Flamingo – Lost Spring

Learning Sheet 1

a) You have seen many children on the street, begging for their survival. You have also seen the movie Slumdog
Millionaire. Do you think that these children dreams of a big, fabulous and confortable life? Why do you
think so?
b) Do you think that your dreams and the dreams of these children are the same? Why or why not?

About the author

Anees Jung (1964) was born in Rourkela and spent her childhood and adolescence in Hyderabad. She received her
education in Hyderabad and in the United States of America. Her parents were both writers. Anees Jung began her
career as a writer in India. She has been an editor and columnist for major newspapers in India and abroad, and has
authored several books. The following is an excerpt from her book titled Lost Spring, Stories of Stolen Childhood.
Here she analyses the grinding poverty and traditions which condemn these children to a life of exploitation.

Read

‘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 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, realising immediately how hollow the advice must sound.
“There is no school in my neighbourhood. 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, embarrassed at having made a promise that was not meant. But
promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak world.

After months of knowing him, I ask him 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 to explain away a perpetual
state of poverty.

Explain
Do not proceed to the next paragraph without answering these questions.

c) What is the meaning of Saheb-e-Alam? What is the irony in his name?

d) How does the author describe poverty in these paragraphs?
 e) Do you think Saheb wants to go to school? How do you know?

Read

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 pray for a pair 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 had granted his
prayer. Young boys like the son of the priest now wore shoes. But many others 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 is, 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 lived
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 an aching stomach, we would rather live here than in the fields
that gave us no 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.

Explain
Do not proceed to the next paragraph without answering these questions.

f) How are the ragpickers miles away from Delhi? What is the author trying to convey through this statement?
g) Garbage to them is gold. Why does the author speak of garbage as gold?
h) Describe the living conditions in Seemapuri.
i) What is the importance of writing about Ration cards and Voter ids? What impact does the author wish to
create?

Read

“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.

One winter morning I see Saheb standing by the fenced gate of the neighbourhood club, watching two young men
dressed in white, playing tennis. “I like the game,” he hums, content to watch it standing behind the fence. “I go
inside when no one is around,” he admits. “The gatekeeper lets me use the swing.”

Saheb too is wearing tennis shoes that look strange over his discoloured shirt and shorts. “Someone gave them to
me,” he says in the manner of an explanation. The fact that they are discarded shoes of some rich boy, who perhaps
refused to wear them because of a hole in one of them, does not bother him. For one who has walked barefoot,
even shoes with a hole is a dream come true. But the game he is watching so intently is out of his reach.

This morning, Saheb is on his way to the milk booth. In his hand is a steel canister. “I now work in a tea 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. 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!
Explain
Do not proceed to the next paragraph without answering these questions.

j) How s garbage viewed differently by children and the elders? What does the author wish to convey?
k) Why is the game of tennis out of reach of Saheb?
l) How does the author convey the gap between the rich and the poor?
m) Is Saheb happy working at the tea stall? How do you know?