LOST SPRING

STORIES OF STOLEN CHILDHOOD

By Anees Jung
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

⦿ Anees Jung is an Indian author, journalist and columnist

who writes for major newspapers in India and abroad. She
was born in Rourkela and belongs to an aristocratic family
in Hyderabad.

⦿ Jung hit the headlines with the publication of ‘Unveiling

India in 1987’, which is primarily a travel diary that
focuses on interviews with women.

⦿ Anees Jung's Lost Spring: Stories of Stolen

Childhood (2005) focuses on children from deprived
backgrounds.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE

Spring- season of exuberance, growth, happiness, youth and

energy.

Childhood – synonym of Spring

Lost – As these children have been forced into child labour.

They are deprived of a normal childhood. At an age when
they should be playing, receiving education these children
become bread winners for their families.

Thus the title is justified.

 PLIGHT OF RAGPICKERS
⦿ Most rag-pickers in Seemapuri are children. Their
parents came to India in 1971.
⦿ They are victims of abject poverty.
⦿ They have become partners in survival.
LOST SPRING
MEMORIES OF A STOLEN CHILDHOOD
(TEXT)

‘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.
TEXT CONTINUED
“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.
HOLLOWNESS OF THE AUTHOR’S PROMISE
AND MANY MORE SUCH PROMISES MADE TO
THESE RAG PICKERS
⦿ The author makes a promise that she knows she can’t
fulfil. She raises the hope of a better future in Saheb’s
heart without even realising how he would feel when it is
not fulfilled.

⦿ This is common in Seemapuri- politicians and other people

in power often raise their hopes only to break them later.
TEXT CONTINUED
⦿ 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.
IRONY IN SAHEB ALAM’S NAME
⦿ Saheb-e- Alam – meaning Lord of the Universe(Someone
who is not just powerful but is rolling in luxury).But Saheb
–e- Alam is a rag-picker.

⦿ His family cannot afford the basic necessities of life, leave

alone the luxuries that his name promises him.
TEXT CONTINUED
⦿ “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.
ACCEPTANCE OF POVERTY
⦿ People in Seemapuri know that they can not change their
condition but they do not retaliate or show any signs of
rejection, discontentment or rebellion.

⦿ Instead one sees acceptance of the situation and coming to

terms with it. They hide their poverty under the garb of
tradition.

Poverty in the garb of

tradition
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ 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.
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ 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.
 EXISTENCE IN SEEMAPURI
⦿ Seemapuri – as the name suggests – a colony on the
periphery of Delhi – far from the economic development of
the metro city.
⦿ Unhygienic living conditions- no proper sanitation.
⦿ People have chosen this place as staying here they can
feed their families. It is better than the green fields that
gave them nothing.
⦿ Children in Seemapuri have become partners in survival.
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ 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.
RAGPICKING –DIFFERENCE IN AN
ADULT’S AND A CHILD’S VIEW
⦿ Ragpicking for adults- a means of livelihood, a roof over
their head, food in their bellies.

⦿ Ragpicking for children- wrapped up wonder, sometimes

they find a one rupee coin and sometimes even a ten
rupee note.

Adult’s view Child’s view

TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ 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.
WHY IS THE GAME OUT OF SAHEB’S
REACH

⦿ Saheb is watching tennis. It is a rich people’s game. The

sports gear , the tennis racquet and even the tennis court
are out of his reach. (Saheb and his likes, cannot afford
them )

Tennis - a rich man’s game

TEXT CONTINUED

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 [Link]
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!
SAHEB –E- ALAM’S DILEMMA

⦿ Saheb had found employment at a tea stall.

