The Lost Spring Explanation Notes

Every morning, the writer sees a young ragpicker boy who visits the garbage dump near her
house and searches for ‘gold’ in it. The writer says that he searches for ‘gold’ ironically because
although the garbage dump is full of useless, thrown away things, still he shuffles it so minutely
as if he will get something as precious as ‘gold’ from it. The boy’s name is Saheb. His home in
Dhaka was in the middle of lush green fields. They had left it many years ago and he does not
remember it anymore. His mother had told him that there were many storms that destroyed their
homes and fields. So, they left home and shifted to the cities in search of ‘gold’. The writer again
says, “looking for gold in the big city”. Gold here refers to something precious which was not
available in their hometown. Things like shoes, money, bags, etc. for the children and food,
clothing, shelter as means of survival for their parents. The boy searches for such precious
things in the garbage dumps. One day the writer questions Saheb and asks him the reason for
shuffling through the garbage.

Saheb replies to the writer that he has nothing else to do other than rag picking. The writer
suggests that he should go to school. She realizes that her advice is meaningless for the poor
boy. He replies that there are no schools in the area where he lives. He also assures her that he
will go to school when one is built near his house. The writer asks him jokingly that if she opened
a school would he attend it.

Saheb says that he would join the writer’s school and after a few days, he runs up to her to ask
whether her school is ready. The writer replied that it takes a lot of time to build a school. She felt
ashamed at making a false promise. She had said this as a joke and had never intended to open
a school, so she felt ashamed of herself. Saheb was not hurt because he was used to such false
promises as they existed in large numbers in his empty world. He was surrounded by such false
promises made by everyone around him. His world was empty as no promise made to Saheb
was ever fulfilled.

The writer had known Saheb for a few months when she asked him his name. He replied as if he
was making an announcement that his name was Saheb – E – Alam. The writer thought that the
boy did not know the meaning of his name and if he came to know that his name meant “Lord of
the Universe” he would not be able to believe it. His name was the opposite of his life. He went
around the streets with a group of friends. It was like an army of boys who did not wear any
footwear. They appeared in the morning like the morning birds and disappeared at noon. The
writer could recognize all of them as she had been seeing them for the past few months.

Another boy who was wearing a different shoe on each foot said that even if his mother would
have given him the footwear, he would have thrown it away. He meant that the boy was not
wearing footwear because he did not want to wear one. The writer asked the second boy the
reason for wearing a different shoe on each foot. He did not reply and shuffled his feet as he
tried to hide the shoes. A third boy spoke that he was eager to get a pair of shoes as he had
never owned one all his life. The writer takes the example of shoes to highlight the condition of
these boys. They search the garbage dumps looking for such precious things. She further tells
us that as she travelled across the country, she had seen many children walking barefoot in the
cities as well as the villages. They reasoned that they were barefoot not due to lack of money to
buy footwear, but being barefoot was a tradition for them. The writer wondered and concluded
that the reason for it being a tradition was a mere excuse to hide the fact that they were so poor
that they could not afford footwear.

The writer narrates a story told to her by a man from Udipi. (Udipi is a town in Karnataka). When
he was a young boy, he would walk to his school. On the way, he would cross a temple where
his father worked as a priest. He would stop at the temple and pray to God to bless him with a
pair of shoes. After thirty years the writer visited the town and the temple. Now the place was
nearly empty. The new priest lived in the backyard of the temple. Plastic chairs in red and white
colour were kept there. A young boy came running. He was wearing a grey coloured school
uniform, socks and shoes. He had a school bag hung on his shoulders. He threw it on the bed
and ran away. The writer wants to say that the financial position of the priest at the temple had
improved over the last thirty years. Now, he could afford shoes for his children. She was
reminded of another boy who got a pair of shoes. He prayed to the goddess that he may never
lose the shoes that he had got. The goddess had granted his prayer as the boy never lost his
footwear. This shows us that the underprivileged value anything that they get because they have
been longing for it.

The writer describes the area where these rag picker boys live. Seemapuri, located on the
outskirts of Delhi, was very different from the capital of the country. In 1971 when these rag
pickers had migrated from Bangladesh, the area had been a wasteland. Seemapuri was still a
wasteland but now it was not empty as almost ten thousand rag pickers lived there in structures
made of mud, with roofs made of thin sheets of tin or plastic material called tarpaulin. There was
no sewage, drainage or running water facility in Seemapuri. They lived in unhygienic conditions.
It was a piece of wasteland where the garbage of the city was collected. These people had
started living there illegally.

