lost spring class-12, solutions,
LOST SPRING
Anees jung, a famous story writer utters destitution of ragpickers of seemapuri and bangle makers of Firozabad, it sensitises the readers to step forward to save the spring (Childhood) of beautiful human life so that many children would be able to avail the apportunities to realize their dreams,
Points to Remember
saheb-e- Alam
- name means–lord of the universe
- but earns living by rag–picking
- lives in seemapuri
- walks barefooted
living conditions in seema puri
- on the outskirts of Delhi, yet miles away from, it home of 10,000 rag pickers
- make their living by Rag -picking
- food and survival more important than an identity
- garbage to them is gold because it is a means of survival,
Mukesh
- a bangle maker of Firozabad
- works in high temperature
- works place–small and dingy
- Hazardous working conditions,
- dreams of being a motor mechanic, wants to break the lineage
Hazards of working in glass bangle factory
- high temperature,
- long working hours in front of hot furnaces
- boys and girls assist parents in the dim light of flickering oil lamps,
- eyes more adjusted to dark than light
- dust from polishing bangles affect their eyes, skin and health
- exploited by money lenders, police, bureaucrats, politicians,
- fear of being ill–treated by police
- live in a state of intense poverty,
- lives in stinky lanes
- over crowded place with humans and animals,
stories of stolen childhood
sometimes I find a Rupee in the garbage”
why do you do this? I ask saheb whom i encounter every morning scrounging for gold in the garbage dumps of my neighbourhood saheb left his home long ago, set amidst the green fields of dhaka, his home is not even a distant memory , there were many storms that swept away their fields and homes, his mother tells him, that’s why left, looking for gold in the big city where he now lives, I have nothing else, to do he immediately how hollow the advice must sound
Explanation:
there is school in my neigbhhood, when they build one, I will go if i start a school, will you come? I ask , half-joking yes, he says , smiling broadly a few days later I see him running up to me is your school ready? it takes longer to build a school, I say, embarrased at having made a promise that was not meant . but promises like mine abound corner of his bleak word, after months of knowing him I ask his name saheb-e-Alam , he announces, he does not know what it means, if he knew its meaning –lord of the universe –he would have a hard time believing it, unaware of what his name represents, he roams the streets with his friends, an army of barefoot boys who appear like the morning birds and disappear at noon, over the months , i have come to recognise each of them ,
- why aren’t you wearing chappals? I ask one,
- my mother did not bring them down from the shelf” he answers simply,
Even if she did he will throw them off” adds another who is wearing shoes that do not match, when I comment on it, he shuffles his feet and says nothing ” I want shoes, says a third boy who has never owned a pair all his life, travelling across the country I have seen children walking barefoot, in cities, on village roads, it is not lack of money but a tradition to stay barefoot, is one explanation, I wonder if this is only an excuse away a perpetual state, of poverty,
Explanation-
I Remember a story a man from udipi once told me, as a young boy he would go to school past an old temple, where his father was a priest he would stop briefly at the temple and drowned in an air of shoes, thirty years later I visited his town and the temple which was now drowned in an air of desolation, in the backyard where lived the new priest, there were red and white plastic chairs, A young boy dressed in a grey uniform , wearing socks and shoes, arrived panting and threw his school bag on a folding bed, looking at the boy, I remembered the prayer another boy had made to the goddess when he had finally got a pair of shoes, let me never lose them” the goddess and granted his prayer, young boys like the son of the priest now wore shoes, but many other like the ragpickers in my neighbourhood remain shoeless,
my acquaintance with the barefoot ragpickers leads me to seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically . those who live here are squatters who came from bangladesh back in 1971. saheb’s family is among them seemapuri was then a wilderness, it still, but it is no longer empty, in structures of mud , with roofs of tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage, drainage or running water, live 10,000 ragpickers. they have live here for more than thirty years without an identity , without permits but with ration cards that get their names on voters lists and enable them to buy grain, food is more important for survival than an identity if at the end of the day we can feed our families and go to bed without in aching stomach, we would rather, live here than in the fields that gave us on grain say a group of women in tattered saris when I ask them why they left their beautiful land of green fields and rivers, wherever they find food, they pitch their tents that become transit homes, children grow up in them, becoming partners in survival and survival in seemapuri means rag–picking through the years, it has acquired the proportions of a fine, art, garbage to them is gold, it is their daily bread , a roof over their heads, even if it is a leaking, roof but for a child it is even more,
