Memories of Childhood Class 12 is the sixth chapter of NCERT’s English supplementary reader Vistas, a short unit of two autobiographical accounts, one by the Native American writer Zitkala-Sa and one by the Tamil Dalit writer Bama.
The official Memories of Childhood Class 12 Vistas Chapter 6 NCERT PDF is offered right here, and below it both accounts are explained with the passages that answer the book’s own discussion questions.
Download the official Memories of Childhood Class 12 PDF
The file below is the official NCERT chapter, not a scanned copy — it is the same text NCERT publishes from its national textbook portal.
You can download the Memories of Childhood Class 12 Vistas Chapter 6 NCERT PDF from ncert.nic.in by opening the portal, choosing Class 12 and English, and selecting the Vistas book, where every chapter of the reader is available as a free download.
| What the chapter holds | Count | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Printed pages | 7 | |
| Official NCERT PDF | Download the chapter PDF | the chapter exactly as NCERT publishes it |
What the Memories of Childhood chapter holds
The table below gives the chapter’s contents at a glance — what sits inside the unit and how much of it there is — so you know what you are opening before you read.
The unit is narrative prose from first paragraph to last: two personal accounts and the discussion questions that close them, with no diagrams or data tables to decode.
It opens with a Before you read note on the two writers and their real names, then runs Part I, The Cutting of My Long Hair by Zitkala-Sa, then Part II, We Too are Human Beings by Bama, and ends with Reading with Insight, the three questions that ask you to compare the two accounts.
(NCERT, Vistas, chapter 6) If you want the whole reader explained, the Class 12 English notes page collects every Vistas chapter.
What this chapter covers: two childhoods, one theme
Both parts are childhood memories written by adults looking back, and both describe a child meeting an injustice the adult narrator now understands. (NCERT, “Before you read”) The four headings below are the unit’s own structure.
“Before you read”: the two writers
Zitkala-Sa is the pen name of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, born in 1876, an educated Native American woman who began publishing articles criticising the Carlisle Indian school from 1900.
Bama is the pen name of a Tamil Dalit woman from a Roman Catholic family; the excerpt comes from her 1992 autobiography Karukku, and her other works are the novel Sangati (1994) and the short-story collection Kisumbukkaaran (1996). (NCERT, “Before you read”)
Part I: The Cutting of My Long Hair
The “land of apples” is the school. The first day is bitter-cold, with snow still on the ground; bells ring for breakfast, the children march into a dining hall, and eating happens by formula — a small bell means take a chair, a second seats everyone, a third begins the meal.
Zitkala-Sa sits too early, finds herself the only one seated, and ends up crying instead of eating. (NCERT, Part I) Late in the morning her friend Judewin, who knows a little English, overhears the paleface women planning to cut the girls’ long, heavy hair.
Zitkala-Sa knows what hair means to her people: short hair marks mourners, and shingled hair marks cowards and captured warriors. She decides she will not submit, hides under a bed and resists by kicking and scratching, but she is dragged out and tied to a chair while the scissors work through her thick braids.
The haircut takes her spirit: she moans for her mother, with no one to comfort her, and feels driven like a little animal under a herder’s eye. (NCERT, Part I)
Part II: We Too are Human Beings
Bama is in the third class and has not yet heard anyone speak openly of untouchability, though she has already felt it and been humiliated by it on the street.
She dawdles home through the bazaar — the performing monkey, the snake charmer, the cyclist who has stayed on his cycle for three days, the dried-fish stall by Gandhi’s statue — until one day a street elder passes carrying a small oil-stained packet. He holds it out by its string, without touching it, walks to the landlord, bows low and offers it.
(NCERT, Part II) Bama finds the walk comic and tells her elder brother, Annan, the story, laughing hard. Annan is not amused: upper-caste people believe they would be polluted by the elder’s touch, so the packet has to be carried by the string.
The laughter stops; Bama feels terribly sad, then provoked and angry; her angry thought is that her people too are human beings, and she wants to touch those vadais herself. Annan adds that the community is stripped of honour, dignity and respect, but study and progress can throw those indignities away.
