CBSE Class 12 English HOTs The Lost Spring

Lost Spring: Stories of Stolen Childhood
Part: 2
“I want to drive a car”
By: Anees Jung

Passage 1
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.

Question. What does the custom demand?
(a) the girl should bow to their elders
(b) that girls should live at the house of their inlaws
(c) that daughters-in-law must veil their faces before male elders
(d) the daughters-in-law must get dowry from their parents
Answer. C

Question. Who is the daughter-in-law mentioned in the above passage?
(a) Mukesh’s wife
(b) Mukesh’s sister
(c) Mukesh’s mother
(d) Mukesh’s sister-in-law
Answer. D

Question. Who is the male elder referred to in the passage?
(a) a bangle seller
(b) a bangle maker
(c) a rag-picker
(d) a tea stall owner
Answer. B

Question. What has the elder failed to do?
(a) to renovate his house
(b) to send his sons to school
(c) to end his poverty
(d) all of the above
Answer. D

Question. What art has the elder taught his two sons?
(a) the art of making bangles
(b) the art of renovating a house
(c) the art of sewing clothes
(d) the art of teaching children
Answer. A

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘poor’.
(a) custom
(b) renovate
(c) veil
(d) impoverished
Answer. D

Passage 2
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.”

Question. Who is Savita?
(a) a married woman
(b) an elderly woman
(c) a young girl
(d) a lovely bride
Answer. C

Question. What is Savita wearing?
(a) a pink dress
(b) a yellow dress
(c) a white dress
(d) a black dress
Answer. A

Question. What sanctity attached to bangles?
(a) they are made of pure glass
(b) they symbolize an Indian woman’s suhaag
(c) they are worn by all girls and all women
(d) they are worn on all auspicious occasions
Answer. B

Question. What job is Savita doing?
(a) she is soldering pieces of glass
(b) she is draping a bride with a red veil
(c) she is dying the hands of a girl red
(d) she is rolling bangles on to the wrist of an old woman
Answer. A

Question. What do the bangles symbolize in Indian culture?
(a) ‘suhaag’
(b) chastity
(c) corruption
(d) farming
Answer. A

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘dull’.
(a) light
(b) drab
(c) sanctity
(d) draped
Answer. B

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘coloured’.
(a) dyed
(b) drab
(c) drained
(d) reaped
Answer. A

Question. Find the word in the passage which means 'holiness'.
(a) tongs
(b) veil
(c) sanctity
(d) dyed
Answer. C

Passage 3
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.

Question. What forces conspire to keep the workers in bangle industry of Firozabad?
(a) Sahukars, middlemen
(b) policemen
(c) bureaucrats and politician
(d) all of the above
Answer. D

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘blemish/disgrace’.
(a) vicious
(b) baggage
(c) distinct
(d) stigma
Answer. D

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘evil’.
(a) vicious
(b) imposed
(c) cheered
(d) caste
Answer. A

Question. What does Mukesh want to become?
(a) a doctor
(c) a motor mechanic
(b) a teacher
(d) a writer
Answer. C

Question. Find the word in the passage which means ‘burden’.
(a) vicious
(c) baggage
(b) law
(d) distinct
Answer. C

Short Questions

1. Where does the author meet Saheb every morning?
2. What reason did Saheb give for not going to school?
3. Bring out the contrast drawn between his life in reality and the meaning of his name?
4. What reason does a person give for walking barefoot? What is the author’s personal opinion regarding this reasoning?
5. Bring out the difference in the standard of living of the priests of the past and the present?
6. How does rag picking differ for an adult and for a child?
7. Why does the hole in the shoe not bother Saheb?
8. Was Saheb happy with the newfound job? If not, why?
9. Bring out the horrible condition within the glass blowing industry?
10. Describe the living condition in Firozabad?
11. Why does Mukesh`s grandmother feel it a futile exercise for Mukesh to fight taking up the job in glass blowing industry?
12. Why are they reluctant to form into cooperatives?
13. What all things comprise the vicious circle from where there is no escape?
14. Why is daring a difficult task? What cheers the narrator while talking to Mukesh?
15. Why is Mukesh content to dream only of cars and not of planes?
16. Why are promises to the poor rarely kept?

Essays

1. Do you think the child labour law should be enforced? If the child labour law is enforced approximately how many rag pickers and how many bangle makers would be freed from Seemapuri and Firozabad? Envisage the life Saheb and Mukesh would enjoy if they were freed? How would it be different from the present condition?
2. Bring out from the lesson the pathetic condition of children working in inhuman conditions?
3. Saheb has lost all the joy and freedom by working in the tea stall where he is no longer his own master. Do you think his decision was wise or could he have made a better choice? Or was it still better to leave him at rag picking where he was his own master?
4. Draw the similarities between the life of the rag pickers and the bangle makers as portrayed in Lost Spring.