Lost Spring Class 12 English Exam Questions

Please refer to the below Lost Spring important questions for Class 12 English. These questions and answers have been prepared as per the latest NCERT Book for Class 12 English. Students should go through chapter wise Class 12 English Important Questions designed as per the latest examination pattern issued by CBSE. 

Chapter Summary of Lost Spring

• The author examines and analyses the impoverished conditions and traditions that condemn children to a life of exploitation; these children are denied education and forced into hardships early in their lives.
• The writer encounters Saheb – a rag picker whose parents have left behind the life of poverty in Dhaka to earn a living in Delhi.
• His family like many other families of rag pickers lives in Seemapuri. They do not have permits to stay legally in India but ration cards.

• The children do not go to school and they are excited at the prospect of finding a coin or even a ten rupee note in the garbage.

• Rag-picking is the only way of earning.

• The writer is pained to see Saheb, a rag picker whose name means the ruler of earth, lose the spark of childhood and roams barefooted with his friends.

• One morning author encounters him moving towards tea stall, he works there and is paid Rs. 800 and meal. He sadly realizes that he is no longer his own master and this loss of identity weighs heavily on his tender shoulders.

• The author then writes about another victim, Mukesh who wants to be a motor mechanic.

• Hailing from Firozabad, the center of India’s bangle making and glass blowing industry, he has always worked in the glass making industry.

• His family, like the others there, does not know that it is illegal for children to work in such close proximity of furnaces, in such high temperatures.

• They are exposed to various health hazards like losing their eyesight as they work in abysmal conditions, in dark and dingy cells.

• Mukesh’s father is blind as were his father and grandfather before him.

• They lead a hand to mouth existence as they are caught in the vicious web of the money lenders, middlemen, police, keepers of law and the traditions.

• So burdened are the bangle makers of Firozabad that they have lost their ability to dream unlike Mukesh who dreams of driving a car.

Question. Is Saheb happy working at the tea-stall ? Explain.
Answer. Saheb was not happy working at the tea stall. There was fixed earning and food to suffice his hunger but he had lost his freedom. Earlier, working as a rag picker, his earning was meagre, but he had enjoyed his work as he was not accountable to anyone. Thus he was no longer his own master.

Question. “Saheb is no longer his own master”, says the writer. What does she mean?
Answer. The writer means that having accepted the job at the tea-stall, Saheb has lost the independence that he has enjoyed as a rag picker despite being poor. Although he will now be able to supplement the family income, it will be at the cost of his freedom, which is difficult, binding and unfair for someone so young.

Question. How in your opinion, can Mukesh realize his dream?
Answer. Mukesh belonged to a family of bangle makers who followed their ancestral profession and believed it as a God given lineage and accepted the poverty, misery and exploitation connected with it as a part of their fate. He dared to listen to his . tender heart and chose the profession of his choice. He was willing to come out from the vicious circle and lineage of glass makers. He did not let poverty kill his dreams. He dreamt to become a motor mechanic and wanted to join a garage as an apprentice. He was willing to walk a long way to the garage and dreamt to obtain the license to drive a car so he could possibly take up a job as a mechanic or a driver. In this way, he dared to realize and fulfill his dream.

Question. What makes the city of Firozabad famous ?
Answer. Firozabad is famous for bangle making industry. Every other family in Firozabad is engaged in making bangles. It is the centre of India’s glass blowing industry where families have spent generation working around furnaces, welding, glass and making bangles for women.

Question. Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangles industry ?
Answer. Workers in the glass bangle industry slogged their daylight hours working near hot furnaces in dingy cells having no proper lighting and proper ventilation. At times they lost their eyesight because of the dust emitted while polishing glass bangles. In Firozabad, children also labored in glass bangle industries where they fell prey to such hazardous working atmosphere.

Question. How was Mukesh’s attitude to his situation different from that of his family ?
Answer. Mukesh was willing to come out from the vicious circle and lineage of glass makers. He listened to his tender heart to become a motor mechanic. He willingly took up the hardship to walk a long way to the garage to acquire his necessary training and skills. Thus he dared to fulfil his dream.

