The following blog post analyses the methods, motifs and messages within the excerpt from the book Lost Spring, Stories of Stolen Childhood by Indian-American author Anees Jung. The Lost Spring employs personal narratives and interactions from Jung's experiences in rural Indian communities to reflect light upon the grinding poverty and practices which sentence innocent children to a life of persistent exploitation. Through the course of the excerpt, I was inundated by the unassuming but profound, intimate and reflective anecdotes which etched my present perspective on economic unevenness.
The excerpt commences with Jung's brush with Saheb, who is described as chafing through a garbage dump without any apparent rationale. She creates this unnerving backdrop to further the implication of her ensuing conversation with Saheb. Jung's modest inquiry "If I start a school, will you come?" is matched by Saheb's vigorous affirmation. However, these are contrasted by the hollowness of the question and Saheb’s immediate disappointment upon learning about her inaction. The conversation unfailingly sheds light on the false promises made in their world and the lack of accountability in the cog of hope. This is subtly hinted at by Jung, who regrettably expresses “But promises like mine abound in every corner of his bleak world”. The conversation makes me realise the significance of education. To them, education is more an instrument for escape than a tool for enlightenment. Now, as I scour solutions to these economic disparities, I invariably arrive at education and brainstorm approaches to improve its accessibility.
Continuing, I especially cherished the way Jung treated the perception of the garbage box in the raw wilderness of Seemapuri. To the adults, it symbolised a last resort, an embarrassment, an insignia of their desperateness. However, the town children found in it, a treasure box, a hovel of hope. The nuanced plurality in the way the adults and children view rag-picking in Seemapuri leads me to think about more than just the "face value" or numbers associated with these inequalities. I've learned to attach a humanistic component to these economic divides, how they're not just indicative of one's monetary strength but one's perception of their self-worth.
As I progressed further into the 6-page excerpt, trying to assimilate my sentiments into a cohesive expression, I naturally gravitated towards Grounding. Grounding in the reality of India, grounding in my own identity. It is somewhat apt then, that this feeling of being grounded in reality stems from the exposure to the ground caused by the devoid of a basic necessity for these children - the humble shoe. When I read about Jung's recollection of the Udipi tale of a priest’s son imploring the goddess for shoes, I'm confronted by the alternate methods these children use to acquire hope in these Lost Springs, and the comfort one can find in an uncomplicated but uncorrupted prayer to God.
But the most unsettling of her brushes with these children is those set in the bustling town of Firozabad - the centre of India’s glass-blowing industry where families have spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass, making bangles for all the women in the land. However, in the capitalistic pursuit of making these bangles, Jung brilliantly illustrates the shackles Firozabad has sintered for its younger generation, which Jung brings to life through two distinct encounters, out of which I reverberate profoundly with the first.
Her meeting with Mukesh, an aspiring motor mechanic gives her a momentary glimpse of hope. She parallels his aspiration with that of a mirage amidst the clouds of dust of the streets that filled Firozabad. The outlier in a system of irrationality, Mukesh's zeal to evolve into "something and someone else'' has stood firm to his family's consensus with the Firozabadi convention of unchanging bangle making. This perhaps shapes the most essential construct in my answer to inequality. If resources could be provided to build upon these aspirations; if launchpads could be placed at the spots where ambition can meet fruition — then maybe this vicious cycle of irrationally heeding the previous generation could be terminated.
Another device that Jung employs shrewdly in the excerpt is that of contrast—Saheb, whose name means the king of the world is shown as a struggling rag picker. The bangles are illustrated as conduits of marriage, love and happiness within Seemapuri but only lead to increasing work isolation and impoverishment. This same device is also employed in the aforementioned garbage box—adults treating it as, well, garbage; children treating it as gold. The ironies projected here help to set an initial positive undertone, only to be later struck by the harsh realities of Indian poverty, creating a stronger, more profound resonance within the reader.
A supplemental device that constantly springs in the reading are metaphors to stylistically convey the weight behind the stories woven in the excerpt. I vividly recount her use of “Webs of Poverty” to highlight the interconnected, almost entrapping system of social mobility in India. She uses these webs to describe the challenges the humble child faces in the country to escape such poverty —tangled by webs of familial responsibilities and communal rituals, practices. However, the one that gave me the strident reckoning Jung was vying to provide all along was the following metaphor “The steel canister seems heavier than the plastic bag he would carry so lightly over his shoulders”—which effortlessly implied the tolls of child labour in this incessant system of poverty, how subjecting a minor to laborious work was metaphorically heavier for him than his daily carry of a light, plastic garbage bag.
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