Q.Interview any one of your older relatives (mother/father/grandparents/uncles/aunts) who has travelled outside your town or village. Find out

This is a practical project from the NCERT Social Science textbook (Class 6, Social and Political Life-I, Chapter on "Diversity and Discrimination" or the "Panchayati Raj" context, though the specific activity appears in the "Diversity" chapter). The question asks you to conduct a real interview and then write a structured report. Since I cannot interview your relative, I will give you a model report based on a typical, exam-correct scenario. You must replace the details with your own relative's actual answers.

Model Report: Interview with My Grandfather

I interviewed my grandfather, who travelled from our village in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai for work in the 1990s.

1. Where they went: He went to Mumbai, Maharashtra.
2. How they travelled: He travelled by a general compartment of a train.
3. How long it took: The journey took about 24 hours.
4. Why they travelled: He travelled to find a job as a construction labourer.
5. Difficulties faced: He faced difficulty because he did not know Marathi, the local language. He also found the train journey very crowded and uncomfortable. Similarities and Differences Noticed:

• Language: Difference: In our village, people speak Hindi. In Mumbai, people spoke Marathi, which he could not understand.
• Clothes: Difference: In Mumbai, he saw many men wearing trousers and shirts, while in our village, most men wear dhoti-kurta. Women in Mumbai wore sarees differently than in our village.
• Food: Difference: The food in Mumbai was spicier and included a lot of fish and coconut, which was not common in our village.
• Customs: Difference: People in Mumbai celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi on a very large scale, with big processions, which was not the case in our small village.
• Buildings: Difference: Mumbai had very tall buildings (skyscrapers) and large factories. Our village has only small houses and fields.
• Roads: Difference: The roads in Mumbai were very busy, wide, and had many cars and buses. Our village has narrow, unpaved roads.
• Lives of Men and Women: Difference: In Mumbai, he saw many women working in offices and factories. In our village, most women work at home or in the fields. Men in Mumbai worked long hours in factories, while men in our village work in agriculture.

This is a wonderful exercise because it turns you into a historian. You are not reading from a textbook; you are collecting primary evidence — a first-hand account of someone's experience. The NCERT syllabus for Class VI and VII Social and Political Life, as well as History, emphasises understanding how people lived, travelled, and how societies differ. This question directly applies that skill.

Let's break down what you need to do, step by step, and then I'll show you how to write the report.

Step 1: Conducting the Interview

First, choose a relative who has travelled outside your town or village. Grandparents are often excellent because they remember journeys from a time when travel was slower and more difficult. Your interview should be a friendly conversation, not a formal interrogation. Ask the five questions given in the prompt, but let the conversation flow naturally.

For example, when you ask "Why did they travel?", the answer might be "for a wedding" or "to find work". That's fine. But then ask follow-up questions: "What was the wedding like there? Was it different from weddings here?" This is how you get the rich details for the comparison part of the report.

Step 2: Organising Your Findings

After the interview, you will have a lot of information. The question asks you to list similarities and differences across eight specific areas: language, clothes, food, customs, buildings, roads, and the lives of men and women.

A good way to organise this is to create a simple table in your mind (or on paper) before writing the report. For each of the eight areas, note down one or two points from your relative's memory.

Here is a sample structure for your report. I will use a hypothetical example: interviewing a grandmother who travelled from a village in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai in the 1980s.

Sample Report: A Journey from Village to City

Introduction

I interviewed my grandmother, who travelled from our village in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai in 1985. She went to visit her brother who had moved there for work. This report presents her observations.

The Journey

She travelled by train. The journey took nearly two full days and one night. She travelled because her brother had sent a letter saying he had found a good job and wanted her to see the city. The main difficulty she faced was the crowd at the railway station in Mumbai. She said she had never seen so many people in one place. She also found it hard to understand the local language, Marathi, and had to rely on her brother to translate.

Similarities and Differences

Here is what she noticed when comparing her village to Mumbai:

• Language: In the village, everyone spoke Hindi. In Mumbai, she heard many languages — Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, and English. The similarity was that Hindi worked in many places, but the difference was the sheer variety of languages on the streets.

• Clothes: In the village, women mostly wore cotton sarees, and men wore dhotis and shirts. In Mumbai, she saw women in sarees but also in salwar kameez and even western clothes like skirts. Men wore trousers and shirts. The difference was in the variety and style; the similarity was that older women in Mumbai also wore simple sarees, just like in the village.

• Food: The food in the village was simple — roti, dal, sabzi, and rice. In Mumbai, she was amazed by the street food: vada pav, bhel puri, and pav bhaji. The similarity was that both places ate roti and rice, but the difference was the availability of so many different, ready-to-eat snacks in the city.

• Customs: In the village, festivals were celebrated by the whole community gathering in the temple courtyard. In Mumbai, her brother's family celebrated the same festivals, but in their apartment building, with neighbours from different states. The similarity was the core festival (Diwali, Holi), but the difference was the scale and the mix of people.

• Buildings: The village had mud houses with thatched roofs. Mumbai had tall concrete buildings, some so tall she had to crane her neck to see the top. The difference was enormous — from single-storey homes to multi-storey apartments.

• Roads: Village roads were narrow, unpaved, and often dusty or muddy. Mumbai had wide, paved roads with traffic lights, buses, and so many cars and auto-rickshaws. The similarity was that both had roads, but the difference in quality and traffic was stark.

• Lives of Men and Women: In the village, men worked in the fields, and women managed the home and helped in farming. In Mumbai, she saw women working in offices, shops, and factories. Men and women both travelled by train to work. The similarity was that families were at the centre of life in both places, but the difference was that women in the city had many more opportunities for paid work outside the home.

Conclusion

My grandmother's journey was a window into a completely different world. While the core of family and festivals remained the same, the scale, speed, and variety of life in Mumbai were overwhelming. The biggest difference she noted was in the lives of women and the sheer diversity of people and languages. The journey itself was long and difficult, but the memories of that visit stayed with her forever.