Lost Spring

The irony behind Saheb-e-Alam's name

The irony behind Saheb-e-Alam's name

It means 'lord of the universe' when, in fact, he's a mere ragpicker.

Theme of the chapter

1. Grinding poverty

2. Traditions which condemn poor children to a life of exploitation

3. Plight of street children; forced into labour and denied schooling

4. Callousness of society and the political class to the sufferings of the poor

The title "Lost Spring"

1. Metaphor.

2. Spring is a season associated with optimism that is non-existent in the lives of the poor slum children and hence the title.

3. Also, spring is a metaphor for childhood.

Saheb's friends

An army of barefoot boys who appear like the morning birds and disappear at noon. (simile)

Walking barefoot

1. "Their mother didn't bring them down from the shelf" (excuse 1)

2. It is not lack of money but a tradition to stay barefoot is another explanation.

3. It may just be an excuse to explain away a perpetual state of poverty.

4. It's euphemistic as they're covering their inability to afford shoes with a flippant excuse.

What does Saheb look for in the garbage dumps

Scrounging for gold in the garbage dumps of the neighbourhood

Where is Saheb from and where is he living now?

1. Dhaka, Bangladesh

2. Seemapuri

Seemapuri

1. A place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically.

2. Saheb's family is among the squatters who came from Bangladesh back in 1971.

3. Was a wilderness. Still is, but no longer empty.

4. Over 10,000 ragpickers live in structures of mud, with roofs of tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage, drainage or running water

5. 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.

6. Food is more important for survival than an identity. Wherever they find food, they pitch their tents that become transit homes. Children grow up in them, becoming partners in survival.

Housing conditions in Seemapuri

1. Structures of mud

2. Roofs of tin and tarpaulin

3. Devoid of sewage, drainage or running water

Reasons that led the people to move from Bangladesh to Seemapuri

1. Many storms that swept away their fields and homes

2. Their beautiful land of green fields and rivers gave them no grain

3. To look for gold in the big city

Rag-picking in Seemapuri for the adults

1. Means of survival

2. Acquired the proportions of a fine art

3. Garbage = gold

4. It's their daily bread, a roof over their heads, even if it is a leaking roof.

Rag-picking in Seemapuri for the children

1. Different meaning from their parents

2. It's wrapped in wonder

3. They don't fully comprehend the intensity of their poverty-stricken circumstances

4. Rich or poor, they're children after all and are thus filled with curiosity and fascination.

Saheb working at the tea-stall

1. Not happy

2. Lost the "carefree look"

3. The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his shoulder

Conditions at the tea stall Saheb is now working at

1. 800 rupees a month

2. Pays all his meals

3. But he doesn't seem to like the job

Firozabad

1. Famous for bangles

2. The centre of India's glass-blowing industry where families have worked for generations

3. Working around furnaces

4. Welding glass

5. Making bangles for all the women in the land

Mukesh's dream

1. To be a motor mechanic

2. He will learn to drive a car

3. His dream looms like a mirage amidst the dust of streets that fill his town Firozabad.

The houses on the streets of Firozabad

1. Stinking lanes choked with garbage

2. Homes that remain hovels

3. Crumbling walls

4. Wobbly doors

5. No windows

6. Crowded with families of humans and animals coexisting in a primaeval state

Mukesh's house

1. Half-built shack

2. Wobbly iron door

3. Firewood stove thatched with dead grass

4. Large aluminium platters lying on the floor

Mukesh's sister-in-law

1. Frail young woman

2. Eyes filled with smoke

3. Not much older than Mukesh, in years

4. Commands the respect of the bahu and is thus in charge of the three men in the house

5. Custom demands daughters-in-law to veil their faces before male elders

Mukesh's father

1. Impoverished bangle maker

2. Long years of hard labour

3. First worked as a tailor, then a bangle maker

4. Failed to renovate a house

5. Couldn't send his two sons to school

6. Only managed to teach them the art of making bangles

Dangers of working in the bangle-making industry

1. Illegal for children to work and slog their daylight hours

2. High temperatures

3. Glass furnaces

4. Dingy cells without air or light

5. Losing the brightness of their eyes

Attitude of Mukesh's family therefore reflecting the attitude of the poor in general

1. Backward thinking because daughter-in-law cannot show her face

2. Fatalist thinking because they believe that the art of bangle-making is a god-given lineage

3. Young men echo the lament of their elders

4. Years of mind-numbing toil have killed all initiative and the ability to dream

Families in Firozabad

1. Spirals of bangles lie in mounds in unkempt yards

2. Dark hutments

3. Lines of flames of flickering oil lamps

4. Boys and girls sit with their fathers and mothers

5. Welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of bangle

6. Eyes more adjusted to the dark than to the light outside

7. Often lose their eyesight before becoming adults

Sanctity of bangles

1. Symbolises an Indian woman's suhaag

2. Auspiciousness in marriage

3. Red veil

4. Hands dyed with henna

5. Red bangles rolled onto the wrists

Why don't the bangle sellers organise themselves into a cooperative?

1. Hauled up by the police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something illegal

2. No leader among them

3. No one could help them see things differently.

4. They have fallen into the vicious circle of middlemen who trapped their fathers and forefathers

5. Their fathers are as tired as they are; talking endlessly in a spiral that moves from poverty to apathy to greed and to injustice

Types of bangles that lie in mounds in unkempt yards

1. Sunny gold

2. Paddy green

3. Royal blue

4. Pink

5. Purple

6. Every colour born out of the seven rainbows

The two distinct world that Anees Jung sees

1. The family caught in a web of poverty, burdened by the stigma of caste in which they are born

2. The vicious circle of the sahukars, the middlemen, the policemen, the keepers of law, the bureaucrats and the politicians.

What is the vicious circle that Anees Jung sees?

A vicious circle of 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. They accept it as naturally as their ancestors. To do anything else would mean to dare.

Few airplanes fly over Firozabad

The place is underdeveloped and the people sometimes aren't even aware of the existence of aeroplanes.

How many children work in the bangle-industry of Firozabad

20,000