LOST SPRING (Stories of Stolen Childhood)

Anees Jung

'Lost spring' is fascinating and revelatory description of the lives of poverty

stricken children in India. It escapes from being a dry report about child labour
because of its evaluative language. It in about children coming to cities to work as
rag pickers or cleaners/servers at tea stall; or helping at furnaces where they are
exposed to health hazards.
Notes
 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 tarpulin 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 ACAR

 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 wood stove aluminum 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 Shahukaars, Middle man, 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.