51 pages • 1 hour read
Megha MajumdarA Burning
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Jivan”
Jivan returns home smelling of smoke. After she washes, she reads Facebook responses to the incredible event she just witnessed: the train station 15 minutes of her house was torched. On Facebook, people post declarations of solidarity with the attacked neighborhood and proclaim vengeance on what they label a terrorist attack. Many posts call for swift justice from the government, but jokes about police ineptitude are posted alongside posts of victims crying, telling the world that their loved ones died in the fire while the police stood by in their trucks doing nothing. Jivan, in a rush of inspiration, shock, and anger, posts a rash message she knows her mother would be embarrassed by: “If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean…that the government is also a terrorist?” (5-6).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Lovely”
As Lovely walks to acting class, she cheerfully interacts with the familiar people on her street, who turn away from her. As a transgender woman, known as a hijra, Lovely faces some admiration but much harassment as well. Undeterred, she makes her way to her acting class with Mr. Debnath. Lovely is one of the best actors in the class, and she stuns her fellow students in a marriage scene with Brijesh. Brijesh at first shies away from acting a scene with a hijra as his wife, but when Lovely is acting, she transcends sex, gender, and space. The class is one of misfits; all the students scrap and save to attend class with Mr. Debnath, who charges little and hosts in his home instead of a classroom or studio. Despite how difficult it is to succeed in acting, Lovely is a born performer and relishes her passion.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Jivan”
A few nights after the train burning, Jivan is taken out of bed in the middle of the night by the police. As her mother and father look on in horror and pain, Jivan is put in a police car and taken away. Jivan and her parents are not told what she is being charged with or where she will be held. With dread, Jivan wonders who will help her out of this situation. She fears the worst.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Lovely”
Lovely lies in bed with her boyfriend Azad, whom she refers to as her husband. Lovely is happy with Azad, and in their small, rundown room, she feels grateful despite their relative poverty and violation of society’s expectations. Lovely asks if Azad wouldn’t rather marry a “real woman,” one who can be accepted by his family and give him children. Azad angrily asks if his brother has recently bothered Lovely about this topic. In fact, Azad’s brother did confront Lovely, calling her a witch and begging her to take her spell off his brother. Instead of telling Azad the whole truth, Lovely tells him that his brother did come to calmly admit that Azad is truly in love with Lovely, but that marriage and children are important to their family’s dignity and happiness. Azad rejects the idea that he would leave Lovely and declares that he will marry her, even though it is technically impossible.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Jivan”
As Jivan is rushed into a courthouse, she finds out from the flock of reporters that she is being charged with terrorism in the train burning. She meets her court-appointed lawyer Gobind, who informs her that it is not just her Facebook comment about the government that sparked her arrest, but also her Facebook conversation with one of the terrorists involved in the burning. Jivan insists on her innocence, explaining that she didn’t know he was a terrorist, that to her understanding he was just another person on Facebook. Gobind shows her the confession statement she signed, but Jivan explains that she was beaten so badly she would have signed anything. Later, the judge calls out her charges: sedition and crimes against the nation. Jivan insists that she was beaten into signing the confession, that she had no idea who the person she was talking to online was. She tells the judge that he should find Lovely, whom she tutors in English and saw before the attack.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The novel’s conflict starts immediately, with the smell of smoke lingering on Jivan and her inspired but ultimately dangerous Facebook declaration against the government’s response to the terrorist attack on a nearby train. Jivan’s problem initially seems to stem from a lack of free speech; because Majumdar withholds Jivan’s conversations with the terrorist until Chapter 5, the reader is led to believe Jivan was arrested for her post comparing the government to terrorists due to its inability to stop the attack or help the victims. The reader still does not know which revelation came first: Jivan’s conversation with a terrorist or her Facebook post criticizing the government.
Majumdar’s commentary on free speech here is that Jivan, due to her low socioeconomic standing, is subjugated to intense scrutiny for her opinions. This is highlighted when, on the way to the police station, Jivan notices young men frolicking around, unafraid of the police. The second social issue brought up by Jivan’s arrest is the potential danger in social media. What we post online can haunt us forever, and viral statements can either inspire or outrage strangers and friends alike. Furthermore, Jivan’s conversation with a stranger who turned out to be a terrorist demonstrates the dangers of anonymity online. Although social media can bring the world together, it can also thrust lonely people into communities they know nothing about.
The first five chapters also introduce Lovely, a hijra who aspires to be a great actress. Hijra is a term used for transgender and intersex people on the Indian subcontinent. Hijras have a complex role in Indian society and history, which is demonstrated in Lovely’s narration. Hijras are often maligned and harshly judged by society, and few people would willingly admit to a connection to them. However, hijras are also seen as magical; they are often asked to bless babies. When Azad’s brother confronts Lovely, he calls her a witch who has put a spell on Azad. This accusation indicates the overall attitude toward hijras: They are maligned but also, in a way, feared. Hijras often live together and travel through streets and public transportation performing for money. When Lovely says that she has always been a natural performer, she is entirely correct—her whole world is a performance of gender and entertainment.
Despite Lovely’s precarious standing in a society where caste, race, and religion determine one’s upward mobility and overall well-being, Lovely is defined by her positive outlook on life. While the world burns around her, Lovely chooses to look past the insults, the prejudices, and the fears of her society. Lovely finds appreciation in small happiness and in love, love for herself and for others. In the first five chapters, this positivity is used as a foil to Jivan, who knows Lovely through community service tutoring. While Jivan is scared and hopeless, Lovely is self-confident and optimistic. Jivan sees her boundaries and boxes quite clearly, but Lovely strives to break those barriers down. Jivan and Lovely are further differentiated by their voice and syntax. Jivan’s first-person narration uses standardized English, while Lovely’s syntax and grammar belie a lack of formal education that Jivan likely received. While Lovely’s syntax lends her a certain charm, it also marks another class distinction between Jivan and Lovely. Although Jivan is not wealthy and has little social or political clout, she is technically higher in India’s strict caste system than Lovely, due to Lovely’s identity as a hijra. That Jivan tutors Lovely in English as a sort of community service highlights this distinction. That Jivan is hardly a person of power in her society further emphasizes how low Lovely’s status is.
In these five chapters Majumdar does not reveal much about who set the train on fire and why. In this particular context, it doesn’t quite matter. Majumdar aims to highlight the institutions of power and government that enable violence to spread unabated. The burning of the train is less about the differences in ideology that might lead to a terrorist attack on civilians and more about highlighting the disregard governments and security forces have for people who are considered inconsequential. The reader can infer that because Jivan is arrested for her criticism of the government’s lackluster response to such a tragic event, Jivan is being used as a scapegoat so people point more to Jivan than to the government.
