2. LOST SPRING - Anees Jung

[Click HERE to read the lesson 'Lost Spring']

Click HERE to read the Summary of the Lesson 'Lost Spring'

[Acknowledgment: The questions and answers provided in this section are inspired by the themes and content of the NCERT English textbooks. For further reference, please consult the NCERT materials.]

1. What is the meaning of the title ‘Lost Spring’?

Answer:- ‘Lost Spring’ conveys the stories of children who have lost their childhood because of the grinding poverty and traditions that condemn these children to a life of exploitation.

2. Where would the author encounter Saheb every morning?

Answer:- The author would encounter Saheb every morning scrounging for gold in the garbage dumps of her neighbourhood, Seemapuri.

3. Where was Saheb from? Why did they leave their native place?

Answer:- Saheb was from Dhaka. They had left Dhaka because storms would destroy their fields and homes

4. What did the author promise Saheb?

Answer:- The author promised Saheb that she would start a school.

5. ‘Promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak world.’ Explain.

Answer:- The author promised Saheb that she would start a school. The political leaders promise them various schemes and facilities before the elections but they are never fulfilled.

6. What is Saheb's full name and its meaning?

Answer:- The full name of Saheb is Saheb-e-Alam and it means lord of the universe.

7. To what does the author compare these ragpickers of Seemapuri?

Answer:- They are compared to an army of barefoot boys and morning birds

8. Why were the children not wearing chappals?

Answer:- The children were not wearing chappals because it has become their tradition to remain barefoot and because of the perpetual state of poverty.

9. Where is Seemapuri?

Answer:-  Seemapuri is a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it.

10. Describe Seemapuri.

Answer:- In Seemapuri, the people live in structures of mud, with roofs of tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage, drainage, or running water. They live there without permits but with ration cards that get their names on voters’ lists and enable them to buy grain.

11. Describe Dhaka

Answer:- Dhaka is a beautiful land of green fields and rivers.

12. Garbage to them is gold. Explain.

Answer:- Garbage is very valuable for the survival of people in Seemapuri. People collect rags from the garbage. It has become their daily bread and a roof over their heads.

13. What is the meaning of Garbage for the children and elders?

Answer:- The meaning of Garbage is different for the children and elders. For the children, it is wrapped in wonder and for the elders, it is a means of survival.

14. Where was Saheb found by the author one winter morning?

Answer:- Saheb was found one winter morning at the neighbourhood club, watching two young men dressed in white playing tennis.

15. How did Saheb lose his freedom?

Answer:- Saheb worked for the milk booth, had to carry the heavy steel canister, and must reach on time. The plastic bag that he used to carry was light. While he would be picking rags on the garbage mound, he had the freedom to go there and return home whenever he wanted to but now he had to reach every day on time for work. He lost his freedom as he was no longer his own master but someone else’s servant.

16. What did Mukesh wish to become?

Ans: Mukesh wanted to become a motor mechanic.

17. Mukesh’s dream looms like a mirage. Explain.

Answer:- Mukesh is a poor boy who is uneducated so the author thinks that his dream may remain as a mirage and not turn into a reality.

18. Describe Firozabad.

Answer:- Firozabad is a dusty town famous for its bangles. It is the centre of India’s glass-blowing industry where families have spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass, and making bangles for all the women in the land.

19. In what conditions would the families make bangles?

Answer:- The families work in the glass furnaces with high temperatures, in dingy cells without air and light, next to lines of flames of flickering oil lamps, sit boys and girls with their fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of bangles, very often losing the brightness of their eyes.

20. In what conditions would people live in Firozabad?

Answer:- Firozabad is known for stinking lanes choked with garbage, past homes that remain hovels with crumbling walls, wobbly doors, no windows, crowded with families of humans and animals coexisting in a primeval state.

21. Describe the house of Mukesh.

Answer:- Mukesh’s house was a half-built shack which was in one part thatched with dead grass. There was a firewood stove on the floor over which sat a large vessel of sizzling spinach leaves and a frail young woman was cooking the evening meal for the whole family.

22. Mention the custom that was followed.

Answer:- When the older man entered the house, the daughter-in-law of the house gently withdrew behind the broken wall and brought her veil closer to her face. As custom demands, daughters-in-law must veil their faces before male elders.

23. What do you know about Mukesh’s elder brother?

Answer:- Mukesh’s elder brother was an impoverished bangle maker. Despite long years of hard labour, first as a tailor, then as a bangle maker, he had failed to renovate their house, and send his two sons to school. All he had managed to do was to teach them what he knew - the art of making bangles.

24. Mention the different colours of the bangles.

Answer:- The different colours of the bangles are - sunny gold, paddy green, royal blue, pink, purple, every colour born out of the seven colours of the rainbow.

25. What was done after the bangles were made?

Answer:- After the bangles were made, they are made to lie in mounds in unkempt yards, are piled on four-wheeled handcarts and are pushed by young men along the narrow lanes of the shanty town.

26. What is the sanctity of bangles?

Answer:- They symbolise an Indian woman’s suhaag, auspiciousness in marriage.

27. What cry rings from every house of Firozabad?

Answer:- The cry of not having money to do anything except carry on the business of making bangles, not even enough to eat, rings in every home. The young men echo the lament of their elders.

28. Why would the people not organise themselves into a cooperative in Firozabad?

Answer:- If they organise into a cooperative then they would be hauled up by the police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something illegal.

29. Mention the two distinct worlds that are found in Firozabad.

Answer:- One of the family, caught in a web of poverty, burdened by the stigma of caste in which they are born, the other a vicious circle of the sahukars, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of law, the bureaucrats and the politicians.

30 Show that Mukesh’s dream is more practical than imaginary.

Answer:- Mukesh is practical minded and realistic. He dreams to become a motor mechanic. Even though he is poor, he knows that he would be able to fulfil it. He knows his ground reality. But to dream of flying airplanes is beyond his reach and so he doesn’t think about them.

31. Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangles industry?

Answer:- The workers become blind while soldering the glass pieces into bangles. The dust of the bangles is injurious to the eyes likewise the furnaces have a very high temperature.

32. How is Mukesh’s attitude to his situation different from that of his family?

Answer:- The family members of Mukesh believe that they are destined to work as bangle makers but Mukesh feels that he would go to a far away garage and learn to become a motor mechanic.

33. What could be some of the reasons for the migration of people from villages to cities?

Answer:- Some of the reasons for the migration of people from villages to cities are 1) Lack of job opportunities in the villages and 2) Lack of modern amenities.

34. Would you agree that promises made to poor children are rarely kept?

Answer:- The author promised Saheb that she would start a school but she did not really mean it. The government has made laws prohibiting child labour but there are more than 20,000 children working in bangles industry. It is because the government is unable to provide alternative employment, free education and other such facilities to these children that they remain helpless.

35. What forces conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty?

Answer:- The forces that conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty are that they find themselves in the clutches of the sahukars, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of the law, the bureaucrats and the politicians.