morning asking him to trot, fetch-and-carry, and plough respectively — all refused.
• 4Man told the three animals he was sorry but would leave the Camel alone, making them work double-time to compensate, which made them very angry.
• 5The three animals held a panchayat on the edge of the Desert and complained to the Djinn of All Deserts, who was in charge of all deserts.

Chapter 2 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "Children at Work", follows eleven-year-old Velu, who runs away from his village because his father beats him and spends all the family earnings on drink. Arriving at Chennai Central with no ticket, Velu meets Jaya, a ragpicker girl his own age, who feeds him and leads him to her shanty near Buckingham Canal. The story ends with Jaya recruiting Velu into ragpicking.

• 1Velu, aged eleven, runs away from home because his father beats him and takes all the money Velu and his sisters earn to spend on drink.
• 2He travels from Kanur to Chennai on the Kanyakumari Express without a ticket, surviving on peanuts and jaggery, and the ticket collector never checks the unreserved compartment.
• 3At Chennai Central, Jaya — a ragpicker girl around Velu's age — approaches him while collecting dirty plastic cups from the platform floor.
• 4Jaya feeds Velu a squashy banana and a vada picked from a garbage bin overflowing with rubbish behind a wedding hall called Sri Rajarajeshwari Prasanna Kalyana Mandapam.
• 5The two walk to Triplicane, where Jaya lives in a hut beside Buckingham Canal; her hut is built from metal sheets, tyres, bricks, wood and plastic.

Chapter 3 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde, is a fairy tale about a Giant whose selfishness keeps his beautiful garden locked from the children who used to play in it, causing an unending winter. When his heart melts at the sight of a tiny boy, he tears down the wall, restores spring, and gives the garden to the children forever. Years later the same mysterious boy returns and takes the aged, dying Giant to paradise.

• 1The Giant's garden had soft green grass, flowers like stars, twelve peach-trees, and birds whose song stopped children mid-game.
• 2After seven years away with a Cornish ogre, the Giant returned, drove the children out, built a high wall, and put up a notice saying 'Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted'.
• 3Spring, Summer, and Autumn abandoned the walled garden; Snow, Frost, North Wind, and Hail lived there year-round, making it always winter.
• 4Hearing a linnet sing and seeing the children back in the trees, the Giant realised his selfishness and knocked down the wall, declaring the garden the children's playground forever.
• 5A tiny boy who could not reach the branches stood weeping in the one corner still gripped by winter; the Giant placed him in the tree, which instantly broke into blossom.

Chapter 4 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "The Treasure Within", is an interview between Ms Bela Raja of Sparsh newsletter and Hafeez Contractor, one of India's leading architects. It traces Contractor's troubled school days — losing interest after Class 3, copying in exams, and dreading maths — to the turning points that led him to architecture. Its central message is that every child holds a hidden talent, a treasure within, that conventional schooling may fail to uncover.

• 1Hafeez Contractor lost interest in academics from Class 3 and relied on copying in exams; his textbooks were so unused that classmates reserved them for the following year.
• 2He had recurring nightmares about appearing for a maths exam knowing nothing — nightmares that only faded four to five years before the interview.
• 3His Principal's five-minute talk in Class 11 — reminding him of his mother's sacrifices and his father's absence — prompted him to stop playing sports entirely and focus on studies, earning 50% in SSC.
• 4He entered architecture by chance: his German teacher died, he returned to learning French from a cousin whose husband was an architect, and during visits to that office he spotted an error in an advanced window detail drawing.
• 5The cousin's husband asked Contractor to design a house on the spot; impressed, he took him to meet the Principal of the architecture college, where Contractor scored A+ in the entrance exam.

Chapter 5 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "Princess September", is a short story by W. Somerset Maugham set in the royal court of Siam. It follows Princess September, whose parrot dies and is replaced by a wild singing bird. Jealous sisters pressure her to cage the bird; when she does, it stops singing and nearly dies. She learns that true love means giving freedom, and releases the bird — which keeps returning to her of its own will.

• 1The King of Siam had a peculiar habit of giving gifts on his own birthday rather than receiving them; he gave each princess a green parrot in a golden cage.
• 2After Princess September's parrot dies, a small wild bird flies into her room and sings a beautiful song about the lake, willow trees, and goldfish in the King's garden.
• 3The bird proves far more gifted than the parrots, which could only repeat 'God save the king' and 'Pretty Polly' — even in seven Oriental languages.
• 4September's eight sisters, vexed at her bird's superiority, advise her to cage it so she will not risk losing it; acting on their advice, she puts it in a golden cage.
• 5Caged, the bird refuses to sing or eat, stands looking at the blue sky, and tells September that trees, the lake, and the rice fields look quite different when seen through the bars of a cage.