Bama studies hard, stands first in her class, and gains friends because of it. (NCERT, Part II)
Reading with Insight: the unit’s own questions
The unit closes with three discussion questions built for these two accounts: what theme the two distant cultures share; whether children notice injustice early and carry its seeds of rebellion; and what kind of discrimination each narrator faces and how each responds to it.
(NCERT, “Reading with Insight”) The exam guidance below maps each question to the passage that answers it.
Key ideas: identity, dignity and resistance
The unit is built as two halves on purpose: read together, they show one pattern repeating in two distant cultures. A child from a marginalised community meets the mainstream’s judgement, notices the injustice, and carries away either a broken spirit or a resolution. These are the ideas the two accounts share.
- Forced assimilation strips identity. Zitkala-Sa’s blanket is stripped from her shoulders, her soft moccasins are exchanged for stiff, squeaking shoes, and her hair is cut to mark a coward by her own people’s code — every item removed is a piece of who she is. (NCERT, Part I)
- Caste rule runs on touch. Bama learns that upper-caste people believe a Dalit’s touch would pollute food carried for them — that is why the elder walks with the packet on a string. (NCERT, Part II)
- Children notice injustice early. Zitkala-Sa is humiliated on her first day at school; Bama has met untouchability in practice before she has even heard the word. (NCERT, Part II)
- The seeds of rebellion arrive in small acts. Zitkala-Sa hides, kicks and scratches rather than submit; Bama wants to touch the vadais herself. Both resist before anyone tells them to. (NCERT, Part I and II)
- Education is the stated way out of indignity. Annan’s advice is the chapter’s clearest programme: study and progress throw indignities away, and it works — Bama stands first in her class. (NCERT, Part II)
The two accounts compared: Zitkala-Sa and Bama side by side
The book’s own discussion questions ask for comparison, so this table gives you the grid to answer with — one row per element examiners compare.
| Element | Zitkala-Sa’s account | Bama’s account |
|---|---|---|
| Real identity | Pen name of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (born 1876), a Native American writer who criticised the Carlisle Indian school. | Pen name of a Tamil Dalit woman writer from a Roman Catholic family; the excerpt comes from her autobiography Karukku. |
| Community and culture | Native American people whose customs give hair and clothing meaning beyond fashion. | Tamil Dalit community in a village where upper-caste beliefs decide who may be touched. |
| Setting and time | A boarding school she calls the “land of apples”, on a bitter-cold, snowy first day, late in the nineteenth century. | The streets and bazaar of her village — stalls, temples and entertainments — while she is in the third class. |
| The central incident | Her long, heavy hair is cut against her will after she hides and resists, branding her a coward by her own people’s code. | A street elder carries vadais by their string so the landlord is not polluted, and Bama learns why. |
| What is taken | Her blanket, her moccasins, then her braids — and with the haircut, her spirit. | The elder’s dignity in that public moment, and the child’s carefree laughter, replaced by sadness and anger. |
| Immediate response | Open rebellion: she hides under a bed, kicks and scratches, and declares she will not submit. | Laughter that reverses into terrible sadness, then the urge to touch the vadais herself. |
| Who explains the injustice | Judewin, the friend who overhears the paleface woman’s plan and warns her. | Annan, her elder brother, who explains untouchability and pollution and urges education. |
| The lasting effect | Her spirit is broken; no one comforts her, and she feels herded like a little animal. | Determination: she studies in a frenzy, stands first in her class, and gains friends. |
Terms to know from the chapter
These are the loaded words and names the unit leans on. Knowing what each means in context — not just in a dictionary — stops you losing the thread of either account.
