CBSE CLASS XII ENGLISH CORE STUDY
MATERIAL
Lost Spring: Stories of Stolen Childhood — Anees Jung
Competency-Based Extract Questions & HOTs Question Bank
1. Core Literary Elements & Stylistic Devices
Literary Device Example from Text Conceptual & Analytical
Significance
Irony Saheb-e-Alam means "Lord of the His name stands in brutal contrast
Universe" to his daily reality. Instead of
ruling the universe, he is a
barefoot refugee sorting through
garbage dumps for basic survival.
Hyperbole "Garbage is to them gold." An exaggeration highlighting that
trash is their ultimate
lifeline—providing daily bread,
Literary Device Example from Text Conceptual & Analytical
Significance
shelter, and occasional hidden
currency.
Metaphor "Drowned in an air of desolation." Compares the oppressive aura of
poverty to a suffocating liquid.
"Meticulously built structures of
glass..." Represents the fragile, beautiful
illusions built by hazardous, brutal
human labor.
Simile "...like morning birds that appear Compares the elusive,
in the morning and disappear at free-spirited, yet deeply
noon." vulnerable nature of the barefoot
children to transient birds.
Antithesis "His dream looks loom-like amidst Places Mukesh's bright aspiration
the dust of streets..." (becoming a motor mechanic)
directly against the bleak, dusty
reality of Firozabad's inherited
lanes.
2. CBSE Competency-Based Extract Questions (HOTs)
Extract 1: The World of Saheb-e-Alam
“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 they left, looking for gold in the big city
where he now lives.
“I have nothing else to do,” he mutters, looking away.
“Go to school,” I say glibly, realizing immediately how hollow the advice must sound.
Q1. Why does the author characterize her own advice to "Go to school" as "glibly" and "hollow"?
Ans: The author realizes that her advice is highly superficial and detached from Saheb's brutal ground
reality. Suggesting formal education to a child who completely lacks basic food, footwear, and legal
shelter highlights the profound societal disconnect between elite privileges and systemic structural
deprivation.
Q2. The use of the word "gold" to describe items in the garbage dump is an example of:
Ans: [Correct Choice: (b)] Hyperbolic metaphor for survival. It underscores that trash is their ultimate
economic lifeline—providing daily sustenance and rare hidden currency values.
Q3. What central socio-economic truth does the phrase "storms that swept away their fields and
homes" signify regarding migration?
Ans: It signifies how extreme environmental vulnerability and regional climate or political displacements
push vulnerable agrarian families into acute poverty, forcing them into distress migration toward urban
slums as a last-resort measure for physical survival.
Q4. Which of Saheb's psychological traits is highlighted when he "mutters, looking away"?
Ans: It illustrates his deep, internalized sense of resignation, inherent socio-economic shyness, and a
sub-conscious loss of dignity when interacting with an affluent outside observer.
Extract 2: The Stagnation of Firozabad
“I want to be a motor mechanic,” Mukesh repeats. The promise of 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 temperatures, in dingy cells without air and light...
Q1. Analyze the literary significance of Mukesh’s dream being described as "looming like a mirage
amidst the dust of streets".
Ans: A mirage represents an alluring optical illusion that feels attainable from a distance but is virtually
impossible to grasp. By using this simile, the author highlights that while Mukesh maintains the mental
agency to dream, the hostile socio-economic structures and intergenerational traps of Firozabad render
his aspirations highly improbable.
Q2. What critical systemic failure is exposed in the phrase "None of them know that it is illegal for
children like him to work"?
Ans: It exposes a severe deficit in structural awareness among marginalized communities alongside a
total breakdown of state regulatory enforcement. Child protection laws exist comprehensively on paper,
but are systematically bypassed due to administrative apathy and deeply rooted corruption.
Q3. Based on the extract, which structural hazard is associated with the glass-blowing units?
Ans: [Correct Choice: (b)] Extreme temperatures, lack of proper ventilation, and dark workspaces. These
hazardous closed environments cause workers to lose their vision early in life.
Q4. Contrast Mukesh's mindset with that of his family and community in Firozabad.
