FLAMINGO
CH-1 THE LAST LESSON
ANECDOTE
• INTRODUCTION
➢ Boy named Franz gets late for school
➢ Not prepared for lesson on participles given by teacher – M. Hamel
➢ Afraid of scolding
➢ Thinks of bunking day Bright weather, chirping of birds,
➢ But had the strength to resist open field, Prussian soldiers drilling
• BEFORE REACHING SCHOOL
➢ Crowd in front of bulletin board
➢ Franz ignores as he was getting late
➢ Blacksmith, Watcher stops Franz For the last two years all bad news
➢ Says not to hurry. Plenty of time had come from there — the lost
➢ Franz ignores and takes it as fun on him battles, the draft, the orders of the
• SCHOOL OBSERVATION commanding officer
➢ Everything quiet as Sunday morning
➢ Different from usual
➢ Franz saw classmates from outside Usually, great noise, opening and
window closing of desks, repeating sounds
➢ Saw M. Hamel walking up and down with of lessons, sound of teacher’s ruler
Iron ruler under his arms striking on table
➢ Franz tries to get inside without getting
noticed
• CLASS OBSERVATION
➢ M.Hamel saw Franz but told nothing
➢ Says, “We were about to begin without you”
➢ Franz sat down at desk
➢ After a moment, observes very different things 1. Teacher had beautiful green
➢ M.Hamel announces coat, frilled shirt, black silk cap
➢ Order from berlin to schools of Alsace and Lorraine which he only wore on inspection
➢ To teach only German in schools from tomorrow days and prize days
➢ This is the last French lesson
• FRANZ’s REACTION 2. so quiet class rooms
➢ Came as thunder clap to him 3.Back benches, which were always
➢ Hardly knew how to write empty were occupied by village
➢ Felt sorry for not learning lesson
people sitting quietly: old Hauser,
➢ Books that earlier seemed to be heavy weight were now like with his three-cornered hat, the
old friends which he did not wanted to give up on former mayor, the former
➢ Idea of M. Hamel going away made Franz forget about his postmaster, and several others
ruler and how strict he was
➢ Realised blacksmith’s words 4. Everyone looked sad
➢ Realised why old men of village were sitting
➢ While Franz was thinking about all this, 1. they felt sorry about not going
➢ His name gets called to recite participles to school
➢ Stands up, got mixed on first few words, does not look up
2. it was their way of thanking
master for 40 YEARS OF FAITHFUL
SERVICE
3.show respect to country
,• M.HAMEL EXPLAINS
➢ Tells Franz that he will not scold Franz
➢ But says that Franz should feel bad
➢ Every day student say they have plenty of time, will do it later, but time has ended
➢ Fellows will say, “You are Frenchmen but still do not know to read or write French.”
➢ Says we all have great excuses
➢ Taunts that parents would have made Franz to work for money
➢ Says in taunting manner that it is his fault that he sent Franz to water gardens and
announced holidays when he wished going for fishing (Which in real sense, M. Hamel does
not)
➢ M.Hamel talks about French language
➢ Says it the most beautiful, clearest and logical language in the world
➢ Frenchmen should guard it among themselves and never forget it
➢ because when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if
they had the key to their prison
• M.HAMEL EXPLAINS GRAMMAR LESSON
➢ M.Hamel reads grammar lesson and explains
➢ Franz amazed to see how well he understood it
➢ Realises he never listened that carefully and that M. Hamel had never explained with such
patience
• LESSON IN WRITING
➢ M.Hamel had new copies for them
➢ written in a beautiful round hand — France, Alsace, France, Alsace
➢ looked like little flags floating everywhere in the school-room
➢ every one set to work, very quiet, only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper
➢ Once some beetles flew in; but nobody paid any attention to them
➢ “Will they make them sing in German, even the pigeons?”