| Term | Meaning in the chapter |
|---|---|
| Zitkala-Sa | Pen name of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, born 1876, Native American writer who criticised the Carlisle Indian school. |
| Paleface | The word used in the account for the white people who ran the school; a paleface woman with white hair oversees the dining hall. |
| Moccasins | Soft leather shoes; Zitkala-Sa’s moccasins are exchanged for stiff school shoes that squeak as she walks. |
| Shingled hair | Hair cut close to the scalp; among her people it marked cowards and captured warriors, while short hair marked mourners. |
| Judewin | The friend who overhears the paleface woman’s plan and warns Zitkala-Sa that the girls’ long hair will be cut. |
| Bama | Pen name of the Tamil Dalit woman writer; the excerpt comes from her autobiography Karukku (1992). |
| Karukku | Palmyra leaves, serrated on both edges like double-edged swords; by a pun on “karu” (embryo, seed) it also means freshness and newness. |
| Untouchability | The caste belief that upper-caste people are polluted by a Dalit’s touch — why the elder carries the packet by its string. |
| Annan | Tamil for elder brother — Bama’s brother, a university student, who explains untouchability and urges her to study. |
| Vadai and bhajji | Fried snacks; the packet the elder carries is guessed to hold one of these, from the oil stain on the wrapping paper. |
| Narikkuravan | The hunter-gypsy in the bazaar, with wild lemurs in cages, selling needles, clay beads and ear-cleaning instruments. |
Common mistakes students make in this chapter
Three confusions are typical, and all three come from reading fast. The table fixes each one with a detail from the text.
| Mistake | Correct rule | How to check your answer |
|---|---|---|
| Mixing up the narrators. | Zitkala-Sa is the Native American girl at a boarding school in the late nineteenth century; Bama is the Tamil Dalit girl walking home from school in a village. | Ask “whose hair is being cut — that is Part I; ask who is laughing at the elder — that is Part II. |
| Reading “the land of apples” as an orchard. | It is the boarding school — the “first day in the land of apples” is her first day at school. | Check the scene itself: bells, a dining hall and rows of Indian girls, not fruit trees. |
| Thinking Bama’s laughter is the point. | The reversal is the point: laughter turns to sadness, then anger, only after Annan explains pollution. | Ask what Bama feels after Annan speaks — the chapter ends on anger and resolve, not comedy. |
| Calling Zitkala-Sa passive. | She hides, kicks and scratches wildly and declares she will not submit — passivity comes only after the scissors. | List her actions before the haircut and after it; the broken spirit comes second, never first. |
| Forgetting the characters who trigger awareness. | Judewin’s warning lets Zitkala-Sa know what is coming; Annan’s explanation turns Bama’s laughter into anger. | Ask what drives each response: without Judewin, no rebellion; without Annan, no urge to study. |
| Reducing Karukku to “palmyra leaves”. | The title word also carries the double-edged sword image and the pun on “karu” — embryo, seed, freshness. | Check the “Before you read” note: the title’s meaning is given before the story starts. |
Exam guidance for Memories of Childhood
No one can predict a question, but the unit’s own three Reading with Insight questions tell you what kind of thinking this chapter supports: comparing the two accounts, the theme they share, and each narrator’s response to injustice. The mapping below shows which passage answers which question. (NCERT, “Reading with Insight”)
| Reading with Insight question | Where the answer lives | What a full answer includes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. What is the commonality of theme in the two distant cultures? | Both accounts together, with the “Before you read” note framing them as autobiographical episodes of women from marginalised communities. | Name one shared theme — identity and dignity under oppression — then one grounded sentence per narrator showing it. |
| 2. Do children notice injustice, and are the seeds of rebellion sowed early? | Part I: Zitkala-Sa’s refusal to submit; Part II: Bama’s urge to touch the vadais. | One concrete early act of resistance from each account, plus the point that both narrators are children. |
| 3. What discrimination does Zitkala-Sa’s experience depict, and what are their responses? | Part I: forced assimilation — dress and hair — met with rebellion that ends in a broken spirit; Part II: caste untouchability met with anger turning into determination through study. | Treat the two forms separately, state the two responses separately, then conclude: dignity and education. |
Three short lines are worth remembering in your answer, used inside your own sentences: Zitkala-Sa’s defiant refusal — she will not submit, she will struggle first — the book’s report that after the haircut she lost her spirit, and Bama’s “But we too are human beings. Attribute each to its narrator, and quote the line as evidence rather than describing it.
One official caution applies to every chapter in this book: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical, so check the current official CBSE syllabus for which Vistas material applies this session.