Question. What could be some of the reasons for the migration of people from villages to cities.
Answer. With the passage of time, more and more people are migrating from villages to cities. The pressure on the village has increased due to over-population, illiteracy and unemployment. Moreover, with the advent of mechanized farming, landless labourers arc compelled to migrate to cities for job. In earlier days, agriculture was their main profession, but with extensive industrialization and advanced education, the youth migrate to cities in search of job and education. They do not want to stay in unhealthy and unhygienic rural surroundings. The village crafts also have been replaced with modern machines. The market is full of competition, quality and economical, goods. The villagers fail to compete with the new system of extensive industrialization and hence they fail to sell their products. Most of the time they get indebted due to agricultural loans and end up losing their lands and properties. Lastly, due to urbanization, the villagers migrate to cities to have a modern lifestyle for themselves.

Question. What does Saheb do for living? Why?
Answer. Saheb is a rag picker. His family has left the life of poverty behind in Dhaka to pursue their dream of finding a better life. The children like him have no access to Education and are forced into rag picking.

Question. 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 ?
Answer. We agree to the fact that promises made to the poor children are rarely kept. We organize different talk shows to eradicate child labor, yet India accounts for the maximum number of child workers in the world. Child labour inflicts physical and mental harm to the children. In the lesson ‘Lost Spring’, the author presented a clear picture of children employed in rag-picking and bangle making industry. She saw the plight of rag pickers and asked Saheb whether he would go to a school if she opened one in the neighbourhood. Later she felt embarrassed for making a promise to a child that was never meant to be fulfilled. Rag pickers of Seemapuri and child labourers of Firozabad had never been to school. They were the soft and easy target of exploitation of the sahukars, middlemen, policeman and the politicians. They were lured into that profession killing all their initiative, drive and ability to dream in life.

Question. What is Saheb looking for in the garbage dumps ? Where is he and where has he come from ?
Answer. Saheb scrounged and explored the garbage dumps in search of ‘gold’. He along with thousands of other rag pickers resided at Seemapuri a slum on the periphery of Delhi. Along with his parents, he had migrated from Bangladesh as their house and fields were swept away by repeated storms.

Question. What forces conspire to keep the workers in the bangle industry of Firozabad in poverty ?
Answer. Anees Jung had rightly analyzed two distinct classes that operated in the town of Firozabad. The first comprised of families caught in the lineage of making bangles. They had never thought beyound their ancestral profession. They knew that their earning was meagre and it was difficult to meet both ends. The second strata comprised of sahukars, bureaucrats, policemen and shrewd politicians who forced the children into child labor in hazardous environment of bangle making industry. Young as well as old were trapped into this vicious cycle. If they raised a voice against this ongoing system, they were hauled up by the police. They took it as a God given lineage that was never to be broken. This thought had killed the initiative in them. They never thought of forming a union. They had accepted it as their fate and never raised a voice to come out from the web of poverty and clutches of bureaucrats.

Question. What explanations does the author offer for the children not wearing footwear ?
Answer. The author had seen children walking barefoot, in cities as well as on village roads. It was a tradition to stay barefoot, as they felt their tattered attire and barefoot emphasized their permanent state of poverty and traced an ancient tradition preserved by the poor rag pickers.

Question. Why should child labour be eliminated and how?
Answer. Employment of child labour is an offense. It is banned under law. Yet it goes on unabated in many cities and towns. It is hazardous in nature. It inflicts physical and mental harm which they are neither able to understand nor express. Many a times, they lose or damage their vital organs while working. They lose their innocence before they become adults. Slogging day and night kills all their initiative, drive and desire to dream in life. They are even deprived of theschool education and proper growth. Employing children in perilous industries manufacturing fireworks, bangle and carpet industry is life threatening. If any accident or disaster occurs, these children are totally unaware to protect themselves. The only possible solution with the government and the society lies in punishing the exploiters ruthlessly. The laws against child labor should become more strict and implemented in totality.
Only exemplary punishment can put an end to such a crime.

Question. Why did people migrate from the village in Dhaka to Delhi?
Answer. There were many storms that swept away their houses and fields. Their lands became barren and political turmoil at that time made the condition for these people to very difficult to live. So they migrated from the village in Dhaka to Delhi in the hope for better education, job opportunities and living conditions.

