Lost Spring Important Questions – Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 2

In this post we have given the Important Questions of Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 2 Lost Spring (by Anees Jung). These are useful for students preparing for their Class 12 board exams.

इस पोस्ट में कक्षा 12 अंग्रेज़ी (Flamingo) के पाठ 2 Lost Spring के महत्वपूर्ण प्रश्न दिए गए हैं। यह उन सभी विद्यार्थियों के लिए उपयोगी है जो इस वर्ष कक्षा 12 की बोर्ड परीक्षा देने वाले हैं।

Very Short Answer Questions (1 mark)

Q1. What is suggested by the title ‘Lost Spring’?

Ans: Taking “spring” as a symbol of childhood, and going by the subtitle “Stories of Stolen Childhood”, the title suggests that the childhood of these poor children is lost to poverty and tradition.

Q2. What is Saheb’s full name and what does it mean?

Ans: His full name is Saheb-e-Alam, meaning “lord of the universe”. Saheb himself is not aware of its meaning.

Q3. Where did Saheb’s family live before they came to Delhi?

Ans: They lived among green fields near Dhaka in Bangladesh, until storms destroyed their fields and homes.

Q4. What does Mukesh want to become?

Ans: Mukesh wants to become a motor mechanic and learn to drive a car, rather than make bangles like the rest of his family.

Q5. What are the two sketches that make up ‘Lost Spring’?

Ans: The first is “Sometimes I Find a Rupee in the Garbage”, about Saheb, and the second is “I Want to Drive a Car”, about Mukesh.

Q6. What is meant by ‘suhaag’ in the chapter?

Ans: Suhaag is the auspicious, sacred state of marriage for an Indian woman, which glass bangles symbolise.

Short Answer Questions (2–3 marks)

Q7. Why did Saheb’s family leave their home and come to Delhi?

Ans: Saheb’s family lived near Dhaka, but storms swept away their fields and houses again and again. With nothing left, they came to Delhi “looking for gold”, that is, in search of a livelihood. They now live as squatters in Seemapuri, on the outskirts of Delhi.

Q8. Explain the line “Saheb is no longer his own master”.

Ans: As a ragpicker, Saheb carried his own plastic bag lightly on his shoulder and worked for himself. At the tea stall he gets 800 rupees and all his meals, but the steel canister he carries belongs to the shop owner and seems heavier than the bag. He now works under someone else, and his face has lost its carefree look. He has given up his freedom for a wage.

Q9. What reasons are given in the chapter for children going barefoot?

Ans: One boy says his mother has not taken his shoes down from the shelf; another says the first boy would throw them off even if she did; a third says he wants shoes because he has never had any. The author is also told that going barefoot is a tradition and not a matter of money. She doubts this and wonders if “tradition” is merely an excuse for never-ending poverty.

Q10. Describe the living conditions in Seemapuri.

Ans: People in Seemapuri live in mud houses with roofs of tin and tarpaulin. There is no sewage, no drainage and no running water. About 10,000 ragpickers have lived there for more than thirty years without any identity or permits. They do, however, have ration cards, which help them buy grain and put their names on the voters’ lists.

Q11. Why has Mukesh’s family not been able to improve its condition despite years of hard work?

Ans: Mukesh’s father worked for years, first as a tailor and then as a bangle maker, yet he could neither repair the house nor send his two sons to school. The only thing he could pass on to them was the art of making bangles. So the same poverty continues from one generation to the next.

Q12. Why don’t the young bangle makers of Firozabad form a cooperative?

Ans: They fear that if they organise, they will be the ones caught by the police, beaten and sent to jail for doing something illegal. They also have no leader to guide them or help them think differently, and their fathers are just as tired and hopeless as they are.

Q13. What do the plastic bag and the steel canister stand for in Saheb’s story?

Ans: The plastic bag belonged to Saheb and he carried it lightly, so it can be read as a symbol of his freedom as a ragpicker. The steel canister belongs to the tea-stall owner and seems heavier, so it can be read as a symbol of his lost independence. The chapter sums it up by saying that Saheb is no longer his own master.

Q14. What does the grandmother’s belief that a “god-given lineage” cannot be broken show about Mukesh’s family?

Ans: It shows that the family has accepted its poverty and its caste-based trade as fate, and not as an injustice that can be changed. This attitude of quiet acceptance, passed down through generations, is itself one of the things that keeps them trapped.

Long Answer Questions (4 marks)

Q15. Is Saheb happy working at the tea stall? Give reasons from the chapter.

Ans: No, Saheb is not really happy at the tea stall, though the job gives him a fixed income of 800 rupees and all his meals. As a ragpicker he was his own boss. The plastic bag he carried belonged to him, and he carried it lightly over his shoulder.

Now he carries a steel canister that belongs to the owner of the tea shop, and it seems heavier than the bag ever did. This heaviness is not about weight; it shows the burden of working for someone else. The author notices that his face has lost its carefree look. The chapter’s conclusion is that Saheb is no longer his own master. The job may look like progress, but it has taken away the freedom he once had.