Ans: While his family and community have completely surrendered to their miserable circumstances
under the fatalistic guide of destiny ('Karam'), Mukesh possesses independent resilience. He boldly dares
to break the vicious cycle of intergenerational labor by choosing an entirely self-determined career path.
Extract 3: The Vicious Circle
Thinking aloud, I hear another group of young men say, “Even if we get organized, we are the
ones who will be hauled up by the police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something
illegal,” they say. There is no leader among them, no one who could help them see things
differently. Their fathers are as tired as they are. They talk endlessly in a spiral that moves
from poverty to apathy to greed and to injustice.
Q1. Explain the psychological impact of the "spiral" that moves from "poverty to apathy to greed and
to injustice."
Ans: This spiral highlights a crushing psychological descent. Chronic, grinding poverty eventually breeds
absolute mental numbness ('apathy'). This total lack of resistance leaves a vacuum for the middlemen's
unchecked 'greed' to exploit them, culminating in a permanent structure of institutionalized 'injustice'
that completely breaks their collective will to revolt.
Q2. Why does the collective choice of getting organized feel terrifying to the young men of Firozabad?
Ans: They are entirely trapped by a corrupt, predatory nexus of police officials, bureaucratic middlemen,
and local politicians. Instead of receiving constitutional protection, any collective labor unionizing effort
is instantly criminalized, resulting in police brutality and extrajudicial jailings.
Q3. The statement "Their fathers are as tired as they are" emphasizes:
Ans: [Correct Choice: (b)] A shared, intergenerational defeatism and loss of hope. It signals a absolute
depletion of spiritual and physical stamina over successive generations.
Q4. What vital element is missing in their community that prevents them from breaking free from this
cycle?
Ans: The community completely lacks progressive, organic leadership—someone with the socio-legal
literacy to help them challenge the middleman mafia, navigate alternative systems, and creatively
envision an existence outside their traditional caste-based occupation.
3. High-Order Thinking Skills (HOTs) Long Answer Question
Question:
“Saheb and Mukesh are two sides of the same coin of marginalized childhood, yet their approach to
their destiny sets them poles apart.” Evaluate this statement with close reference to Anees Jung's "Lost
Spring," analyzing how systemic oppression shapes identity and choice.
Model Answer & Grading Framework:
• The Shared Reality of Oppression: Both Saheb and Mukesh exist on the forgotten fringes of India's
developmental landscape, facing generational socio-economic exclusion. Saheb’s community in
Seemapuri lacks basic human infrastructure like proper sewage, drainage, or safe running water,
reducing their existence to an endless survival scrap in garbage heaps. Similarly, Mukesh is asphyxiated
within the high-temperature glass furnaces of Firozabad, where children working in dingy cells regularly
lose their eyesight before reaching physical adulthood. Both characters are victims of a deeply indifferent
state that actively steals their childhood.
• Saheb’s Path to Subjugation: Saheb initially embodies a fragile, barefoot independence, navigating the
urban wild like a transient bird. However, absolute poverty eventually forces him to compromise his
freedom for the mechanical stability of a tea-stall job. As the author analytically observes, the steel
canister he now carries feels profoundly heavier than the old plastic garbage bag. The canister belongs
strictly to his master; Saheb is no longer his own king. His character arc presents a tragic study of how
unrelenting material lack systematically erodes an individual's spiritual agency and forces total
submission to labor structures.
• Mukesh’s Path of Defiance: Conversely, Mukesh serves as a powerful symbol of structural resistance.
Despite being anchored to a family and community that views bangle-making as an unalterable, cosmic
destiny ('Karam'), Mukesh retains his individual identity. He preserves his cognitive freedom by daring to
dream of becoming a motor mechanic and actively showing readiness to break geographic barriers by
walking miles to a garage to learn. His fierce resolve highlights that even within deeply oppressive
environments, individual human willpower can sustain a revolutionary spark of defiance.
• Conclusion: Ultimately, Anees Jung crafts Saheb and Mukesh to show two divergent human reactions
to structural poverty. Saheb represents the melancholy loss of self and absolute capitulation to capitalist
oppression, while Mukesh embodies the enduring, unconquerable human spirit that asserts its
independence against heavy historical limitations.