Caity Bunce

I love this part of the story! Mukesh is the embodiment of that rare resilience in the face of utter destitution. He's one of the two main children Anees Jung focuses on in "Lost Spring."

He's a child laboring in the dangerous, scorching hot bangle-making furnaces of Firozabad. Generations of his family have been involved in the same work, and the environment is one of absolute poverty, where the constant heat and lack of light mean the kids often go blind young.

His ambition isn't some vague wish, but a concrete goal: to become a motor mechanic. It's significant because it's a dream that is outside of the family profession and the "vicious circle" of moneylenders and police that traps his people. His determination—his refusal to accept his family's fate as a "god-given" lineage—is what sets him apart from his community. He literally dares to dream of a better, different life.