AHSEC| CLASS 12| ENGLISH| LOST SPRING
UNIT – 2
FLAMINGO
PROSE
(LOST SPRING)
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This story is the author's
description of the pathetic condition of some poor children who live in slums
and work very hard to eat their piece of bread. They hardly get education and
other basic necessities of life. The author here presents to us two stories,
one set in her slum neighbourhood in Delhi and the other of poor bangle makers
in Firozabad city. She tells how every dream of such children is crushed by the
reality of their lives.
Every morning
the author sees a boy named Sahab in her neighbourhood. He finds some coins or
some other things among the heap of garbage. He has left his home in Dhaka many
years ago, he doesn't even remember. Their house was surrounded from all sides,
a storm came which swept away all the houses and fields of these poor people.
They became homeless and started starving. So, in search of food, they left
their homeland and came to this big city capital Delhi.
One day when the
author sees Saheb scratching the garbage pile, she asks why he did it. Saheb
looks at her saying that he does this because he has nothing else to do. When
he is asked if he goes to school, he replies that there is no school here and
he will go when the school is built. Lekhi tells the boy to be happy that she
will start a school and she asks Salib if he will come. Saheb gladly accepted
the offer. After a few days he came to the author and asked him "Is your
school ready?"
She says
"It takes more time to build a school" and it takes less time to make
false promises to the boy.
The author gets
to know the boy and after a few months, learns his name is
"Saheb-e-Alam", which refers to the lord of the universe. But
contrary to what his name implies, the boy hangs out on the streets with the
kids in the same class. He doesn't even get proper food nor does he get to wear
clothes and shoes.
The place named
Seemapuri is on the border of Delhi, these are the people who came from
Bangladesh in 1971, Saheb also lives here with his family. The author visits
the area to know about these rag pickers. Once upon a time Seemapuri was so
wild and desolate, but now thousands of such people live here in mud houses
with tin roofs - without any drainage or proper sanitation and no identity.
They have been living here for more than thirty years. For them, food is more
important than identity. And they get food grains from their ration card. Some
women in warmed out sarees tell the author that they left their green fields
that gave them nothing to eat and would rather live here in slums where they
can sleep empty stomach. They set up their tents wherever they can find some
food, and the children also help the families survive. Garbage also provides
them food and shelter, so garbage heaps are like gold for them.
Sir
enthusiastically says that he often finds one rupee in the dustbin, sometimes
even a ten rupee note. Kids like him try to find more in the garbage. For their
parents, scavenging means survival, but for the children it is a wonder.
One morning the
author sees Sahab standing outside the gate of a club watching two men in white
dresses playing tennis. He says he likes the game and is allowed by the
gatekeeper to enter and sue when no one is there.
Saheb also wears
tennis shoes – some rich boy's throwaway shoes with a hole in one of them. But
holes are no problem for a boy like Saheb who always walks barefoot.
Another morning
the author finds Sahab going to the milk shop with a steel canister in his
hand. He now works at a tea shop, where he gets a full meal and Rs 800. Saheb's
relaxed face is missing as he carries the heavy canister from his earlier
plastic bag. The plastic bag was his but the canister is now the owner of the
tea stall. The author understands that Saheb is no longer his own.
"I want to
drive a car"
Mukesh Strong
announces that he will become a motor mechanic. The author asks him what he
knows about cars, he replies that he will learn to drive a car. The author
looks into the young eyes and realizes that the dream seems like a mirage
amidst the dusty streets of Firozabad. The city of Firozabad is famous for the
production of bangles, Mukesh is a boy who lives with his family in the
business of bangle making. He meets the author and says that he wants to be
himself and that he wants to be a mechanic. But he is also only a bangle maker.
Their families spend their lives working in glass-welding activities inside
closed furnaces.
More than twenty
thousand children work in the glass furnaces - a very unsafe and inappropriate
place for young people. But the parents of children hardly know that children
are not allowed by law to work in such high temperature in closed places
without light and air. Such children often lose their eyesight. Mukesh is more
than happy to take the author to his home, which he says has been renovated.
They walk through a narrow street full of garbage, they pass houses with broken
walls, terrible doors and no windows, these houses are completely overcrowded
and full of people as well as animals. Mukesh comes to her house a poor one
with a wood stove in one part and a frail young woman cooking the evening meal.
She is the sister-in-law of Mukesh.
Mukesh's father
enters and at once the daughter-in-law brings her veil over his face. Mukesh's
father is a man whose expressions clearly show that he works very hard as a
bangle maker. But despite years of hard work, there is no resin in his life, he
is not able to send his two sons to study or build his house properly. She has
only taught them the skill of bangle making. He too has gone blind after
working with glass dust.
According to
Mukesh's grandmother, it is his destiny to be born in the caste of bangle
makers and he has seen only glass bangles in his entire life. Inside and
outside the house, young and old, every member of the family makes bangles in
the courtyard of Firozabad. In the process of turning pieces of colored glass
into round bangles, these people sometimes lose their sight; Especially the
lives of children are more dangerous.
When the author
goes to meet these people, she meets a young woman named Savita in another hut
along with an elderly woman. They are making hangings together. Savita is such
a small girl, but she is so used to work that her hands work like a machine.
Little does she understand that the bangles she makes become the 'kauhag' of an
Indian woman. Nearby there is an old 'Suhagin' who has bangles in her hands,
but there is no shine in her eyes and face. Years of untold toil and suffering
wreaked havoc on his whole life, he could never get enough. Her husband is
quite old who says he knows nothing but bangles. Although he is not that happy
but he takes some satisfaction in saying that he has at least built a house for
his family. The author realizes with distress that every slum in Firozabad is
poverty stricken and there has never been any improvement in them.
Their dreams,
aspirations, even their hearts have been shattered in the darkness of the
closed furnaces of the bangle factory. The author suggests the community to
unite and form a cooperative, but she is shocked to learn that these poor
efforts are sabotaged by the police and innocents are badly beaten and even
imprisoned. Their lives are lost in the cruel, mysterious game played by the
police, bureaucrats, moneylenders and corrupt politicians. This group of bangle
makers are still suffering and have now started living with their bad destiny
as their apparent condition for survival. If they dare to think of something
different or to improve their lives, it will mean tyranny on their part.
The author finds
Mukesh as one of those people who has at least decided to come out of this
covered life and become a motor mechanic - something other than a bangle maker.
He is determined to learn the job from a garage that is far away from his
residence. But he tells the author that he will fulfill his dream by walking to
the garage. When asked if he dreams of flying an aeroplane, he answers in the
negative, but without any regrets. It seems, he is happy only dreaming of the
cars he sees on the streets of Firozabad, rarely getting to see planes flying
overhead.
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