I sometimes find a rupee, even a ten–rupee note” saheb says, his eyes lighting up, when you can find a silver coin in a heap of garbage you don’t stop scrounging for, there is hope of finding more, it seems that for children garbage has a meaning different from what it means to their parents, for the children it is wrapped in wonder, for the elders it is a means of survival,
Explanation:-
one winter morning I see saheb standing by the fenced gate of the neigbhourhood club, watching two young men dressed in white, playing tennits I like the game, he hums, content to watch it standing behind the fence ; I go inside no one is around , the admits , the gatekeeper lets, me use the swing saheb too is wearing tennits shoes that look stranger over his discoloured shirt and shorts, someone gave them to me he syas, in the manner of an explanation . the fact that they are discarded shoes of some rich, boy, who perhasps refused to wear them because of a hole in one of them, does true but bother him, for one who has walked barefoot, even shoes, with a hoe in is a dream come true but the game he is watching so identity is out of his reach,
this morning , saheb is on his way to the milk booth, in this hand is a steel canister, I now work in a stall down the road, he says , pointing in the distance I am paid 800 rupees and all my meals, does he like the job? i ask he his face, I see has lost the carefree look, the steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his shoulder. the bag was his, the canister belongs to the man who owns the tea shop, saheb is no longer his own master;
(I want to drive a car”)
Mukesh insists on being his own master” I will be a motor mechanic, he announces, do you know anything about cars? I ask I will learn to drive to drive a car, he answers, looking straight into my eyes, his dream looms like a mirage amidst the dust of streets that fill his town Firozabad , famous for its bangles every other family in Firozabad is engaged in making bangles, it is the centre of india ‘s glass blowing industry where families have spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass, making bangles for all the women in the land it seems, mukesh’ s family is among them none of them know that it is illegal for children like him to work in the glass furnaces with high and all those 20,000 children out of the hot furnaces where they slog their day light hours, often losing the brightness of their eyes, mukesh ‘s eyes beam as he volunteers to take me home, which he proudly says is being rebuilt, we walk down stinking lanes choked with garbage, past homes that remain hovels with crumbling wallks, wobby doors, no window crowded with families, of humans and animals coexisting
in a primeval state he stop it the door of one such house , bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot and pushes it open we enter a half -built shack, in one part of it thatched with dead grass, is a firewood stove over which sits a large vessel of sizzling spinach leaves, on the ground in large aluminium platters are more chopped vegetables, a frail young woman is cooking the wife of mukesh ‘s elder brother not much older in year she has begun to command husband , mukesh and their father, when the older man enters , she gently withdraws in–law must veil their faces before male elder, in this case the elder is an improverished bangle maker, despite long years of hard labour, first sons to school, all he has managed to do teach them what he knows –the art of making bangles,
Explanation:-
it is his karam, his destiny, says Mukesh’s grandmother who has watched her own husband go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of bangles, can a god–given lineage ever be broken ? she implies . born in the caste of bangles makers, they have seen nothing but bangles–in the house, in the yard in every other house every other yard every, street in firozabad, spiral of bagles-sunny gold paddy green royal blue, pink, purple, every colour born out of the seven colour of the rainbow -lie in mounds in unkempt yards, are piled on four –wheeled handcarts , pushed by young men along the narrow lanes, of the shanty town and in dark hutments, next to lines of flames of flickering oil lamps, sit boys and girls with their father and mother, welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of bangles, their eyes are more adjusted to the dark than the light outside, that is why they often end up losing their eyesight , before they become adults,
word–meanings;-
- chopped–काटी हुई
- Renovate–फिर से बनाना
- Echo–प्रतिध्वनि
- initiative–पहल
- vicious–दुराचारी
- stigma–कलंक
- hurtling-सनसनाते
- mutters–बुदबुदाते
- broadly–मोटे तौर पर
- roams–घूमता