The joy of wearing bangles in seven colours of a rainbow is derived at the expense of the labour of ‘eyes that are more adjusted to the dark than the light outside’. Justify this statement with reference to the plight of the bangle makers as describe in the lesson and also highlight the irony contained therein.
CLASS-12 CHAPTER - LOST SPRING
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Answer:
Summary of Lost Spring
This story is the writer's description of the pitiable condition of some poor children who live in slum areas and work very hard to eat their piece of bread. They hardly get an education and other basic needs of life. The writer here presents us two stories, one set in the neighborhood slum area of Delhi and the other is about the poor bangle makers of the Firozabad town. She describes how each of the dreams of such children is crushed by their reality of life.
The writer sees a young boy named Saheb in her neighbourhood everyday morning. He looks for some coins or some other things amidst the heaps of garbage. He has left his home in Dhaka many years ago, he does not even remember. His home was surrounded by storms that took place which swept away all the homes and fields of these poor people. They became homeless and were starving. So in search of food, they came out of their homeland to this big city the capital Delhi. One day when the writer observes Saheb scratching the garbage heap she asks why he did that. Saheb looks away by saying that he does that since he has nothing else to do. When asked whether he goes to school he replies that there is no school in his place and when a school will be built, he will go. The writer, to please the boy says that she will start school and she asks Saheb if he will come. Saheb happily consented to the offer. A few days after he came to the writer and asks her "Is your school ready?". She says "It takes longer to build a school" and feels small at making a false promise to the boy.
The writer starts knowing the boy and after some months, got to know his name "Saheb-e-Alam" which signifies the lord of the universe. But contrary to the meaning of his name, the boy wanders in the streets with the same classes of children. He does not even get to eat properly or wear clothes or shoes.
The place named Seemapuri lies on the periphery of Delhi, these people are those who migrated from Bangladesh in 1971, Saheb also lives here with his family. The writer goes on to visit the area so as to learn about these ragpickers. At one point of time Seemapuri was so wild and lonely it now thousands or such people dwell here in mud-built houses with tin roofs without any drainage or proper sanitation without even an identity they have lived here for over thirty years, for them food is far more necessary than the identity. And they get grains from their ration cards. Some women in worm out saris says to the writer that they left their green fields which gave them nothing to eat and they would rather live here in slums where they can sleep without an empty stomach. They build their tents wherever they find some food, children also start helping the families to survive. lt is garbage which gives them food and the roof also, so the garbage heaps are like gold for them.
Saheb says enthusiastically that often he finds a rupee in the garbage, sometimes even a ten-rupee note. Children like him try to find more in the garbages. For their parents' garbage means survival but for the young ones, it means a wonderland. One morning the writer observes Saheb standing outside the gate of a club watching two people playing tennis in white drees. He says that he likes the game and he is allowed by the gatekeeper to enter and use the Suing when there is none. Saheb wears tennis shoes to the discarded shoes of some rich boy with hole in one of them. But the hole is no trouble for a boy like Saheb who has always walked barefoot.
Another morning the writer finds Saheb going to a milk booth with a steel canister in his hand. He now works in a tea stall with all the meals and 800 rupees. The relaxed face of Saheb is missing while carrying the canister heavier than his earlier plastic bag. The plastic bag was his own but canister now is the owner of the tea-stall. The writer understands that Saheb is no longer of his own master.