Quick recap: points to remember from this chapter
This is our own night-before refresher, in six points.
- The chapter is two autobiographical childhood memories written by adults looking back, both from women from marginalised communities.
- Zitkala-Sa’s account is the forced cutting of her long hair at a boarding school — an act that strips a marker of honour and breaks her spirit.
- Bama’s account is the moment she learns why an elder carries food by its string — laughter becomes anger, and her people too are human beings.
- Both children notice injustice early: Zitkala-Sa is humiliated on day one, Bama before she has heard the word untouchability spoken.
- Both carry seeds of rebellion, and both name what dignity protects — hair and belonging for Zitkala-Sa, an equal place among human beings for Bama.
- Annan’s advice is the chapter’s clearest programme: study and progress throw indignities away — and Bama stands first in her class.
Related chapters and resources
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
If this unit is part of your revision run, the following pages open the rest of the set.
- Class 12 English notes — Flamingo and Vistas together.
- On the Face of It (Vistas Chapter 5) — the Vistas chapter that comes before this one.
- The Interview (Chapter 7) — the unit that follows in the book’s order.
- Class 12 hub — all subjects, one page.
- CBSE notes home — the full set of revision pages.
Sources and data verification
Four plain points about what this page rests on:
- The description on this page follows the NCERT Class 12 English Vistas textbook, chapter 6, official edition published on ncert.nic.in, using the unit’s own section names and wording from that edition.
- This page covers the chapter’s two autobiographical accounts — Part I by Zitkala-Sa and Part II by Bama — and its three Reading with Insight questions. It does not cover any other book or syllabus document.
- This listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
- NCERT settles textbook content, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical, which is why the exam guidance above points you to the official syllabus — the only document that decides what applies this session.
Chapter-wise notes for this subject are not published yet. The unit-wise syllabus on this page is complete and verified against the official CBSE curriculum document.
Reference: NCERT Class 12 English Vistas textbook, chapter 6, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Frequently asked questions about Memories of Childhood
What is the commonality of theme in Zitkala-Sa’s and Bama’s accounts?
Both are childhood memories of women from marginalised communities in which a child meets the mainstream’s judgement of who she is. For Zitkala-Sa the judgement comes as the boarding school stripping her blanket, moccasins and hair; for Bama, as the caste rule that makes an elder carry food by its string.
The shared theme is identity and dignity under oppression; in one it is lost, in the other reclaimed.
Why does Zitkala-Sa describe the school as the “land of apples”?
The “land of apples” is the boarding school itself — the account’s opening scene is her first day there, bitter-cold and snowy, with bells and an unknown tongue around her. (NCERT, Part I)
Who is Annan in Bama’s account and what advice does he give her?
Annan is Bama’s elder brother, a university student home for the holidays. He explains that their community is denied honour, dignity and respect, but that study and progress can throw those indignities away; if you stay ahead in your lessons, people will come to you of their own accord. Bama studies hard and stands first in her class.
Why did the elder in Bama’s street carry the packet by its string?
Because of untouchability. The upper-caste landlord believed the elder must not touch the packet with his hands, or the food would be polluted. So the elder carried it out by its string, walked up to the landlord, bowed low and offered it; Bama finds the walk comic until Annan explains it.
What does the title “We Too are Human Beings” mean?
It is Bama’s angry conclusion after she understands the elder’s walk. If a man thinks so much of himself for having scraped four coins together, she asks, has he lost all human feeling?
Her insistence that her people too are human beings is the chapter’s declaration that caste humiliation is wrong, and that her people should not run these petty errands.
What is the meaning of the word Karukku in Bama’s title?
Karukku is the title of Bama’s autobiography and the source of this excerpt. It means palmyra leaves, whose serrated edges on both sides make them like double-edged swords, and by a pun on “karu — embryo, seed — the word also means freshness, newness. (NCERT, “Before you read”)
Explore Class 12 English Books
- Previous: On The Face Of It
- Next: The Interview
Class 12 English on LearnCBSE:
Related chapters:
- Prose
- Short stories
- The Third Level