Class 12 English Chapter 2 Lost Spring The answer to each chapter is provided in the list so that you can easily browse throughout different chapters Assam Board Class 12 English Chapter 2 Lost Spring and select needs one.
Class 12 English Chapter 2 Lost Spring
Also, you can read the SCERT book online in these sections Solutions by Expert Teachers as per SCERT (CBSE) Book guidelines. These solutions are part of SCERT All Subject Solutions. Here we have given Assam Board Class 12 English Chapter 2 Lost Spring Solutions for All Subjects, You can practice these here…
Lost Spring
Lesson – 2
PROSE
Page No – 17
| THINK AS YOU READ |
1. What is Saheb looking for in the garbage dumps? Where is he and where has he come from?
Ans: Saheb is a rag picker. Garbage is wrapped in wonder for him. He is looking for “gold” in the garbage dumps. Sometimes he finds a rupee, even a ten rupee note. If luck favours, he can find a silver coin too. There is always hope of finding something more. Saheb has come from Dhaka in Bangladesh. Now he is living in Seemapuri. It is a settlement of rag pickers at the outskirts of Delhi.
2. What explanations does the author offer for the children not wearing footwear?
Ans: When the author noticed many shoeless rag-picking children in her neighborhood, she initially came across an explanation that going barefoot was a tradition among them and other poor children in the country. However, she soon realized that this was merely a way to justify their extreme poverty rather than an actual tradition. This belief only reinforced their state of deprivation instead of addressing the real issue.
3. Is Saheb happy working at the tea-stall? Explain.
Ans: Saheb valued his freedom and had a carefree look on his face. Working at the tea stall meant sacrificing this freedom since he had a master to obey. The job paid him 800 rupees and all his meals but he felt that the weight of the steel canister was more than his rag-picking plastic bag and he was not content with it.
Page No – 20
| THINK AS YOU READ |
1. What makes the city of Firozabad famous?
Ans: Firozabad is the centre of India’s glass-blowing industry and is especially famous for glass bangles.
2. Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangles industry.
Ans: Workers in the glass bangles industry have to work in subhuman conditions. They have to face many health hazards. The workers often end up blind if they are exposed to the work for many years. The furnaces are set in extremely elevated temperatures and lack proper ventilation. They go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of bangles. Burns and cuts while working are quite frequent and inhaling the fumes can lead to lung cancer. The workers put their lives in danger to fill their stomachs.
3. How is Mukesh’s attitude to his situation different from that of his family?
Ans: Mukesh belongs to the families of Bengal makers. But his attitude is very different from his family. Mukesh wants to break the family tradition of Bengal making by becoming a motor mechanic. He is quite determined to follow his dream.
| UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT |
1. What could be some of the reasons for the migration of people from villages to cities?
Ans: There are several reasons for migration. Firstly, the growing pressure on land has made it difficult to provide employment for everyone. Overpopulation and a lack of job opportunities have driven people to seek better prospects in cities. Secondly, the mechanization of farming has reduced the need for manual labor, leaving landless laborers without work. As a result, they are forced to migrate to cities in search of jobs in industries. Lastly, the decline of traditional arts and crafts in villages has also contributed to migration. With limited local markets for their products, artisans move to urban areas in search of better opportunities and wider markets.
2. Would you agree that promises made to poor children are rarely kept? Why do you think this happens in the incidents narrated in the text?
Ans: Yes, the promises made to poor children are seldom fulfilled. We live in a world full of hypocrisy, where seminars are held to discuss the elimination of child labor, yet India continues to have the highest number of child workers. Ironically, the more hazardous the industry, the greater the number of children employed in it.
Anees Jung provides a deep and honest insight into the lives of poor children engaged in ragpicking and the glass bangle industry. The 10,000 ragpickers in Seemapuri expose the false claims of the authorities, and what makes it worse is that this exploitation happens right on the outskirts of New Delhi. The rag pickers of Seemapuri and the child laborers of Firozabad’s glass industry have never been to school, nor do they even own proper shoes. Deprived of dreams and opportunities, they remain the easiest victims of exploitation.
