LOST SPRING by ANEESS JUNG

Sometimes I find a rupee in the garbage

• Saheb – scavenges because ‘has nothing else to do’

o scrounges for gold in the garbage dumps
o origins are in Bangladesh (Dhaka)
o home destroyed by storms
o left to look for gold in the city
o says he will go to school when one is built
o has a ‘bleak world’ full of empty promises
o spends the day with his barefoot friends – ‘comrades in arms’
• Story about the man from Udipi
o his father was a temple priest
o went past the temple to school
o prayed for a pair of shoes
o finally got them. Now prayed never to lose them
o 30 yrs later – desolate temple. Priest’s son wore shoes and went to school in
proper uniform
Irony – God grants the wish of the priest’s son and yet, ragpickers are still shoeless

• Seemapuri – on the periphery of Delhi but miles away from it metaphorically

o people who live here – migrants from Bangladesh (1971 war)
o 10,000 ragpickers live here
o slum – mud structures with tarpaulin / tin roofs, no sewage, no drainage, no
water
o live without permits, yet have ration cards and voter cards
o getting food on ration cards is most important. No wish to go back to nothing
o pitch their ‘tents’ wherever they get food. These tents are their ‘homes’
o children grown here – become partners in survival. Survival = ragpicking
o ragpicking is a fine art. Garbage is gold
o for adults, garbage = home + food i.e. survival. For children, garbage = thrill.
Hope of finding more.

• Saheb again
o watching people play tennis
o Saheb wearing tennis shoes with a hole in one. The shoes are a dream come
true
o but the game they represent – tennis – out of reach
o now works in a tea-stall for Rs 800 + all meals. No longer carefree. No longer
his own master.
QUESTION BANK

1. Why has the writer repeated the use of the phrase ‘looking for gold’ in relation to
Saheb?
2. What is ironic about Saheb’s name
3. According to Saheb, why does he scavenge in the garbage heap?
4. Why does he have no other option?
5. What does Saheb’s reply to the author’s suggestion of going to school?
6. What does the author (jokingly) promise him?
7. Explain “ promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak world”
8. An ‘army of barefoot boys who appear like the morning birds’ – what does this image
suggest?
9. What about these children suggests a ‘perpetual state of poverty’ ?
10. What is the writer trying to say with the story of the two priest’s children?
11. What was the difference in the sons of the two priests?
12. Why is Seemapuri close to Delhi and yet miles away from it metaphorically?
13. How do ‘ the children become partners in survival’?
14. What does ragpicking mean to the adults?
15. Why does it hold a sense of thrill for the children?
16. How did Saheb get the shoes?
17. What is ironical about the shoes Saheb wears?
18. Where does Saheb start working and what is his salary?
19. Is Saheb happy now? Why / Why not?
20. Why is he no longer his own master?
I want to drive a car
• Mukesh – wants to be his own master.
o wants to be a motor mechanic
o his dream is a ‘mirage’ – will never come true
o lives in Firozabad – bangle / glass blowing factories – most families work
here
o is under 14 years old
• Child labour is illegal
o 20,000 children work here
o glass furnace – high temp, dingy cells with no light or air
o bright furnace and heat spoils eyesight
o even at home, children sit with their parents welding glass bangles
o used to working in the dark – cannot adjust to light outdoors
• Mukesh’s home
o Proud to show his home which is being ‘rebuilt’
▪ half-built shack with wobbly iron door
▪ thatched with dead grass
▪ firewood stove
o Living conditions
▪ stinking, garbage soaked lanes
▪ hovels not homes – crumbling walls, broken doors, no windows
▪ humans and animals co-exist
o His family
▪ Sister-in-law – a little older than Mukesh. Covers her face in front of
older men
▪ Men of the home – Mukesh, his brother, his father
• Father – first a tailor then a bangle maker.
• not enough income to renovate home and teach children.
Taught them bangle making
▪ Grandmother
• says it is destiny and is a lineage
• her husband lost his eyesight.
o Bangles signify marriage
▪ all women go through the same cycle
▪ Savita solders glass with an old woman
▪ old woman wears bangles too – but she is blind and hasn’t eaten one
full meal in her life. Yet the show of ‘wedding symbols’ i.e. bangles
▪ her husband is also a bangle maker
o Same story in every home of Firozabad.
▪ life’s struggle has killed initiative and ability to dream
▪ middlemen have trapped them in debt
▪ they are totally exploited by the middlemen
▪ the poor are troubled and hassled by the police
▪ no leader among them who could show them a better path
▪ children too accept their fate
▪ do not dare to dream
o Mukesh’s dream – to become a mechanic
▪ doesn’t dream of planes as he can see cars in his street
▪ cars = aspiration. Hasn’t seen a plane
QUESTION BANK
1. What does Mukesh want to become?
2. Why is his dream a mirage?
3. Where do most of the families of Firozabad work?
4. Describe the working conditions in the bangle factories.
5. What kind of surroundings does Mukesh live in?
6. Describe Mukesh’s home.
7. Who all live here?
8. How does the grandmother justify their condition?
9. What happened to Mukesh’s grandfather?
10. Why do children lose their eyesight before becoming adults?
11. What is the paradox of the colourful bangles lying around everywhere?
12. What does Savita do?
13. What is ironic about the old woman’s bangles?
14. Why is there no initiative or the ability to dream in the people of Firozabad?
15. Why do the workers not want a co-operative?
16. How does the talk of the elders move from poverty to apathy to greed and to
injustice?
17. What are the two worlds the author notices?
18. What is the ‘stigma of caste’?
19. What is the baggage that society has put on the child? Why can’t he put it down?
20. Why does Mukesh dream of becoming a mechanic but not a pilot?