Lost Spring-Theme and Extract Based Questions

A Few Extract Based Questions

Answer the following questions in 30 to 40 words only. Remember to be as brief as possible.

Wherever they find food, they pitch their tents that become transit homes. Children grow up in them becoming partners in survival. And survival in Seemapuri means rag-picking. Through the years, it has acquired the proportions of a fine art. Garbage to them is gold. It is their daily bread, a roof over their heads, even if it is a leaking roof. But for children it is even more.

1. Who are 'they' in the first line?

2. What impression do the words, 'transit homes' give you about the kind of life 'they' lead?

3. Why is 'Garbage to them...gold'?

4. Why is garbage 'even more' for the children?

For one who has walked barefoot, even shoes with a hole is a dream come true. But the game he is watching so intently is out of his reach.

1. What is the significance of walking 'barefoot'?

2. Why is it a big deal to have even shoes with a  hole? 

3. What game is 'he' watching so intently?

4. Why does the author state the game 'is out of his reach'?

The bag was his. The canister belongs to the man who owns the tea shop. Saheb is no longer his own master.

1. What was he carrying in the bag?

2. How is the sentence, 'The bag was his.' significant to the lesson?

3. Why is it significant that 'The canister belongs' to the owner of the tea shop?

4. Explain the statement, 'Saheb is no longer his own master.'

' "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'.

1. What is the prevalent belief that has prevented them from emancipating themselves?

2. Identify and explain one hazard of working in the bangle-making industry that has been mentioned 

    in the extract.

3. Why can't a "god-given lineage" be broken?

4. What is their Caste? What have they done all their lives?

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 politicians. Together they have imposed the baggage on the child that he cannot put down.

1. What are the two distinct worlds mentioned in the extract?

2. Explain the meaning of 'stigma of caste'.

3. What does the word, 'baggage' refer to in the extract?

4. How have the two worlds prevented them from changing their way of life?

This morning, Saheb is on his way to the milk booth. In his hand is a steel canister. "I now work in a  tea stall down the road," he says, pointing in the distance. "I am paid 800 rupees and all my meals." Does he like the job? I ask. His face, I see, has lost the carefree look. The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his shoulder. The bag was his. The steel canister belongs to the man who owns the tea shop. Saheb is no longer his own master!

1. Why is Saheb on the way to the milk booth?

2. Does Saheb like the job?

3. What does the 'steel canister' represent?

4. Why does the plastic bag seem lighter than the steel canister?

Reference:

Flamingo: Textbook for class XII

(Core Course)

Lost Spring

(Stories of Stolen Childhood by Anees Jung)