• M.HAMEL’S EMOTIONS
➢ Franz observes his teacher
➢ M. Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing, then at another, as if he
wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school-room
➢ forty years he had been there in the same place, with his garden outside the window and his
class in front of him
➢ it must have broken his heart to leave it all, to hear his sister moving about in the room
above, packing their trunks
➢ But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last
• ENDING OF CLASS
➢ church-clock struck twelve
➢ trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill
➢ M. Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair
➢ “My friends,” said he, “I—I—” But something choked him. He could not go on.
➢ he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk
➢ wrote as large as he could — “Vive La France!”
➢ stopped and leaned his head against the wall
➢ without a word, he made a gesture with his hand — “School is dismissed — you may go.”
, FLAMINGO
CH-2 THE LOST SPRING- STORIES OF STOLEN CHILDHOOD: ANEES JUNG
ANECDOTES
‘SOMETIMES I FIND A RUPEE IN THE GARBAGE’
➢ Saheb, rag picker, searching (scrounging) in the garbage
➢ “Why do you do this?” author asks Saheb whom she encounters every morning
➢ “I have nothing else to do,” he mutters
➢ “Go to school,”
➢ “There is no school in my neighbourhood. When they build one, I will go.”
➢ “If I start a school, will you come?” author asks, half-joking. “Yes,” he says, smiling broadly.
• FEW DAYS LATER
➢ Author saw Saheb running up to her asking if the school is ready
➢ “It takes longer to build a school,” author says, embarrassed at having made a promise that
was not meant
• AFTER MONTHS OF KNOWING SAHEB
➢ Author asks Saheb’s full name
➢ “SAHEB-E-ALAM”- lord of the universe
➢ Author says Saheb would not believe this if he gets to know the meaning of his name
➢ Saheb roams the streets with his friends, an army of barefoot boys
➢ Author seen children walking barefoot, in cities, on village roads
➢ not lack of money but a tradition to stay barefoot, is one explanation
➢ only an excuse to explain away a perpetual state of poverty
• AUTHOR REMEMBERS A STORY FROM UDIPI
• SEEMAPURI, WHERE SAHEB LIVES PRESENTLY
➢ Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically
➢ who live here are squatters (type of refugees) who came from Bangladesh (Saheb: from
Dhaka, Bangladesh) in 1971, many storms that swept away their fields and homes
➢ Seemapuri, a shabby place
➢ 10,000 ragpickers In structures of mud, with roofs of
➢ lived here for more than thirty years without an tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage,
identity, but with ration cards that enable them to drainage or running water
buy grain
➢ Food is more important for survival than an identity
➢ They give reason for living their beautiful homes
➢ Wherever they find food, they make tents around, children
grow up in them, becoming partners in survival and If at the end of the day we can feed
survival in Seemapuri means rag picking our families and go to bed without
• GARBAGE TO THEM IS GOLD an empty stomach, we would rather
➢ Why for parents? means of survival, source of their daily live here than in the fields that gave
bread, a roof over their heads us no grain
➢ Why for children? garbage wrapped in wonder, like a
game to find things, fills more hope to find more if a rupee found, excites children
• SAHEB, NO LONGER A RAGPICKER
➢ One morning, author saw Saheb, wearing shoes with holes, watching tennis
➢ Saheb, on his way to milk booth, holding a tea canister in his hand
➢ He now works in a tea stall, salary- 800 Rs. And all meals
➢ Does he like the job? Author asks
, ➢ Saheb has lost the carefree look ok his face, steel canister seems heavier than the plastic
bag he would carry. The bag was his. The canister belongs to the man who owns the tea
shop.
➢ Saheb is no longer his own master!
“I WANT TO DRIVE A CAR”
• MUKESH’S DREAM
➢ Insists on being a motor mechanic
➢ “Do you know anything about cars?” author asks. “I will learn to drive a car,”
• MUKESH’S TOWN- FIROZABAD, THE CITY OF BANGLES
➢ Every family engaged in making bangles
➢ Spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass and making bangles.