Question. What trade does the family of Mukesh follow? Why does the writer feel that it’s difficult for Mukesh to break away from this tradition?
Answer. Engaged in bangle making for decades, it is difficult to break away from this trade. He belongs to the caste of bangle makers. His family is caught in the web of sahukars, the middlemen, policemen, politicians and bureaucrats, from which there is no escape.

Question. What does garbage symbolize for the adults and children?
Answer. garbage has a meaning different from what it means to their parents. For the children it iswrapped in wonder, for the elders it is a means of survival 

Question. Mention the hazards of working in the glass bangle industry.
Answer. Working in the glass bangle industry is quite hazardous. Workers spend long hours near the glass furnaces operating under high temperature. They slog their daylight hours working in dingy cells having neither proper lighting nor ventilation. Their eyes become more adjusted to the darknessprevailing inside their workshop than the light and open air outside. Many a times they lose their eyesight because of the dust emitted while polishing glass bangles. Even though child labor is banned by law, children of tender age are mostly employed in this hazardous profession. They sit in dark hutment along with their parents or elders giving shape to pieces of coloured glass to beautiful round bangles. Working in such uncouth conditions make them more prone to accidents and also kill their initiative to pursue their dream and break the shackles to come out from the linage.

Extract Based Question :

“Why do you do this?” I ask Saheb whom I encounter every morning scrounging for gold in the garbage dumps of my neighbourhood. Saheb left his home long ago. Set amidst the green fields of Dhaka, his home is not even a distant memory. There were many storms that swept away their fields and homes, his mother tells him. That’s why they left, looking for gold in the big city where he now lives.

Question. Why did Saheb and his family move to Delhi ?
(a) because storms had swept away their fields and homes
(b) their village was flooded
(c) there were landslides
(d) there was a deadly epidemic in the village

Question. ‘Why do you do this?’ This question was asked by the author to
(a) the bangle sellers
(b) Mahesh
(c) Saheb
(d) Saheb’s mother

Question. Saheb’s home, before Delhi, was in
(a) Bengal
(b) Orissa
(c) Dhaka
(d) Bihar

Question. Saheb’s profession was that of a
(a) cook
(b) rag-picker
(c) bangle seller
(d) driver

Case Based Questions :

Food is more important for survival than an identity. “If at the end of the day we can feed our families and go to bed without an aching stomach, we would rather live here than in the fields that gave us no grain,” say a group of women in tattered saris when I ask them why they left their beautiful land of green fields and rivers. 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 a child it is even more.

Question. Why has rag picking acquired the proportions of a fine art?
(a) Rag picking has regained its lost status.
(b) A segment of rag pickers is skilled in fine arts.
(c) Only a few people are expert in rag picking.
(d) Rag picking has attained the position of a skill.

Question. Identify the figure of speech used in the sentence “Garbage to them is gold.”
(a) Hyperbole
(b) Simile
(c) Synecdoche
(d) Personification

Question. “Food is more important for survival than an identity”. Why?
(a) It leads us to immortality
(b) Food is the necessity of life
(c) Food is an obligation one needs to satisfy in ones life
(d) There is no requirement for an identity card

Question. The phrase “transit home” refers to the dwellings that area.
(a) Unhygienic
(b) Inadequate
(c) Fragile
(d) Temporary.

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 symbolizes 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

Question. Why does the author wonder if Savita knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make?
(a) because she is too young to know that it symbolizes an Indian woman’s Suhag, an auspiciousness in marriage
(b) because she hasn’t seen any sanctity associated to bangles.
(c) because she is immature and impractical
(d) all of the above

Question. “She still has bangles on her wrist but no light in her eyes.” Why does the author say so?
(a) Mukesh’s grandmother had seen her husband go blind with the dust from polishing the glass of bangles
(b) Like Savita, the young girl, the grandmother also does not know the sanctity of the bangles.
(c) The grandmother has not enjoyed even one full meal in her entire lifetime
(d) The grandmother has grown too old.

Question. “As her hands move mechanically, like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if I wonder if she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make.” Identify the literary device used in the sentence.
(a) Simile
(b) Metaphor
(c) Contrast
(d) Alliteration

Question. “I wonder if she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make.” The underlined phrase symbolizes:
(a) Richness
(b) Auspiciousness associated to bangles
(c) Bangle making requires purity
(d) Making of bangles requires a sanction