Lost Spring

Anees Jung
Pre Assessment
• Write a letter to the editor stating the pitiful situation of children in
poverty stricken areas.
More about the author
• Anees Jung
• Anees Jung (b. Dominion of Hyderabad 1964) is an Indian author,
journalist and columnist for newspapers in India and abroad, whose
most known work, Unveiling India (1987) was a chronicle of the lives
of women in India, noted especially for the depiction of Muslim
women behind the purdah.
Vocabulary
• Find three words, its usage and apply in a paragraph not exceeding
50-60 words.
Sometimes I Find a Rupee in Garbage:
• Author’s encounter with Saheb
• Meets rag picker Saheb belonging to a refuge family from Bangladesh.
• Question him about his vocation of rag picking and advised him to 90
to school
• Promise to open a school
• Felt embarrassed at making a hollow promise
Irony in name and existence
• Full Name ‘Saheb-e-Alam’ meaning ‘lord of the universe
• But deprived of even basic needs scrounge strut with other rag picker
boys
• Bare foot boys reflected extreme state of poverty
Passage of time and degree of prosperity
achieved
• Reminded of a priest bare foot son in town of Udipi thirty years ago.
• Longing for a pair of shoes
• Thirty year later a boy of same age was seen in full school dress with
shoes
• Rag pickers still shoe less.
Seemapuri on periphery of Delhi far away
from it
• Dwelling structures of mud. Tin and tarpaulin with no sewage
drainage or running water
• Only boon valid ration card to get grain
• Happy to live in an strange land which provides food grain than in
their mother land without grain
• Rag picking for elders their daily bread and means of survival for
children a treasure of wonderful things
Saheb’s longing for childhood
• Wish to enjoy pleasures of childhood
• Play tennis, wear shoes
• Watches Rich boys playing Tennis
Saheb’s New vocation
• Work on Tea stall Earns Ids 800’pm
• Appears burdened and forlorn
• No freedom now
• Tin container was heavier than his rag picking bag
I Want To Drive a Car:
• Mukesh
• A child labourer in a glass factory in Firozabad
• Wishes to be motor mechanic
• Wants to learn to drive a car
• Family unaware that child labour is illegal
Working condition in glass furnaces
• High temperature
• Dingy cell
• Poorly ventilated
• Children lose eye sight at an early age
Living conditions in Firozabad
• Houses with crumbling walls
• Humans and animals both live together
• Stinking lanes
• Mukesh; house half built
• For stove aluminium utensils
Elder brother’s wife –
• In charge of family members
• According to custom cover his face with veil
Mukesh’s father
• Head of the family
• Poverty stricken unable to renovate house or provide education to
sons
• Only legacy he hand over is the art of bangle making
Mukesh Grandmother’s view
• Their present state result of Karma.
• Accepted her husband’s blindness caused by dust of glass bangles as
their destiny.
• Thinks art of bangle making god given lineage.
Vicious circle of poverty
• No progress despite of years struggle Poverty, Illiteracy dissatisfaction
Victims of middle man and touts
• Fear of police, lack of leadership check their growth
Irony
• Bangle a symbol of Suhaag
• Every girl child one day as bride will wear bangles.
• Become old with bangles in wrist no sight in eyes.
Children Double victim
• First by birth bordered by stigma of caste second
• No hope : have to accept family occupation
• ruled by Sahukars, Middle men, police
• Little desire to dream snubbed in childhood.
Mukesh : as exception
• Have dream to be motor mechanic
• Practical does not have dream of aeroplanes.
• Only few planes fly over Firozabad.
Post Assessment
• As the editor of The National Daily, write a report on what you had
witnessed on visiting the villages of Seemapuri and Firozabad.
Mind Map (A Guide)