➢ Mukesh’s family among them
➢ None of them know that it is illegal for children like him to 1. furnaces with high temperatures
work
➢ law, if enforced, could get him and all those 20,000 children 2. dark dingy cells (small rooms)
out without air and light
➢ Mukesh volunteers’ author to take her home which he
3. spend their daylight hours, often
proudly says is being rebuilt
losing the brightness of their eyes
• MUKESH’S SOCIETY
➢ SOCIETY 1. stinking lanes with garbage
• INSIDE MUKESH’S HOUSE
➢ Wife of Mukesh’s elder brother 2. homes with crumbling walls,
➢ Mukesh’s father wobbly doors, no windows
➢ Mukesh’s grandmother
1. is a bangle maker 1. making food
1. says “It is his karma, his 2. weak and young
destiny,” 2. long years of hard labour, first as
a tailor, then a bangle maker 3. not much older in years, but
2. has watched her own begun to be commanded as bahu
husband go blind with the 3. failed to renovate a house, send
dust from polishing the glass his two sons to school 4. in charge of three men
of bangles 4.All he has managed to do is teach
3. “Can a God-given lineage them is the art of making bangles
ever be broken?” she implies
➢ Born in the caste of bangle makers, seen nothing but bangles in every other house, every
street in Firozabad piled on four-wheeled handcarts, pushed by young men along the narrow
lanes
➢ in dark hutments, girls with their fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into
circles of bangles
Their eyes are more adjusted to the
• OTHER PEOPLE IN FIROZABAD
dark than to the light outside. That
➢ Savita, a young girl, soldering pieces of glass, her
is why they often end up losing
hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine
their eyesight before they become
➢ Savita does not know the sanctity of bangles,
adults.
symbolises an Indian woman’s Suhag, auspiciousness
in marriage
➢ “Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” says old women- not enjoyed even one full meal
in her entire lifetime
CH-1 THE LAST LESSON
ANECDOTE
• INTRODUCTION
➢ Boy named Franz gets late for school
➢ Not prepared for lesson on participles given by teacher – M. Hamel
➢ Afraid of scolding
➢ Thinks of bunking day Bright weather, chirping of birds,
➢ But had the strength to resist open field, Prussian soldiers drilling
• BEFORE REACHING SCHOOL
➢ Crowd in front of bulletin board
➢ Franz ignores as he was getting late
➢ Blacksmith, Watcher stops Franz For the last two years all bad news
➢ Says not to hurry. Plenty of time had come from there — the lost
➢ Franz ignores and takes it as fun on him battles, the draft, the orders of the
• SCHOOL OBSERVATION commanding officer
➢ Everything quiet as Sunday morning
➢ Different from usual
➢ Franz saw classmates from outside Usually, great noise, opening and
window closing of desks, repeating sounds
➢ Saw M. Hamel walking up and down with of lessons, sound of teacher’s ruler
Iron ruler under his arms striking on table
➢ Franz tries to get inside without getting
noticed
• CLASS OBSERVATION
➢ M.Hamel saw Franz but told nothing
➢ Says, “We were about to begin without you”
➢ Franz sat down at desk
➢ After a moment, observes very different things 1. Teacher had beautiful green
➢ M.Hamel announces coat, frilled shirt, black silk cap
➢ Order from berlin to schools of Alsace and Lorraine which he only wore on inspection
➢ To teach only German in schools from tomorrow days and prize days
➢ This is the last French lesson
• FRANZ’s REACTION 2. so quiet class rooms
➢ Came as thunder clap to him 3.Back benches, which were always
➢ Hardly knew how to write empty were occupied by village
➢ Felt sorry for not learning lesson
people sitting quietly: old Hauser,
➢ Books that earlier seemed to be heavy weight were now like with his three-cornered hat, the
old friends which he did not wanted to give up on former mayor, the former
➢ Idea of M. Hamel going away made Franz forget about his postmaster, and several others
ruler and how strict he was
➢ Realised blacksmith’s words 4. Everyone looked sad
➢ Realised why old men of village were sitting
➢ While Franz was thinking about all this, 1. they felt sorry about not going
➢ His name gets called to recite participles to school
➢ Stands up, got mixed on first few words, does not look up
2. it was their way of thanking
master for 40 YEARS OF FAITHFUL
SERVICE
3.show respect to country
,• M.HAMEL EXPLAINS
➢ Tells Franz that he will not scold Franz
➢ But says that Franz should feel bad
➢ Every day student say they have plenty of time, will do it later, but time has ended
➢ Fellows will say, “You are Frenchmen but still do not know to read or write French.”
