ANNUAL PREPARATORY PROGRAMME FOR ENHANCEMENT IN

ACADEMICS AND REVISION (APPEAR)

CLASS XII, ENGLISH CORE - 301
MODULE - XI LOST SPRING (PART-II)

Module Detail
Subject Name English Core
Course Name Annual Preparatory Programme for Enhancement in
Academics and Revision (APPEAR) in English for Class XII
Module Name/Title Lost Spring (Part II)
Module Id lefl_10202
Pre-requisite Lifestyle and hardship of impoverished people working in
small scale industries. Understanding of the poem ‘An
elementary School Classroom in a Slum’
Learning Outcomes After carefully reading this module and doing the suggested
activities, you will

• infer the meaning of the expressions

• respond to True/False questions on factual
understanding of the lesson- after listening
• make note on the sufferings of poor people in Firozabad
• identify the literary devices in the given
phrases/sentences.
• brainstorm social issues and
• write a paragraph on the ways to liberate the people of
Firozabad from poverty.
Keywords Furnace, crumbling, middlemen, vicious circle, bureaucrats etc.
2. Development Team
Role Name Affiliation
National MOOC Coordinator Prof. Amarendra P. Behera CIET, NCERT, New Delhi
Program Coordinator Dr. Rejaul Karim Barbhuiya CIET, NCERT, New Delhi

Course Coordinator Dr. Ganga Mahto NCERT, RIE, Bhopal

Course Co-Coordinator Ms. Heman Mehlawat CIET, NCERT, New Delhi
Subject Matter Expert Mr. V. Eugin Dellas Leen KVS ZIET Mumbai
Content Reviewer Prof. Nidhi Tiwari NCERT, RIE, Bhopal

CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Warm up activity
3. Reading tasks
4. Brainstorm social issues
5. Writing tasks
6. Let us sum up
7. References
8. Practice questions

Introduction
This lesson is an excerpt from Anees Jung’s book titled Lost Spring, Stories of Stolen Childhood.
She analyses the grinding poverty and traditions which condemn these children to a life of
exploitation. Being an editor and columnist for major newspapers in India and abroad, the author
analyzed the poverty, exploitation, and child labour prevailed in society. She narrates her
observations and expresses her feelings towards exploitations through two characters named
Saheb-e-Alam, a resident of Seemapuri situated on the outskirts of Delhi and Mukesh of Firozabad.
In this section titled ‘I want to drive a car’ she describes the life of people in Firozabad. She takes
us to Firozabad to give us a 360-degree view of the sufferings of children, women and old men
who work in glass industry. The irony of their life i.e. the bangle makers remain in extreme poverty
whereas the bangle made by them are used in all the auspicious occasions. The author invites the
attention of the readers towards such irony of life and make everyone think how to alleviate the
poverty of slum dwellers.

Warm up activity
Activity-1
Watch the video carefully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-wxr-2K98
The bangle makers remain in extreme poverty but the products they make are used in auspicious
occasions by the rich. Can you think of such ironies in various jobs done by the poor people in our
society? What are the reasons that limits these people to remain in poverty permanently? Can we
explore some ways to alleviate poverty in our society?

Activity-2 (Infer the meaning of the expressions)

Match the expressions with their meaning in the given table.
i. dream looms like a mirage A. an attempt to resolve one problem creates another
which leads back to original situation.
ii. unkempt yards B. doing work which is very hard and boring
iii. a roof over head C. trapped in intricate problems of poverty
iv. mind-numbing D. messy yards
v. vicious circle E. a dream which cannot be realized
vi. caught in the web of poverty F. a house to live
vii. slog (the daylight hours) G. so bad /boring that one is unable to think clearly

Activity-3 (Listening for comprehension)

Listen to the audio clip carefully and answer the following True/False questions on factual
understanding of the lesson. Keep your textbook open and look at the text while listening.
https://ciet.nic.in/audio_files/gradeXII/flamingo/Chapter%202-%20Lost%20Spring.mp3

1. Mukesh wants to start a bangles-making factory. True ( ) False ( )

2. Nobody in Firozabad knows that it is illegal for children to work in the glass-blowing industry.
True ( ) False ( )

3. The major hazard that all those 20,000 children working in glass-blowing industry face is that
they often lose their eyesight. True ( ) False ( )

4. From the description of the houses in Firozabad, we understand that the living conditions of the
people are not bad. True ( ) False ( )

5. The author points out that it is the custom that daughters-in-law must veil their faces before
male elders. True ( ) False ( )

6. Though Mukesh’s father failed to send his sons to school, he has managed to teach them the art
of making bangles. True ( ) False ( )

7. Mukesh’s grandfather lost his eyesight because of the dust from polishing the glass of bangles.
True ( ) False ( )

8. “It is his karam, his destiny,” says Mukesh’s grandmother. It shows the feeling of pride and
satisfaction of the people working in bangle-industry. True ( ) False ( )

9. The bangle-makers in Firozabad are not able to switch over to some other better source of
income because they are born in the caste of bangle makers. True ( ) False ( )