Chapter 6 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "The Fight", is a short story by Ruskin Bond. It follows Ranji, a newcomer to Rajpur, who claims a beautiful forest pool as his own, and Suraj, a local boy who challenges his right to it. After an exhausting first brawl ends in a draw, they meet again — but Ranji's superb diving amazes Suraj, who asks to be taught. Their rivalry transforms into genuine friendship, with both boys declaring the pool belongs to both of them.

• 1Ranji is new to Rajpur and discovers a clear, rock-fed forest pool during summer — far cleaner than the muddy buffalo pools he knew in the Rajputana desert.
• 2A local boy (later named Suraj) confronts Ranji on his second visit, claiming exclusive ownership of the pool and declaring himself a Warrior; Ranji responds by calling himself a Fighter.
• 3Their argument reaches an impasse and erupts into a frenzied physical fight that rolls from rock into the shallows; after five minutes neither boy wins, and they agree to fight again the next day.
• 4That evening both boys encounter each other in the bazaar and exchange hostile scowls without speaking.
• 5Ranji returns the next day despite being sore and unwilling, reasoning that not showing up would be an acknowledgement of defeat — as long as he fought, he had a right to the pool.

Chapter 7 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "Jalebis", is a semi-autobiographical story by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, translated from Urdu by Sufiya Pathan. A fifth-standard boy carries four rupees meant for school fees; when the fee-collector is absent, the coins seem to tempt him into buying jalebis. He spends it all, skips school, and prays for a miracle that never comes. As an adult he reflects that if God granted every wish instantly, humans would never have developed the effort and ingenuity that built civilisation.

• 1The boy attends Government School, Kambelpur (now called Atak) in the fifth standard and carries four rupees for school fees and the fund.
• 2Master Ghulam Mohammed, the fee-collecting teacher, is on leave, so fees are deferred to the next day — leaving the coins 'free' in the boy's pocket.
• 3The coins are personified: they seem to speak and jingle (khanak-khanak), arguing that money is meant to be spent and that the scholarship will cover the fees the next day.
• 4The boy spends all four rupees on jalebis from the halwai — one rupee for himself, another rupee's worth distributed to neighbourhood children like a 'Governor' distributing rice, and the remaining two rupees also spent on jalebis for the crowd.
• 5He plans to repay the fees the next day using his four-rupee monthly scholarship, but discovers at school that the scholarship will be paid the following month, not that day.

Chapter 8 of the Class 8 English NCERT textbook (It So Happened), "Ancient Education System of India", is a non-fiction feature tracing India's education traditions from the gurukul/ashram system to the great universities of Takshashila and Nalanda. It covers the values, subjects, and methods of ancient Indian learning, the role of gurus, women scholars, and community support that made education holistic and free.

• 1The ancient Indian education system evolved from the time of the Rigveda and emphasised holistic development: moral, physical, spiritual and intellectual aspects of life, with values such as humility, truthfulness, discipline, self-reliance and respect for all creations.
• 2Gurukuls (also called ashrams), situated in forests, were residential centres of learning where hundreds of students and their gurus lived together; women such as Maitreyi, Viswambhara, Apala, Gargi and Lopamudra also had access to education during the early Vedic period.
• 3Sources of ancient education included the Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads and Dharmasutras, as well as the writings of Aryabhata, Panini, Katyayana, Patanjali and the medical treatises of Charaka and Sushruta; subjects covered Itihas, Anviksiki, Mimamsa, Shilpashastra, Arthashastra, Varta and Dhanurvidya.
• 4Takshashila (Taxila), one of the world's oldest universities, was famous for ancient scriptures, law, medicine, astronomy, military science and the eighteen arts; its noted alumni include grammarian Panini (author of Ashtadhyayi), physician Jivaka and statesman Chanakya (Kautilya). UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1980.
• 5Nalanda University (5th–12th century CE, located in present-day Rajgir, Bihar) attracted scholars from across Asia; Chinese visitors Xuan Zang and I-Qing recorded that one hundred discourses took place daily. Xuan Zang studied yogashastra there under Chancellor Shilabhadra. UNESCO has declared the ruins of Nalanda Mahavihara a World Heritage Site.