Q16. What are the dangers of working in the glass bangle industry of Firozabad?

Ans: The bangle industry of Firozabad is full of hazards. Children work at glass furnaces in great heat, inside dingy cells that have no air or light. They work through all the hours of daylight and often lose the brightness of their eyes. In dark huts lit only by flickering oil lamps, their eyes become more used to darkness than to daylight, and many go blind before they become adults. Mukesh’s grandfather lost his sight because of the dust from polishing bangle glass.

Child labour in these furnaces is against the law, and the chapter says the law, if enforced, could free about 20,000 children. Besides the physical dangers, the workers are trapped economically: Mukesh’s father could not repair his house or educate his sons, and the young men fear police action if they try to organise.

Q17. Which forces keep the bangle makers of Firozabad in poverty?

Ans: The chapter describes a “vicious circle” that keeps the bangle makers poor. It includes the sahukars (moneylenders) and the middlemen, who trapped the fathers and grandfathers of today’s young workers just as they trap them now. The policemen and the keepers of law are also part of this circle; the young men believe that if they formed a cooperative, they would be beaten and jailed. The bureaucrats and politicians are named in the same circle as well.

Tradition and caste add to the trap. The grandmother calls their life “karam”, or destiny, and the families, born into the caste of bangle makers, have seen nothing but bangles all their lives. With no leader to show them another way, the workers see no escape.

Q18. Describe Mukesh’s family as the author sees it.

Ans: Mukesh takes the author home through garbage-filled lanes and past windowless houses with crumbling walls. His father has worked for years as a tailor and then as a bangle maker, but has not managed to repair the house or educate his two sons. His grandmother, whose husband went blind from the dust of polishing bangle glass, calls it “his karam, his destiny”. His sister-in-law, the wife of his elder brother, is already in charge of three men – her husband, Mukesh and their father – and by custom veils her face when the older man of the house enters.

Around them, others live the same life. Savita, a young girl in a drab pink dress, solders pieces of glass beside an elderly woman. The whole family’s world is built around the single trade that has held every generation before Mukesh.

Q19. How does the writer use hyperbole, metaphor and simile to make her point stronger?

Ans: Anees Jung uses figures of speech to turn real facts about poverty into strong, memorable writing. Hyperbole appears in “Garbage to them is gold” and in the claim that rag-picking has “acquired the proportions of a fine art”; these exaggerations show how valuable even scrap becomes to the very poor.

Metaphors such as “web of poverty”, “scrounging for gold” and Seemapuri being “metaphorically” far from Delhi present ideas like exploitation and lack of opportunity in vivid, concrete terms. A simile is used when Savita’s hands move “mechanically like the tongs of a machine”, comparing her work to something repetitive and lifeless. These devices do not merely decorate the text; they make the reader feel how deeply these children are trapped.

Q20. “Promises made to poor children are rarely kept.” Discuss with reference to the chapter.

Ans: Saheb’s story shows this clearly. The author jokingly asks Saheb whether he would come if she started a school, and he happily agrees. A few days later he comes running to ask whether the school is ready, and she has to admit that it takes longer to build a school. She feels embarrassed because her promise was never meant seriously, and she admits that such promises are found everywhere in his bleak world.

Such promises are made casually by people who do not mean them, and real change, such as building a school, needs effort and resources that never reach children like Saheb. As a result, these children learn not to expect much from promises, which is a sad loss in itself.

Q21. Based on the chapter, what could be the reasons for people moving from villages to cities?

Ans: Through Saheb’s family, the chapter shows migration caused by the loss of rural livelihood. Storms repeatedly swept away their fields and homes near Dhaka, leaving them nothing to live on. They came to the city “looking for gold” – any way to earn a living, even rag-picking. The chapter tells this as the story of one family and does not claim it applies to everyone.

The city, however, does not give them the life they hoped for. They end up in Seemapuri without identity or permits, where survival means rag-picking. This suggests that moving to a city does not always lead to a better life.

Q22. Compare the dreams and disappointments of Saheb and Mukesh.

Ans: Both boys hope for a life different from the one poverty has given them, but their stories take different turns. Saheb begins with hope: he believes the author’s promise of a school, and he watches tennis from behind the club fence, imagining himself in another world. By the end of Part I his hope has shrunk to a job at a tea stall, and even that takes away his freedom.

Mukesh, on the other hand, actively rejects his family’s trade. He insists that he will be a motor mechanic and is ready to walk a long way to the garage to learn. Yet his dream also has limits: he does not dream of flying planes and is happy to dream of the cars he sees in his town, as few aeroplanes fly over Firozabad. Both boys’ dreams are shaped, and narrowed, by poverty.

Long Answer Questions (5–6 marks)

Q23. Write a character sketch of Saheb.

Ans: Saheb is a ragpicker boy whom the author sees every morning searching the garbage dumps of her neighbourhood. His name, Saheb-e-Alam, means “lord of the universe”, which is the very opposite of his real condition, as he has almost nothing and no power over his life. His family left their fields near Dhaka after storms destroyed them and came to Delhi in search of a living, finally settling as squatters in Seemapuri.