10. “Their eyes are more adjusted to the dark than to the light outside.” This statement suggests
that children spend more time in their hutments making bangles. True ( ) False ( )

11. “Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” she says, in a voice drained of joy. Here ‘she’ is
Savita, the young girl. True ( ) False ( )

12. A lot of change has taken place in the life of the people in Firozabad over the years. True ( )
False ( )

13. The author suggests that it is the middlemen who are responsible for the pitiable condition of
the bangle makers in Firozabad. True ( ) False ( )
14. “To do anything else would mean to dare.” The author says that every child in Firozabad has
the desire to dare. True ( ) False ( )

15. The author sees two different worlds which have suppressed the bangle makers generation
after generation. True ( ) False ( )

Reading tasks
Activity-4 Note making (Step -1 Identify the important points)
Read the text silently and underline the important words or phrases.
“I want to drive a car” (Chapter 2. Lost Spring Page. no.17 to 20)
Mukesh insists on being his own master. “I will be a motor mechanic,” he announces. “Do you
know anything about cars?” I ask. “I will learn to drive a car,” he answers, looking straight into
my eyes. His dream looms like a mirage amidst the dust of streets that fill his town Firozabad,
famous for its bangles. Every other family in Firozabad is engaged in making bangles. It is the
centre of India’s glass-blowing industry where families have spent generations working around
furnaces, welding glass, making bangles for all the women in the land it seems. Mukesh’s family
is among them. None of them know that it is illegal for children like him to work in the glass
furnaces with high temperatures, in dingy cells without air and light; that the law, if enforced,
could get him and all those 20,000 children out of the hot furnaces where they slog their daylight
hours, often losing the brightness of their eyes. Mukesh’s eyes beam as he volunteers to take me
home, which he proudly says is being rebuilt. We walk down stinking lanes choked with garbage,
past homes that remain hovels with crumbling walls, wobbly doors, no windows, crowded with
families of humans and animals coexisting in a primeval state. He stops at the door of one such
house, bangs a wobbly iron door with his foot, and pushes it open. We enter a half-built shack. In
one part of it, thatched with dead grass, is a firewood stove over which sits a large vessel of sizzling
spinach leaves. On the ground, in large aluminium platters, are more chopped vegetables. A frail
young woman is cooking the evening meal for the whole family. Through eyes filled with smoke
she smiles. She is the wife of Mukesh’s elder brother. Not much older in years, she has begun to
command respect as the bahu, the daughter-in-law of the house, already in charge of three men —
her husband, Mukesh and their father. When the older man enters, she gently withdraws behind
the broken wall and brings her veil closer to her face. As custom demands, daughters-in law must
veil their faces before male elders. In this case the elder is an impoverished bangle maker. Despite
long years of hard labour, first as a tailor, then a bangle maker, he has failed to renovate a house,
send his two sons to school. All he has managed to do is teach them what he knows — the art of
making bangles. “It is his karam, his destiny,” says Mukesh’s grandmother, who has watched her
own husband go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of bangles. “Can a God-given lineage
ever be broken?” she implies. Born in the caste of bangle makers, they have seen nothing but
bangles — in the house, in the yard, in every other house, every other yard, every street in
Firozabad. Spirals of bangles — sunny gold, paddy green, royal blue, pink, purple, every colour
born out of the seven colours of the rainbow — lie in mounds in unkempt yards, are piled on four-
wheeled handcarts, pushed by young men along the narrow lanes of the shanty town. And in dark
hutments, next to lines of flames of flickering oil lamps, sit boys and girls with their fathers and
mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into circles of bangles. Their eyes are more adjusted to
the dark than to the light outside. That is why they often end up losing their eyesight before they
become adults. Savita, a young girl in a drab pink dress, sits alongside an elderly woman, soldering
pieces of glass. As her hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if she
knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make. It symbolises an Indian woman’s suhaag,
auspiciousness in marriage. It will dawn on her suddenly one day when her head is draped with a
red veil, her hands dyed red with henna, and red bangles rolled onto her wrists. She will then
become a bride. Like the old woman beside her who became one many years ago. She still has
bangles on her wrist, but no light in her eyes. “Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” she says,
in a voice drained of joy. She has not enjoyed even one full meal in her entire lifetime — that’s
what she has reaped! Her husband, an old man with a flowing beard, says, “I know nothing except
bangles. All I have done is make a house for the family to live in.” Hearing him, one wonders if
he has achieved what many have failed in their lifetime. He has a roof over his head! The cry of
not having money to do anything except carry on the business of making bangles, not even enough
to eat, rings in every home. The young men echo the lament of their elders. Little has moved with
time, it seems, in Firozabad. Years of mind-numbing toil have killed all initiative and the ability
to dream. “Why not organise yourselves into a cooperative?” I ask a group of young men who
have fallen into the vicious circle of middlemen who trapped their fathers and forefathers. “Even
if we get organised, we are the ones who will be hauled up by the police, beaten and dragged to
jail for doing something illegal,” they say. There is no leader among them, no one who could help
them see things differently. Their fathers are as tired as they are. They talk endlessly in a spiral
that moves from poverty to apathy to greed and to injustice. Listening to them, I see two distinct
worlds— one of the family, caught in a web of poverty, burdened by the stigma of caste in which
they are born; the other a vicious circle of the 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. Before he is aware, he accepts it as naturally as his father. To do anything
else would mean to dare. And daring is not part of his growing up. When I sense a flash of it in
Mukesh I am cheered. “I want to be a motor mechanic,’ he repeats. He will go to a garage and
learn. But the garage is a long way from his home. “I will walk,” he insists. “Do you also dream
of flying a plane?” He is suddenly silent. “No,” he says, staring at the ground. In his small murmur
there is an embarrassment that has not yet turned into regret. He is content to dream of cars that he
sees hurtling down the streets of his town. Few airplanes fly over Firozabad.
Compare your work with the model given in the file linked.

