Those of you who know my are probably familiar with my fascination with the Balbharati  English textbooks that I learned from. This page is dedicated to the Balbharati books. I am trying to remember whatever I can and would love a refresher if you happen to remember something else. If I have made mistakes please let me know.

•  Standard One
•  Lesson One: Nitin
    "This is Nitin
    He is six
    He lives in Nashik
    This is Nitin's garden"
•   Lesson Two introduced Nitin's sister Leena. It was some alphabet rhyme that I don't recollect
  
• Standard Two
•  Lesson One: "One Saturday Afternoon"
        This story was about Ping and Pong who unfairly wanted to bat earlier than their alloted time in a Satuday game of cricket. I still remember this sentence "Ping and Pong were the last to bat that day".
• Lesson Three: "King Bruce and the Spider"                                                                                                               This was the story everybody knows - the king is defeated, running away and sees spider falling and rising again, gets inspired.
• Lesson # Unknown: "Nada Habba"                                                                                                                                    A lesson about how Navaratri is celebrated all over India. Gundappa, our kid from Karnataka tells us about Nada Habba.
• Poem # Unknown: Don't remember much, but a poem about mice
• Standard Three 
• Lesson One: "All for the best"                                                                                                                                             My eternal favorite. There is this king called Amrapal and this court member Murlidhar (? , or something from M) who has a habit of saying "All for the best". When the King cuts his finger, Murlidhar says "All for the best" and makes the king angry and the king dismisses him. Now a few days later the king goes through the forest and is sleeping and a lion approaches him. The lion sniffs the cut finger, thinks it is a dead body and goes away. King realizes what "All for the best" truly means.
• Lesson # Unknown: "Sonia and King December"                                                                                                          A little girl called Sonia has a step-mother who is bad. She runs away(?) from home and meets these 12 people  named January, February, ..... and King December. I forget the details but somehow, these "month" men help Sonia get rid of the step-mother.
• Lesson #X and #(X+1): "Gulliver's Travels": The Lilliput and Brobdingnag stories.
  

• Standard Four
• Lesson One: "The shoemaker and the elves"                                                                                                                This is the story of a shoemaker who is unable to work (don't remember why). Two little elves visit his home at midnight and make shoes for him. Shoemaker sells shoes. Gets rich. Goes on for a while. The one day shoemaker and his wife observe who is really doing all that work by staying late in the night. They see the elves making the shoes. Next day shoemaker's wife sews clothes for the elves and puts them there. The elves are very happy.
• Lesson Four or Five: "Excuse me, said Eddie"                                                                                                                Eddie is a small boy at an adults party and spots a sea-lion under a table at the party. He tries to alert adults and begins by saying "Excuse me..."  but nobody allows him to speak.
• Lesson #Unknown: "The Misers"                                                                                                                                      A story of two misers who set to have breakfast. They go to have bread, but baker says, bread is as soft as butter. So they go to have butter instead. Butter person says butter as smooth as olive oil. They go to have olive oil instead. Olive oil lady says oil as clear as water. So they go to a local fountain and have breakfast of water.
  
• Lesson #X and #(X+1): "A night in the jungle (?)" This two-lesson story was about a boy and his father who had put an observation deck on top of a tree near a lake in the jungle. They saw various kinds of animals come there to drink water. At dawn, they see a magnificent tiger.
  
• Standard Five
• Lesson One: "Niloufa"  - A story about how little Niloufa saves her city from the enemy. The enemy has laid a seige to her city and they are running out of food. They start killling their own animals as they have run out of grain. They want to surrender. Niloufa asks a sheep to be fed fully. They then release the sheep out of the city. The enemy sees the well-fed sheep, thinks that there are lots of supplies in there, and the leaves.
  