➢ Says we all have great excuses
➢ Taunts that parents would have made Franz to work for money
➢ Says in taunting manner that it is his fault that he sent Franz to water gardens and
announced holidays when he wished going for fishing (Which in real sense, M. Hamel does
not)
➢ M.Hamel talks about French language
➢ Says it the most beautiful, clearest and logical language in the world
➢ Frenchmen should guard it among themselves and never forget it
➢ because when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if
they had the key to their prison
• M.HAMEL EXPLAINS GRAMMAR LESSON
➢ M.Hamel reads grammar lesson and explains
➢ Franz amazed to see how well he understood it
➢ Realises he never listened that carefully and that M. Hamel had never explained with such
patience
• LESSON IN WRITING
➢ M.Hamel had new copies for them
➢ written in a beautiful round hand — France, Alsace, France, Alsace
➢ looked like little flags floating everywhere in the school-room
➢ every one set to work, very quiet, only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper
➢ Once some beetles flew in; but nobody paid any attention to them
➢ “Will they make them sing in German, even the pigeons?”
• M.HAMEL’S EMOTIONS
➢ Franz observes his teacher
➢ M. Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and gazing first at one thing, then at another, as if he
wanted to fix in his mind just how everything looked in that little school-room
➢ forty years he had been there in the same place, with his garden outside the window and his
class in front of him
➢ it must have broken his heart to leave it all, to hear his sister moving about in the room
above, packing their trunks
➢ But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the very last
• ENDING OF CLASS
➢ church-clock struck twelve
➢ trumpets of the Prussians, returning from drill
➢ M. Hamel stood up, very pale, in his chair
➢ “My friends,” said he, “I—I—” But something choked him. He could not go on.
➢ he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk
➢ wrote as large as he could — “Vive La France!”
➢ stopped and leaned his head against the wall
➢ without a word, he made a gesture with his hand — “School is dismissed — you may go.”
, FLAMINGO
CH-2 THE LOST SPRING- STORIES OF STOLEN CHILDHOOD: ANEES JUNG
ANECDOTES
‘SOMETIMES I FIND A RUPEE IN THE GARBAGE’
➢ Saheb, rag picker, searching (scrounging) in the garbage
➢ “Why do you do this?” author asks Saheb whom she encounters every morning
➢ “I have nothing else to do,” he mutters
➢ “Go to school,”
➢ “There is no school in my neighbourhood. When they build one, I will go.”
➢ “If I start a school, will you come?” author asks, half-joking. “Yes,” he says, smiling broadly.