Activity-4 Note making (Step -2 Group the words/phrases of similar ideas/themes together)
Compare your work with the model given in the file linked.

Activity-4 Note making (Step -3 Invent a sub-title for each group of words /phrases)
Compare your work with the model given in the file linked.

Activity-4 Note making (Step – 4 Make notes with proper layout. Invent a title and introduce
abbreviations wherever possible)
Compare your work with the model given in the file linked.

Activity-5 Carefully read the following phrases and sentences taken from the text and
identify the literary devices in the given phrases/sentences.
1. Saheb-e-Alam which means the lord of the universe is directly in contrast to what Saheb is in
reality.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
2. Drowned in an air of desolation.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
3. Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
4. For the children it is wrapped in wonder; for the elders it is a means of survival.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
5. As her hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if she knows the sanctity
of the bangles she helps make.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
6. She still has bangles on her wrist, but not light in her eyes.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
7. Few airplanes fly over Firozabad.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
8. Web of poverty.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
9. Scrounging for gold.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
10. And survival in Seemapuri means rag-picking. Through the years, it has acquired the
proportions of a fine art.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor
11. The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his
shoulders.
a. Hyperbole b. Contrast c. Simile d. Metaphor

Brainstorm Social Issues (Open Discussion Forums/Threads)

Activity-6
Open the link to register your ideas:

1. What forces conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty?
Guidelines
• Define the problem in neutral terms rather than a preselected solution
• Suspend evaluation or judgment until all ideas have been given.
• Stretch for ideas.
 • When you think you’ve got all the ideas, go for another round, being even more outrageous
in possible solutions.
• Accept all ideas, even weak ones.
• Encourage embellishment and building on ideas.

Writing tasks
Activity-7
1. Write a paragraph on the hazards of working in the glass bangles industry in about 150 words.
Refer the note you made on this passage.
2. Write a paragraph in about 150 words on how the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad
be liberated from poverty?
Make use of the ideas from the brainstorming activity

LET US SUM UP
We could witness the miserable life of people work in the glass bangle industries of Firozabad
through the video. Then we inferred the meaning of some words and answered some true/false
questions through a listening activity. These activities helped us to have a comprehensive view on
the life of Mukesh and how the people working in the glass bangle industries are caught in the web
of sahukars, middlemen, police and politicians. Then we made a note on the entire passage by
following different steps like identifying the important points, grouping the words/phrases of
similar ideas/themes together, inventing subtitles and a main title and introducing abbreviations.
Then we identified the literary devices used in the sentences. Brainstorming activity helped us to
have a deeper understanding of the forces conspired to keep the workers in the bangle industry of
Firozabad in poverty and their ways of exploiting the poor workers. This analysis and critical
thinking exercises enabled us to find some solutions for liberating the people of Firozabad from
poverty and record the solutions in the form of a write up.
 ANSWERS
Activity-2

i. dream looms like a mirage E. a dream which cannot be realized

ii. unkempt yards D. messy yards
iii. a roof over head F. a house to live
iv. mind-numbing G. so bad /boring that one is unable to think clearly
v. vicious circle A. an attempt to resolve one problem creates another which
leads back to original situation.
vi. caught in the web of poverty C. trapped in intricate problems of poverty
vii. slog (the daylight hours) B. doing work which is very hard and boring

Activity-3
1. False

2. True

3. True

4. False

5. True

6. True

7. True

8. False

9. True

10. True

11. False

12. False
13. True

14. False

15. True

Activity-5
1. Hyperbole
2. Metaphor
3. Contrast
4. Contrast
5. Simile
6. Contrast
7. Contrast
8. Metaphor
9. hyperbole
10. Hyperbole
11. Contrast
REFERENCES

Video 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-wxr-2K98

https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php?lefl1=2-14

(https://ciet.nic.in/pages.php?id=hornbill&ln=en)

PRACTICE QUESTIONS
1. Describe the circumstances which keep the workers in the bangle industry in poverty.
2. How did Mukesh’s attitude towards his situation differ from that of Saheb? Why?