The ragpickers had been living illegally in Seemapuri for the last thirty years. They have
occupied the area without government permission or ownership. The politicians of the area have
provided them ration cards and voter identity cards. They got grocery for their family through
these ration cards and in return, they cast their votes in favour of the politician who had helped
them. The writer asked a group of women who were wearing torn saris that why did they leave
their homes in Dhaka. They replied that if they were able to satisfy the hunger of their families
and sleep well at night, they were happier to live in Seemapuri than their fields in Dhaka which
were ruined and gave them no food.

These people travelled in search of food and wherever they found it, they set up temporary
homes and started living there. Their children kept on growing there and gradually, they also
started helping their parents in seeking means of survival. For those who lived in Seemapuri, the
means of survival was rag picking. As they had been doing it for many years, they became
trained at rag picking and did it well. For the rag pickers the garbage was as precious as gold.
These families searched the garbage dumps and got things which they sold to fund their food.
They gathered torn or damaged sheets which were used to cover the roof of their homes. These
did not cover them well but still provided them with some protection. For the children, the
garbage dumps were more than a means of survival.

Saheb was happy to say that sometimes he found a rupee and even a ten – rupee note in the
dump. As one often finds even a silver coin in the garbage dump, he kept on searching hoping to
find more. For the children, the garbage dump was a means of fulfilling their dreams although
partially while for their parents, it was a means of aiding survival by providing the basics – food,
clothing and shelter.
One winter morning the writer saw Saheb standing by the fence of a club. He was watching a
tennis game being played by two young men. Saheb liked the game but could not play it. He told
the writer that he went inside the club when it would be closed. He was allowed to take swings
by the guard there.

The writer saw that Saheb was also wearing tennis shoes. They did not look appropriate with his
dress which was worn out and had faded. He told the writer in an attempt to justify himself that
someone gave him the shoes. She however figured out that he had got them from a garbage
dump. They must have been thrown away by a boy from a rich family as he did not want to wear
them anymore. Probably they had a hole or two in them due to which he did not want to wear
them. On the contrary, Saheb was not bothered by this fact and had no problem wearing them
as he could not afford anything better than that. He walked barefoot and to wear a shoe even
with a hole was like a dream for him. Although due to the garbage dump, Saheb’s dream of
wearing shoes had been partially fulfilled but his desire to play tennis would never be fulfilled.

One morning the writer met Saheb who was on his way to the milk booth. He was holding a steel
container. He told her that he had got a job at the nearby tea stall. He would earn eight hundred
rupees a month and get meals too. The writer asked him if he liked the job as she could see that
he had lost the carefree look. As now Saheb was working for someone else and was carrying his
master’s container, he was burdened with responsibility. Earlier, as a rag picker, Saheb would
carry his own bag and was his own master. Now, he was no longer his own master.

Story 2 – “I want to drive a car”

The boy was confident and replied that he would learn to drive a car. His dream was far away
from reality and although the boy was confident, he would succumb to societal pressures. He
lived in Firozabad which was famous for glass bangles. The writer felt that the boy’s dreams
would not materialize and gradually get influenced by the dusty streets of Firozabad. She wanted
to say that as every family in the town of Firozabad was involved in the glass bangle industry, so
would Mukesh do with the passage of time. She tells us that Firozabad was the main town of
India for the glass – blowing industry. The families had been involved in working at furnaces,
welding glass, and making bangles for generations. They made so many bangles that it seemed
that they made bangles for all the women of the world.

Mukesh’s family was also involved in the profession of glass bangle – making. They were not
aware of the law. They did not know that it was unlawful to force children to work in such glass
furnaces. The work places were hot, dark closed rooms without ventilation. The writer felt that if
the law would come into force, it would rescue almost twenty thousand children from these
inhuman places where they were forced to work hard during the daytime. They often ended up
losing their eyesight also.

Mukesh was happy as he took the writer to his home. He felt proud as he informed her that it
was being renovated. They walked down streets which were full of garbage and gave off a foul
smell. The streets were lined with slums which were unsteady. The walls were falling apart, the
doors were unsteady, there were no windows and were full of families where people lived along
with animals. They reminded the writer of the prehistoric man who lived just like animals. Mukesh
stopped in front of one such door, hit it hard with his foot and pushed it open.
The house where Mukesh lived was a partially constructed hut. In one corner was a firewood
stove made with dead grass. A vessel with spinach leaves was kept on it. on the ground there
were more plates with chopped vegetables in them. There was a thin, young woman cooking the
evening meal for the family. Her eyes were full of the smoke emanating from the stove but she
was still cheerful and smiled to see the writer. She was the wife of Mukesh’s elder brother.
Although she was not much older than Mukesh, she was a responsible person and was worthy
to get respect from the family as the daughter-in-law of the family. She took care of three men –
her husband, Mukesh and their father.