Saheb is hopeful and trusting. When the author half-jokingly mentions a school, he is delighted and comes back days later to ask whether it is ready – showing how easily hope rises in him and how easily it is let down. Like his friends, he goes barefoot. He finds a kind of wonder in garbage, sometimes picking up a rupee or even a ten-rupee note. He also stands behind the fence of a club, wearing a rich boy’s discarded tennis shoes with a hole in one of them, watching a game that is beyond his reach.

In the end Saheb takes a job at a tea stall for 800 rupees and all his meals. But this is not a happy ending: the steel canister he carries belongs to his employer, unlike the light plastic bag that was his own. “Saheb is no longer his own master” sums up his journey – from having nothing but freedom to having a wage but no freedom.

Q24. Write a character sketch of Mukesh.

Ans: Mukesh belongs to a family of bangle makers in Firozabad who have worked at the glass furnaces for generations, but he refuses to accept this as his destiny. His father could teach his sons only the art of making bangles, yet Mukesh firmly says that he will be a motor mechanic and will learn to drive a car. He looks straight into the author’s eyes as he says this, a sign of his self-confidence. His dream “looms like a mirage” amid the dusty streets of his town, but he still states it plainly.

He proudly takes the author to his home, which is being rebuilt, showing a simple pride even in poverty. His family represents everything he wants to escape: a father who could not repair the house or educate his sons in spite of years of labour, a grandmother who calls it destiny, and a sister-in-law bound by custom to veil her face before elders.

Still, his courage has limits. When asked whether he dreams of flying a plane, he falls silent and looks at the ground; his embarrassment has not yet turned into regret. He is content to dream of the cars he sees in his town, since few aeroplanes fly over Firozabad. Mukesh is brave enough to reject his family’s trade, yet his dreams are still shaped by the small world he has seen.

Q25. “Together they have imposed the baggage on the child that he cannot put down.” Explain this with reference to both Saheb and Mukesh.

Ans: The “baggage” is the combined weight of family poverty, caste tradition and the vicious circle of sahukars, middlemen, policemen, keepers of law, bureaucrats and politicians. Together these forces trap a child before he even understands it. The chapter says the child accepts this burden as naturally as his father did, and that daring to do something different is not part of his growing up.

For Mukesh, the baggage is direct and inherited: the family’s caste-based trade, his grandmother’s belief that their lineage cannot change, and the young men’s fear of being jailed if they organise. These keep each generation where the last one was. His wish to be a motor mechanic is a rare act of daring, and the author is cheered to see a flash of it in him.

For Saheb, the baggage takes another form: the constant struggle to survive. His family’s displacement from Dhaka, life in Seemapuri without identity or permits, and finally the loss of his freedom at the tea stall are all forces beyond his control that keep narrowing his choices. Both stories suggest that a child’s own effort or dreams cannot, on their own, break the vicious circle around him.

Q26. Discuss the theme and sub-theme of ‘Lost Spring’ as stated in the textbook, and show how both parts support them.

Ans: The textbook’s unit note gives the theme as the plight of street children forced into labour early in life and denied the opportunity of schooling. The sub-theme is the callousness of society and the political class towards the sufferings of the poor.

In Part I, Saheb never gets the school that the author jokingly promises him. Instead he works – first as a ragpicker and then at a tea stall – because his family’s poverty leaves him no choice. Society’s indifference shows in how casually the promise is made and forgotten, and in a system that gives Seemapuri’s residents ration cards but no sewage, drainage, running water or real security.

In Part II, Mukesh and thousands of other children work in dangerous glass furnaces instead of going to school, which is exactly the early labour the theme describes. The chapter says the law could free these children if it were enforced; the fact that it is not shows a system that looks away from suffering it could stop. Thus the same theme is shown in two different places and two different trades.

Extract-Based Questions

Extract 1: The author asks the young bangle makers why they do not form a cooperative

Q27. Who are the people the author asks about forming a cooperative?

Ans: A group of young bangle makers of Firozabad, who are caught in the trap of middlemen.

Q28. What do the young men fear will happen if they organise?

Ans: They fear that they will be caught by the police, beaten and dragged to jail for doing something illegal.

Q29. Why is there no resistance to the middlemen, according to this part of the chapter?

Ans: The young men have no leader and nobody who can help them see things differently, and their fathers are as tired as they are. Their fear of the police makes them even more helpless.

Extract 2: The author describes Seemapuri

Q30. Why does the author say Seemapuri is “metaphorically” miles away from Delhi?

Ans: Seemapuri lies at the edge of Delhi, but it is cut off from the city’s facilities, opportunities and dignity. The distance is one of living conditions, not of geography.

Q31. When did the squatters of Seemapuri come there, and from where?

Ans: They came from Bangladesh in 1971.

Q32. Mention four facts about the living conditions in Seemapuri.

Ans: (1) The houses are mud structures with roofs of tin and tarpaulin. (2) There is no sewage. (3) There is no drainage. (4) There is no running water. About 10,000 ragpickers live in these conditions.