⦿ He was now being paid Rs 800/- and all his meals but he
was no longer his own master. He had lost his freedom and
his carefree lifestyle.
⦿ The steel canister that he carried was heavier than his
bag.
⦿ The author is bringing out the fact that just for money and
food, Saheb’s childhood had been bartered.
A QUICK RECAP

⦿ Saheb a small child who lives in Seemapuri, a rag-picker,

by profession. (a victim of extreme poverty)
⦿ Though his name suggests that he is king, he leads a life
full of deprivation.
⦿ Saheb and his gang of friends may be ragpickers but they
are happy. (They all work at their own whim. The author
calls them ‘morning birds’)
⦿ Complacent about their abject poverty
⦿ Seemapuri- an unhygienic colony but at least better than
Bangladesh – for here the squatters can feed their families
and do not go to bed on an empty stomach.
⦿ Children – partners in survival
⦿ Rag-picking – different meaning for adults and children
A QUICK RECAP- CONTINUED

⦿ For adults- garbage- a means of survival

⦿ For children – wrapped wonder
⦿ Shoes with a hole – Saheb’s dream of wearing shoes
fulfilled
⦿ Game of tennis- very expensive proposition – out of his
reach
⦿ Life at tea stall – Saheb may be earning Rs 800/- but has
lost his freedom.
Reference to Context
‘But promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak
world.’
Q.1) Who is mine in the above lines?
Ans- a. Anees Jung.
b. Saheb’s mother
c. Saheb
d. The other rag pickers

Q.2) Whose bleak world is being spoken about?

Ans- a. people of Seemapuri
[Link] people of Delhi
c. Saheb’s world
d. The authors
Q.3) What promise had the speaker made?
Ans- a. She would give them good living
b. she would make a school.
c. She would give them a house
[Link] would give them new clothes

Q.4) What is the reaction of the speaker?

Ans- a. The speaker is embarrassed
b. The speaker is happy
c. The speaker is proud
d. The speaker is indifferent
Short Questions
Q.1) Describe the houses in Seemapuri?
Ans- Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles
away from it. Those who live here are squatters who came
from Bangladesh back in 1971. In structures of mud, with
roofs of tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage, drainage or
running water, live 10,000 [Link] 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.
Short Questions

Q.2) Why was Saheb not happy working at the tea stall?
Ans- Saheb was not happy working at the tea stall as he was
no longer his own master, he had become a slave to his
[Link] face had lost the carefree look. The steel
canister was heavier than the bag that he used to carry.
LOST SPRING-PART
II
BANGLE MAKERS OF FIROZABAD
ABOUT FIROZABAD

⦿ Bangle town of India

⦿ Largest glass blowing industry
⦿ Most workers are children
⦿ Every other house in Firozabad is involved in the bangle
industry.
TEXT

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 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.
TEXT CONTINUED
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; that the law, if enforced, could get him and all those
20,000 children out of the hot furnaces where they slog
their daylight 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 walls, wobbly doors, no
windows, crowded with families of humans and animals
coexisting in a primeval state. He stops at the door of one
such house, bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot, and
pushes it open. We enter a half-built shack.
WORKING CONDITIONS IN FIROZABAD
⦿ Bangle industry illegally employees children.
⦿ Working conditions are horrible- children work in
dungeon hovels from morning to night.
⦿ These are under illumined hovels where children
lose their eyesight even before they become
adults.
⦿ Animals and humans coexist primeval state in the
dirty lanes and dingy holes of Firozabad.
TEXT CONTINUED

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 aluminum platters, are
more chopped vegetables. A frail young woman is cooking
the evening meal for the whole family. Through eyes filled
with smoke she smiles. She is the wife of Mukesh’s elder
brother. Not much older in years, she has begun to
command respect as the bahu, the daughter-in-law of the
house, already in charge of three men — her husband,
Mukesh and their father.
TEXT CONTINUED

When the older man enters, she gently withdraws behind

the broken wall and brings her veil closer to her face. As
custom demands, daughters-in-law must veil their faces
before male elders. In this case the elder is an
impoverished bangle maker. Despite long years of hard
labour, first as a tailor, then a bangle maker, he has failed
to renovate a house, send his two sons to school. All he has
managed to do is teach them what he knows — the art of
making bangles.
MUKESH’S FATHER

⦿ A typical bangle maker- an old man who has worked very

hard throughout his life.
⦿ He worked first as a tailor and then as a bangle maker.
⦿ He has managed to build a house for his family. (It may be
just a shack)
⦿ He could not send his sons to school but taught them his
art i.e. Bangle making.
ACCEPTANCE OF THEIR PLIGHT

⦿ Mukesh’s grandmother voices the resignation of the

community to their plight- they all believe that their
profession is their ‘karm’ and that they can’t change their
destiny.
⦿ They believe that they are born to make bangles.

