A Real Durwan

“Whether there was any truth to Boori Ma’s litanies no one could be sure. For one thing, every day, the perimeters of her former estate seemed to double, as did the contents of her almari and coffer boxes. No one doubted she was a refugee; the accent in her Bengali made that clear. Still, the residents of this particular flat-building could not reconcile Boori Ma’s claims to prior wealth alongside the more likely account of how she had crossed the East Bengal border, with the thousands of others, on the back of a truck, between sacks of hemp.”

In one of the story’s rare moments of directly revealing the characters’ attitudes, the narration ventures from Boori Ma’s perspective to address the general impressions of the building’s residents. Their imagination cannot extend far enough to entertain that such an ostensibly prosperous individual could ever end up in Boori Ma’s position. More specifically, this quotation’s last sentence clarifies that the residents struggle to “reconcile” her glamorous story of wealth with her unglamorous story of crossing the border “on the back of a truck, between sacks of hemp.” In other words, they doubt that an affluent person would ever flee her country in such an uncomfortable, unceremonious manner. Perhaps they struggle to conceptualize such drastic dispossession, or perhaps they’re averse to the idea that a wealthy person could ever suffer.

“Most of all, the residents liked that Boori Ma, who slept each night behind the collapsible gate, stood guard between them and the outside world.”

Despite the ambiguity surrounding Boori Ma’s past, this quote gets at the heart of the residents’ motivations and their valuation of Boori Ma. Literally and figuratively, she stands between them and the outside world. And when this changes—as the residents see it, after the burglary—the residents oust her from her position and bring in a “real durwan” instead.

“In short, over the years, Boori Ma’s services came to resemble those of a real durwan. Though under normal circumstances this was no job for a woman, she honored the responsibility, and maintained a vigil no less punctilious than if she were the gatekeeper of a house on Lower Circular Road, or Jodhpur Park, or any other fancy neighborhood.”

This description is central to Boori Ma’s characterization and illuminates her role within the building. She is not someone to take half-measures or do only the bare minimum of work she is asked. Instead, she goes above and beyond, lending a sense of luxury and refinement to the residents’ home.

“No one in this particular flat-building owned much worth stealing. The second-floor widow, Mrs. Misra, was the only one with a telephone. Still, the residents were thankful that Boori Ma patrolled activities in the alley, screened the itinerant peddlers who came to sell combs and shawls from door to door, was able to summon a rickshaw at a moment’s calling, and could, with a few slaps of her broom, rout any suspicious character who strayed into the area in order to spit, urinate, or cause some other trouble.”

At the beginning of the story, the residents are relatively modest in their expectations and self-conceptions. Boori Ma’s diligence and hard work elevate their sense of status and their quality of life, as does her wide range of skills.

“‘I cannot dream them,’ Mrs. Dalal echoed. She lowered her diaphanous eyelids and sighed. ‘I cannot dream them, Boori Ma. I live in two broken rooms, married to a man who sells toilet parts.’”

This passage indirectly characterizes Mrs. Dalal as gentle and forbearing. She treats Boori Ma kindly and does not press her about the details or veracity of her stories, even if Boori Ma’s words could be unintentionally belittling. Instead, Mrs. Dalal allows Boori Ma to retain the special significance of her stories, though those stories surpass Mrs. Dalal’s current imagining.

“It was true that prickly heat was common during the rainy season. But Boori Ma preferred to think that what irritated her bed, what stole her sleep, what burned like peppers across her thinning scalp and skin, was of a less mundane origin.”

The narrative’s ambiguity ensures the protagonist lends herself to different interpretations. If the reader believes Boori Ma’s origin story, her character takes on a distinct psychology in which her sense of self depends a great deal on her privileged socioeconomic status before Partition. However, her bygone experiences of luxury have also contributed to a special sense of self regardless of her actual social status. Under this interpretation, her determination to find something special, extraordinary, and unique is a key part of her characterization. Her distaste for “mundane” explanations reflects that trait.

“She picked up her broom—she never felt quite herself without it—and was about to climb upstairs, when a rickshaw pulled up to the collapsible gate.”

This is one of the most intimate descriptions of Boori Ma’s internal perspective and one of the few insights the narrator provides. The broom has become more than a tool—it is part of Boori Ma’s sense of identity.

“Mr. Dalal, meanwhile, was thinking: A sink in the stairwell is sure to impress visitors. Now that he was a company manager, who could say who might visit the building?”

Though Mrs. Dalal seems almost ashamed of her husband’s job, his profession involves a valuable skillset and likely gave him insight into the utility of a communal basin; with his expertise in pipes, tanks, and other apparatus involved in water supply, he would have been more cognizant of the building’s lack of a sink. Mr. Dalal does not allow his self-image to be limited by his job, but, like many of the other residents (including, at times, Mrs. Dalal), he cares a great deal about appearances.

“[T]he Dalals were going to Simla for ten days. ‘Boori Ma, I haven’t forgotten. We will bring you back a sheep’s-hair blanket made in the mountains,’ Mrs. Dalal said through the open window of the taxi. […] Of all the people who lived in that particular flat-building, Boori Ma was the only one who stood by the collapsible gate and wished them a safe journey.”

Unlike the other residents, Boori Ma seems to genuinely care for the Dalals and, likely, for the rest of the residents as well. The Dalals’ private water basin does not cause Boori Ma to feel envious, as it does the others, so she remains true to her character as she sees them off. Notable, too, is that Mrs. Dalal reminds Boori Ma that they will take care of her bedding. Boori Ma does not ask after it herself.

“More rains came. Below the dripping awning, a newspaper pressed over her head, Boori Ma squatted and watched the monsoon ants as they marched along the clothesline, carrying eggs in their mouths. Damper winds soothed her back. Her newspapers were running low.”

This quotation exemplifies Realist detail. The narrator is unhurried in the description, and Boori Ma is finding ease through the monsoon rains, harbingers of change.

“It was there, while she was standing in a shopping arcade surveying jackfruits and persimmons, that she felt something tugging on the free end of her sari. When she looked, the rest of her life savings and her skeleton keys were gone.”

This is a sharp shift in Boori Ma’s prospects as well as in her ties to her past, as her skeleton keys remind her of her life in Bengal. Boori Ma has been so careful with her money that it is exceptionally tragic that someone steals from her just as she begins to purchase small treats for herself.

“Though none of them spoke directly to Boori Ma, she replied, ‘Believe me, believe me. I did not inform the robbers.’

‘For years we have put up with your lies,’ they retorted. ‘You expect us, now, to believe you?’”

This shift in Boori Ma’s wording comes at the end of the story as she tries to convince the residents of the truth, that she was not complicit in the burglary. The others are too self-absorbed to consider that Boori Ma, too, would have benefitted from the communal basin (especially with her tasks of custodianship), so she isn’t likely to have aided the burglars. They aren’t open to reason—and Boori Ma’s advocate, Mrs. Dalal, is away on a trip.

“Boori Ma’s mouth is full of ashes. But that is nothing new. What is new is the face of this building. What a building like this needs is a real durwan.”

Though Mr. Chatterjee once defended Boori Ma as “a victim of changing times” (151), he now condemns her. The irony is that while the residents so disdain Boori Ma’s words and so revere Mr. Chatterjee’s, it is he who speaks the most nonsensical untruth in the story—his assertion that Boori Ma is not “a real durwan.”