What does Anees Jung tell us about life at Mukesh’s home in Firozabad.

Mukesh is a boy whose family is engaged in manufacturing of bangles in Firozabad. However, he aspires to be a motor mechanic. Mukesh volunteers to take the author to his home. He proudly says that it is being rebuilt. The author along with Mukesh, walks down the stinking lanes which are blocked up with garbage. They walk past homes that remain sort of out–houses with walls falling into pieces. The doors are shaky and there are no windows.

Mukesh stops at one such house and opens the unsteady iron door with his foot and pushes it open. They enter a half–built shack or a rough hut. In one part of it, the roof is covered with dead grass. It contains a firewood stove. A weak and young woman is cooking the evening meal for the whole family. With eyes filled with smoke, she smiles. She is the wife of Mukesh’s elder brother. When her father–in–law enters, she gently withdraws behind the broken wall and brings her veil closer to her face, Mukesh’s father is a poor bangle maker. Despite long years of hard labour, first as a tailor then as a bangle maker, he had failed to renovate the house and send his two sons to school. He could just teach them the art of making bangles. Looking at Mukesh’s present conditions, his dreams seem next to impossible.