• Lesson #X and Lesson #(X +1) - yup two lessons for this story. "Upamanyu" who eats some plant because he's hungry (he's supposed to be fasting) and then
• Lesson #Unknown: Don't remember the title, but it was a Russian folk tale about kids who finds a piece of grain as big as an egg. The king calls for a very old man to examine the grain - This old man comes in two crutches and unable to see and hear is physically pretty sad state. He says he doesn't know, his dad might. His Dad is brought in, dad comes in a single crutch, better vision and hearing and says by his time people had started farming their own lands. Grains were bigger than today but not as big as this one, but my dad might know! Now this person's dad is called for, and this man comes without crutches, able to see and hear clearly and identifies the grain. During his time it was God's land. No divisions. Grains were bigger!
• Lesson #Unknown: Again don't remember the title. Author was Radha Nair. The story of a Chinese merchant whose ship sinks but he manages to save ten pots. He approaches a local, asks him to store the pots for him. He says there is grain in the pots. The local person (who is also poor) agrees. Merchant goes away. One day this person;s family doesn't have anything to eat and children start crying. He hesitates at first, but on wife's insistence, opens a pot of "grains" to feed the kids, only to find that the pot is filled with gold, and a few grains at the top to hide the gold. Sells some gold, earns money makes profit and ultimately becomes wealthy and has servants and stuff. Chinese merchant returns to find a mansion instead of the hut. He approaches the guy who faithfully returns the ten pots of gold along with ten smaller pots of gold as "interest".
• Lesson #Unknown: "The Hat". Some story about war and person wants to be carried back home. Old man asks three sons who can run the fastest. One son says, fast as XXX, other says fast as the wind, third one says as fast as the thoughts of man. And lo, the person finds himself home
• Poem #Unknown - Jonathan Bing -  
  jonathon bing o bingathon john
  forgets where he's going and thinks he's gone
  he wears false teeth on the top of his head
  and always sttands up when he's sleeping in bed
  o jonathon bing has a curious way 

  of trying to walk into yesterday

  if i don't get up in the morning at all he says,

  I'd save the trouble of going to bed 

  o jonathan bing what a way to behave

  and waht do you do with the trouble you save

  i wrap it up neatly and send it by post

  to my freidns and relations who need it the most

• Standard Six
• Poem One: "A new friend"  - Perhaps the only textbook where the first chapter was a poem instead of a lesson. New neighbours invoke curiosity in a litthe boy, who peeps into the new house to find another little boy peeping back at him.
  
• Lesson Five or Six: This was named after the central character. This twelve year old boy's little brother is sick and needs to be carried to a hospital. Now hospital is far away and through the jungle. He carries the little boy on his back and through the jungle (some adventures here) and finally manages to reach the city hospital in the morning and is exhausted.
• Lesson Six/Seven: "The little prince" - The first part of the famous story by Anthony De Saint Exupery.
  
• Lesson Nine or Ten or Eleven or something: Tenali Ram story. Tenali Ram says king's bird in cage is unhappy, king is furious, asks Tenali Ram to never show his face again. He then covers his face with an earthern pot and shows up in court. King realizes folly and releases the bird. Story written by Kamala Laxman.
  
• Lesson Twenty-Something: "Sarah Tops" - Ah, a favorite. A story about a death of a criminal at the museum and his last words are "Try Sarah Tops". Police are for the lookout for a woman named Sarah Tops. The cop's son interested in natural history listens to his dad narrating this story and asks to do his own investigation. Dad takes son to museum and son finds the stolen diamond wrapped in chewing gum near the exhibit "Triceratops"
• Poem #Unknown: "Echo" A poem about echoes. I don't remember much. All that I remember is that I had to recite this poem for my oral exam, and I forgot this poem then too. Then I started crying. 
  
• Standard Seven - I still have this textbook with me, and I don't want to exercise my memory now. Plus, it has the tremendous disadvantage of being more fresh than the rest of the books as I occasionally skim through it.
  

• Standard Eight onwards, we had Kumarbharati not Balbharati, so I'll stop :P