LOST SPRING-STORIES OF LOST CHILDHOOD
By- Anees Jung
AREAS OF FOCUS
a) Title of the lesson
Lost –gone forever ,hence a cause for sorrow
Spring – season of bloom, joy and hope. Spring is a metaphor for childhood, is associated
with the beginning of a bright future.
Stolen – right of poor children to carefree and secure period of childhood taken away
from them ,leaving behind a sense of loss which is beyond repair.
b) Message
Lost Spring by Anees Jung is a description of those poor children who are condemned to
poverty and life of exploitation.
Children like Saheb and Mukesh waste their childhood either scrounging in the garbage
dumps of Seemapuri or welding glass bangles in the blast furnaces of Firozabad.
In their bleak stories of exploitation, the author finds glimpses of resilience & hope .
c)Main Points
STORY 1
a) Background of Saheb –irony in his name
Migrant to Seemapuri ( located on the periphery of Delhi yet lacks the glamour associated
with the city) from distant fields of Dhaka, Bangladesh – representative of people of many
states in search of food and survival.
Saheb E Alam—name ironical-means ‘lord of the universe’- scrounges in the garbage.
Would like to go to school, but there is none in the neighbourhood, so, picks garbage.
Saheb roams barefoot , with friends due to poverty, not tradition as one was led to
believe, from morning to noon – desire to own shoes
Watches wistfully the game of tennis –content to play occasionally on the swing and
wear torn , discarded shoes
Daily struggle for bread ,survival
Hope alive of always finding ‘gold’ in the garbage
Finds a job at tea stall-gets Rs. 800, all his meals-but unhappy
He lost his freedom- no longer his own master
Rag picking bag his own- steel tea canister belongs to the owner of the Tea shop.
b) Description of Seemapuri
Squatters from Bangladesh came in 1971-10,000 ragpickers.
Left homes in Dhaka-storms swept away fields & homes.
Live in terrible conditions—unhygienic and ugly temporary structures of mud with roofs
of tin and tarpaulin , devoid of sewage, drainage or running water.
Lured by promise of food , people prefer living here without identity - only ration cards
which place them on voters list and enable them to buy grain - can feed families.
Children, partners in survival- over the years , made rag picking a fine art –is gold .
Garbage - for children ‘gift wrapped in wonder’
For adults – source of survival – of food and gets them a roof overhead .
STORY 2
a) Firozabad— the centre of glass blowing industry
Miserable plight & occupation of the people in Firozabad
Bangle makers-working in hazardous conditions.
Every family engaged in working at furnaces, welding glass, making bangles, for
generations.
Has about 20,000 children working in hot furnaces, dingy cells, without air & tight
slogging daylight hours,
often lose the brightness of eyes before they become adults.
b) Impoverished life style of bangle sellers
live in houses with crumbling walls - wobbly doors- no windows, crowded with families
of humans & animals
stinking lanes, choked with garbage,
reaction to poverty-resigned to their fate-born to the caste of bangle makers.
Mind-numbing toil-all these years has killed all initiative & ability to dream.
Do not organize into co-operatives, if organized-hauled by police, jailed, beaten for doing
something illegal.
Bangle sellers’ lives are examples of life caught in a spiral of
Poverty –apathy-greed-injustice-poverty
c) Two distinct worlds
One- caught in a web of poverty, burdened, by the stigma of caste in which they are born;
the other- a vicious circle of sahukars, the middlemen, the politicians, the policemen, the
bureaucrats.
d) Dream of Mukesh
Belongs to traditional family of bangle makers, live in acute poverty –house with wobbly
iron door, half-built shack
Lives with his grandmother , father, brother and brother’s wife
Mukesh’s father - initially a tailor, then a bangle maker; worked hard but not been able to
either renovate his house or send his sons to school. Could only teach them bangle
making.
Mukesh’s grandmother - seen her husband go blind with the dust from polishing bangles.
Accepted fate-God given lineage, that could not be broken.
Mukesh’s dream-wants to be a motor mechanic
Watches cars moving on roads
Eyes reflect passionate hope and determination- won’t mind walking to the garage to
learn about cars.
Most children of Mukesh’s background and circumstances , do not dare to dream
Mukesh has the courage to dream
It is like a mirage –difficult to fulfill
Irony — Savita’s story- young girl, working mechanically, soldering pieces of glass- not realizing
the sanctity of the bangles she makes .
the Old woman - had bangles on her wrist but no light in eyes. Had not enjoyed even a full
meal in her life - her husband knew only bangle making.
All three above symbolic of lives of bangle sellers in the town.
QUESTIONS
A. Answer the following in 40-50 words
1. What had led Saheb and his family to move to the city? What is the gold that they seek?
2. Seemapuri, a place in Delhi, yet miles away from it. What does the author mean by this
statement?
3.’Garbage to them is gold .’ What does it mean for the parents and for the children?
4. ‘Together they have imposed a baggage on the child that he cannot put down’. Who is the ‘the
child’ being referred to in these lines? Who has imposed a baggage on him and how?
5. ‘…daring is not part of growing up ‘, yet Mukesh dares to dream. What does he dare to
dream? How does the author feel about that ?
6. How and why is Savita unaware of the sanctity of the bangles she makes ?
B. . Answer the following in 125-150 words
1. Describe the living conditions of the rag –pickers of Seemapuri.
2. Write a brief description of the narrator’s visit to Mukesh’s house
3. Justify the title ‘Lost Spring’ with reference to the lives of Saheb and Mukesh .