•Poverty

•Caste
•Bangle Making
TEXT CONTINUED

“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
bangle makers, they have seen nothing but bangles — in
the house, in the yard, in every other house, every other
yard, every street in Firozabad. Spirals of bangles — sunny
gold, paddy green, royal blue, pink, purple, every colour
born out of the seven colours 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
fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into
circles of bangles. Their eyes are more adjusted to the
dark than to the light outside. That is why they often end
up losing their eyesight before they become adults.
TEXT CONTINUED

Savita, a young girl in a drab pink dress, sits alongside an

elderly woman, soldering pieces of glass. As her hands
move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if
she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make. It
symbolises an Indian woman’s suhaag, auspiciousness in
marriage. It will dawn on her suddenly one day when her
head is draped with a red veil, her hands dyed red with
henna, and red bangles rolled onto her wrists. She will
then become a bride. Like the old woman beside her who
became one many years ago.
TEXT CONTINUED
She still has bangles on her wrist, but no light in her eyes.
“Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” she says, in a
voice drained of joy. She has not enjoyed even one full
meal in her entire lifetime — that’s what she has reaped!
Her husband, an old man with a flowing beard, says, “I
know nothing except bangles. All I have done is make a
house for the family to live in.” Hearing him, one wonders
if he has achieved what many have failed in their lifetime.
He has a roof over his head!
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ 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. Little has moved with time, it seems, in
Firozabad. Years of mind-numbing toil have killed all
initiative and the ability to dream.
LAMENT IN THE HEARTS OF PEOPLE
⦿ Mukesh’s grandmother laments that she has never had a
tummy full in her entire life.
⦿ The grinding labour and intense poverty has killed all
initiative in the people. They do not want to break the
barriers that limit them.
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ “Why not organise yourselves into a cooperative?” I ask a

group of young men who have fallen into the vicious circle
of middlemen who trapped their fathers and forefathers.
“Even if we get organised, 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.
 REASONS WHY BANGLE MAKERS DO
NOT ORGANISE THEMSELVES INTO
COOPERATIVES.

⦿ They are afraid of the middlemen

⦿ They have no support or protection from the law makers.
⦿ Lack of a leader.
⦿ They are caught in a maze of poverty, greed and injustice.
TEXT CONTINUED

⦿ Listening to them, I see two distinct worlds — 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.
Together they have imposed the baggage on the child that
he cannot put down. Before he is aware, he accepts it as
naturally as his father. To do anything else would mean to
dare. And daring is not part of his growing up. When I
sense a flash of it in Mukesh I am cheered. “I want to be a
motor mechanic,’ he repeats. He will go to a garage and
learn. But the garage is a long way from his home. “I will
walk,” he insists. “Do you also dream of flying a plane?”
He is suddenly silent. “No,” he says, staring at the ground.
In his small murmur there is an embarrassment that has
not yet turned into regret. He is content to dream of cars
that he sees hurtling down the streets of his town. Few
airplanes fly over Firozabad.
VICIOUS CIRCLE THAT TRAPS THE
CHILD
⦿ The child labourer is a victim of his caste- this caste
system in-spite of being declared illegal continues to
flourish; these children have to resign to their fate-
as ‘God given lineage’ can not be changed.
⦿ The circle of sahukars, money lenders, bureaucrats,
the policemen, the keepers of law, and the
politicians.

•Bangle Maker
• Sahukars
• Money Lenders
• Bureaucrats
• Policemen
• Keepers Of Law
• Politicians
A RAY OF HOPE

⦿ Mukesh finally decides to break the vicious circle and

wants to be a motor mechanic.
⦿ He wants to break free from his ‘God given lineage’.
⦿ He is ready to dare and take the challenges head on that
might come his way.