• FEW DAYS LATER
➢ Author saw Saheb running up to her asking if the school is ready
➢ “It takes longer to build a school,” author says, embarrassed at having made a promise that
was not meant
• AFTER MONTHS OF KNOWING SAHEB
➢ Author asks Saheb’s full name
➢ “SAHEB-E-ALAM”- lord of the universe
➢ Author says Saheb would not believe this if he gets to know the meaning of his name
➢ Saheb roams the streets with his friends, an army of barefoot boys
➢ Author seen children walking barefoot, in cities, on village roads
➢ not lack of money but a tradition to stay barefoot, is one explanation
➢ only an excuse to explain away a perpetual state of poverty
• AUTHOR REMEMBERS A STORY FROM UDIPI
• SEEMAPURI, WHERE SAHEB LIVES PRESENTLY
➢ Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically
➢ who live here are squatters (type of refugees) who came from Bangladesh (Saheb: from
Dhaka, Bangladesh) in 1971, many storms that swept away their fields and homes
➢ Seemapuri, a shabby place
➢ 10,000 ragpickers In structures of mud, with roofs of
➢ lived here for more than thirty years without an tin and tarpaulin, devoid of sewage,
identity, but with ration cards that enable them to drainage or running water
buy grain
➢ Food is more important for survival than an identity
➢ They give reason for living their beautiful homes
➢ Wherever they find food, they make tents around, children
grow up in them, becoming partners in survival and If at the end of the day we can feed
survival in Seemapuri means rag picking our families and go to bed without
• GARBAGE TO THEM IS GOLD an empty stomach, we would rather
➢ Why for parents? means of survival, source of their daily live here than in the fields that gave
bread, a roof over their heads us no grain
➢ Why for children? garbage wrapped in wonder, like a
game to find things, fills more hope to find more if a rupee found, excites children
• SAHEB, NO LONGER A RAGPICKER
➢ One morning, author saw Saheb, wearing shoes with holes, watching tennis
➢ Saheb, on his way to milk booth, holding a tea canister in his hand
➢ He now works in a tea stall, salary- 800 Rs. And all meals
➢ Does he like the job? Author asks
, ➢ Saheb has lost the carefree look ok his face, steel canister seems heavier than the plastic
bag he would carry. The bag was his. The canister belongs to the man who owns the tea
shop.
➢ Saheb is no longer his own master!
“I WANT TO DRIVE A CAR”
• MUKESH’S DREAM
➢ Insists on being a motor mechanic
➢ “Do you know anything about cars?” author asks. “I will learn to drive a car,”
• MUKESH’S TOWN- FIROZABAD, THE CITY OF BANGLES
➢ Every family engaged in making bangles
➢ Spent generations working around furnaces, welding glass and making bangles.
➢ Mukesh’s family among them
➢ None of them know that it is illegal for children like him to 1. furnaces with high temperatures
work
➢ law, if enforced, could get him and all those 20,000 children 2. dark dingy cells (small rooms)
out without air and light
➢ Mukesh volunteers’ author to take her home which he
3. spend their daylight hours, often
proudly says is being rebuilt
losing the brightness of their eyes
• MUKESH’S SOCIETY
➢ SOCIETY 1. stinking lanes with garbage
• INSIDE MUKESH’S HOUSE
➢ Wife of Mukesh’s elder brother 2. homes with crumbling walls,
➢ Mukesh’s father wobbly doors, no windows
➢ Mukesh’s grandmother
1. is a bangle maker 1. making food
1. says “It is his karma, his 2. weak and young
destiny,” 2. long years of hard labour, first as
a tailor, then a bangle maker 3. not much older in years, but
2. has watched her own begun to be commanded as bahu
husband go blind with the 3. failed to renovate a house, send
dust from polishing the glass his two sons to school 4. in charge of three men
of bangles 4.All he has managed to do is teach
3. “Can a God-given lineage them is the art of making bangles
ever be broken?” she implies
➢ Born in the caste of bangle makers, seen nothing but bangles in every other house, every
street in Firozabad piled on four-wheeled handcarts, pushed by young men along the narrow
lanes
➢ in dark hutments, girls with their fathers and mothers, welding pieces of coloured glass into
circles of bangles
Their eyes are more adjusted to the
• OTHER PEOPLE IN FIROZABAD
dark than to the light outside. That
➢ Savita, a young girl, soldering pieces of glass, her
is why they often end up losing
hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine
their eyesight before they become
➢ Savita does not know the sanctity of bangles,
adults.
symbolises an Indian woman’s Suhag, auspiciousness
in marriage
➢ “Ek waqt ser bhar khana bhi nahin khaya,” says old women- not enjoyed even one full meal
in her entire lifetime