3. What forces conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty?
Ans: The workers in the bangle industry are compelled to continue in the trade as it is the only skill they possess to earn a livelihood. Lacking expertise in other fields, they have resigned themselves to their fate, enduring exploitation by cunning middlemen. To break this cycle of poverty, a proper legal framework and a supportive social system must be established. This would enable them to thrive through their craft and secure a better future, free from perpetual exploitation.
| TALKING ABOUT THE TEXT |
1. How, in your opinion, can Mukesh realise his dream?
Ans: Mukesh comes from a family of bangle-makers, where generations have been trapped in poverty, misery, and exploitation. However, he stands apart from the rest. Unlike his family members, he refuses to let poverty crush his dreams. Mukesh does not wish to follow the traditional occupation of bangle-making. Instead, he aspires to become a motor mechanic and dreams of driving a car one day. Determined and ambitious, he believes in shaping his own future. To turn his dream into reality, he must first find a garage where he can train as an apprentice. With dedication and hard work, he can soon become a skilled mechanic. If he wishes to become a taxi driver, he will need to learn how to drive, pass the driving test, and obtain a license. Once qualified, he can work for a travel agency and move closer to achieving his goal.
2. Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangles industry.
Ans: Working in the glass bangle industry is extremely hazardous. Around 20,000 children are employed in these harsh conditions, unaware that child labor in such industries is illegal. However, in Firozabad, the law is largely ignored. The bangle makers toil in glass furnaces at dangerously high temperatures, confined to dim, airless rooms. Their eyes become so accustomed to the darkness that they struggle to adjust to daylight, often losing their eyesight before reaching adulthood. Mukesh’s grandfather lost his vision due to years of polishing glass bangles. The relentless, mind-numbing labor has crushed their ambition and ability to dream. Thousands of children work alongside their parents in cramped hutments, shaping pieces of colored glass into delicate bangles.
3. Why should child labour be eliminated and how?
Ans: It is a crying shame that India has the maximum number of child workers in the world. It is a stigma that puts our heads in shame. Childhood is the most tender age. A child needs love and care. It is quite unfortunate that all the major industries employ a large number of child-workers. About 20,000 children work in the furnaces with high temperatures in the bangles industry in Firozabad. The employment of children in such hazardous industries is illegal. It is banned by the law. But the laws against child-labour don’t have teeth in them. Those who employ children must be punished. And those who employ them in hazardous industries must be sent behind the bars. Only exemplary punishment can put an end to this shameful practice.
| THINKING ABOUT LANGUAGE |
Although this text speaks of factual events and situations of misery it transforms these situations with an almost poetical prose into a literary experience. How does it do so? Here are some literary devices.
(i) Hyperbole is a way of speaking or writing that makes something sound better or more exciting than it really is. For example: Garbage to them is gold.
(ii) A Metaphor, as you may know, compares two things or ideas that are not very similar. A metaphor describes a thing in terms of a single quality or feature of some other things; we can say that a metaphor ‘‘transfers’’ a quality of one thing to another. For example: The road was a ribbon of light.
(iii) Simile is a word or phrase that compares one thing with another using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. For example: As white as snow.
Carefully read the following phrases and sentences taken from the text. Can you identify the literary device in each example?
1. Saheb-e-Alam which means the lord of the universe is directly in contrast to what Saheb is in reality.
Ans: Irony.
2. Drowned in an air of desolation.
Ans: Personification “Air of desolation” is given a human-like quality (drowning), making it a personification.
3. Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically.
Ans: Paradox, Physically, Seemapuri is close to Delhi, but metaphorically it is far due to the stark differences in lifestyle and poverty.
4. For the children it is wrapped in wonder; for the elders it is a means of survival.
Ans: Antithesis, The contrast between children’s wonder and adults’ struggle to survive creates an antithesis.
5. As her hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, wonder if she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make.
Ans: Simile has been used in the sentence. It is used when we compare things or people using as, like, etc. In the sentence, hands are compared with tongs of a machine.
6. She still has bangles on her wrist, but not light in her eyes.
Ans: Contrast/Irony, Bangles symbolize a happy married life, but her eyes lack light, indicating sadness and suffering.
7. Few airplanes fly over Firozabad.
Ans: Symbolism, The airplanes symbolize progress and opportunity, which are absent in Firozabad.
8. Web of poverty.
Ans: Metaphor has been used in the sentence. It compares two ideas or things that are not remarkably similar. Poverty does not come from a physical web but is still compared with it to show its networking and density.
9. Scrounging for gold.
Ans: Metaphor has been used in the sentence. It compares two ideas or things that are not remarkably similar. Gold is a precious metal and cannot be begged for and hence the ideas are not related.
10. And survival in Seemapuri means rag-picking. Through the years, it has acquired the proportions of a fine art.
Ans: Hyperbole.
11. The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so light by over his shoulders.
Ans: Paradox.
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