As Mukesh’s father entered the house, the daughter-in-law hid behind the wall and covered her
face behind her veil. It was a tradition for the daughter-in-laws to hide their face in the presence
of the older male members of the family. The elder here was a poor bangle maker. He had
worked hard all his life – first as a tailor, then as a bangle maker. He was still not able to either
renovate the house or send his sons to school. He had just managed to teach him the skill of
making bangles.

Mukesh’s grandmother justified her son by saying that he was destined to make bangles as it
had been their family profession. She had seen her husband become blind due to the dust from
polishing the glass bangles. She said that their family had got this art of bangle making from God
and so they had to carry on the tradition.

They were born in a particular caste which had to follow the profession of bangle making. All
their life they had just seen these glass bangles. They were everywhere – in the backyard, in the
next house, in their yard and even in the streets of the town. There were huge spiral bunches of
bangles in different colours like gold, green, blue, pink, purple. There were bangles of all the
colours of the rainbow. Further, the writer says that there were bangles in the neglected yards
also. They were dumped on handcarts for sale. They were pushed by men along the streets of
Firozabad.

The writer describes the environment where these bangle makers work. They were small, dark
huts. The children would sit next to a line of oil lamps whose flames were unsteady. They, along
with their parents, joined the pieces of coloured glass into circles called bangles. As they spent a
lot of time in the dark, their eyes would not adapt to the bright sunlight. Many of them lost their
eyesight before gaining adulthood.

There was a young girl by the name of Savita. She wore a faded pink coloured dress. She was
sitting with an elderly woman and they were joining pieces of glass to make bangles. Her hands
moved like a machine just like the tongs of a machine. The writer wondered if Savita knew that
bangles were sacred. They were a good omen for a woman’s wifehood.

She thought that Savita would realize this when she would become a bride. That day she would
cover her head with a red coloured veil, colour her hands with henna and wear red coloured
bangles on her wrist. The elderly woman sitting next to Savita also became a bride many years
ago. She was still wearing the glass bangles but had lost her eyesight now.

The elderly woman complained that she had not eaten even a ser of food. Ser is a unit of
measuring quantity. The woman wants to say that they are so poor that they cannot eat enough
food. That is the benefit that she has received by adopting the profession of bangle-making. The
woman’s husband has a flowing beard. He says that he does not know anything other than
bangle – making. All that he has been able to accomplish is to make a house for his family to live
in.

The writer wonders that probably the old man has achieved something which many other people
have not been able to achieve. At least he has been able to secure a shelter for his family.

This problem was prevalent in all the homes which carried on the profession. They did not know
anything else other than bangle-making and it did not even provide them enough to eat. The
young men who had entered the traditional profession also had the same complaint. With the
passing time there was no improvement in their condition. As they had been doing hard work for
a countless number of years, they did not have any ability to do something else or to dream of it.

The writer suggests they form a cooperative. She talked to a group of young men to get out of
the clutches of the cruel middlemen who had trapped their elders. The men said that if they
dared to do something like that, they would be dragged and beaten up by the police and sent to
jail. Their acts would be termed to be unlawful. The writer felt that as they had no leader, they
could not think of doing things differently. They all were so tired – the men and their fathers.

The men complained that it was a continuous process. Their poor condition led to lack of
concern for their problems. This made them greedy and led to injustice. The writer envisioned
that there were two separate worlds – one was of such families who were stuck in poverty and
the pressure of doing the traditional profession according to the caste in which they were born.
The other world is a never-ending cycle of moneylenders, middlemen, policemen, law keepers,
government officials and politicians. Both of these worlds had forced the young boys to follow the
family traditions. The young boys get into the profession and become a part of the vicious cycle
even before they realize it. If they did anything else, it meant that they were challenging these
two worlds.

The boys had not been reared up to be bold so that they could dare to go against the system.
The writer was happy to sense that Mukesh had the spark in him. He repeated that he would be
a motor mechanic. He wanted to go to a garage and learn the job. The writer asked that as the
garage was at a distance from his home, Mukesh insisted that he would walk up to it. She asked
him if he dreamt of flying planes. The boy became silent and refused. He did not know about
them as he did not know about planes. Not many planes flew over Firozabad. As he had only
seen cars moving around in Firozabad, his dreams were restricted to them.