A Real Durwan

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1999

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Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

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Literary Devices

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Character Analysis

Boori Ma

Boori Ma diligently sweeps the stairs of a four-story apartment building in Calcutta (or Kolkata) a few years after Partition, likely in the 1950s. Though the narrator rarely offers direct psychological characterization, the story’s realism emphasizes the individual plight of Boori Ma. Her stories about herself, and the way Lahiri captures both her character and her backstory, are incredibly individualistic; Boori Ma is different from every other character in the story. She is also the most mysterious, insofar as her character’s ambiguity involves the highest stakes.

The story opens immediately with realistic detail, building a portrait of the protagonist even while revealing little about her. Boori Ma’s work is becoming more difficult for her: The stairs feel steeper, and they’re harder for her to climb. Physically, “[s]he [is] sixty-four years old, with hair in a knot no larger than a walnut, and she look[s] almost as narrow from the front as she [does] from the side” (147). But what is most striking about Boori Ma is her voice: “In fact,” the narrator details, “the only thing that appear[s] three-dimensional about Boori Ma [is] her voice: brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut” (147).

During one of her stories, Boori Ma describes crossing the border of India with only two bracelets on her wrist, but she carries with her a few other remnants of her life before Partition: skeleton keys that she says once unlocked coffer boxes, and her life savings, all of which she keeps tied to the end of her sari. Boori Ma’s stories alternate between the luxury she experienced before Partition and the hardships she experienced after, and while those stories’ detail is sometimes so vivid that the building’s residents believe her claims, they struggle to reconcile her current role as a stair-sweeper with her ostensible former wealth.

The Dalals

The Dalals are among the only building residents to whom Lahiri gives names. Though he has only a few lines of dialogue, Mr. Dalal serves a catalyzing role: His promotion paves the way for numerous renovations that bring greater attention to the building and, indirectly, expel Boori Ma from her home. Between the two Dalals, Mrs. Dalal is the far more prominent character—but, as with Boori Ma, some ambiguity surrounds her due to the restrained narration. Depending on how one interprets her, she may be the kindest, most compassionate resident of the building. The narrator grants further insight into Mrs. Dalal’s feelings toward Boori Ma, one of the only such passages in the entire short story: “Mrs. Dalal had a soft spot for Boori Ma; occasionally she gave the old woman some ginger paste with which to flavor her stews” (153). She speaks to Boori Ma directly and engages her in conversation as they are on the roof together, and it is also Mrs. Dalal who notices that Boori Ma’s bedding is in a state of disrepair. Mrs. Dalal promises to replace Boori Ma’s bedding, and while she doesn’t fulfill this promise within the story’s timeframe, she says she will bring back special blankets from her vacation.

Mrs. Dalal’s thoughtful exchange with Boori Ma characterizes her favorably, but a reader could also make the case that Mrs. Dalal promises the new bedding only because the state of Boori Ma’s bedding reflects poorly upon the residents. When she notices the state of Boori Ma’s bedding, she asks, “‘Do you think it’s beyond us to provide you with clean quilts? An oilcloth, for that matter?’ She looked insulted” (155).

Mr. Chatterjee

Mr. Chatterjee is a foil for Boori Ma insofar as the residents greatly respect his opinions even though he is quite inactive: “He had neither strayed from his balcony nor opened a newspaper since Independence, but in spite of this fact, or maybe because of it, his opinions were always highly esteemed” (151). The residents often turn to Mr. Chatterjee for wisdom about Boori Ma and her stories, and his speech is almost unchanged throughout the story. He remarks that “Boori Ma’s mouth is full of ashes” and, the first time, that “she is the victim of changing times” (151). But after the burglary, it is apparently no longer the times that have changed, but the building itself; Mr. Chatterjee proclaims that “What a building like this needs is a real durwan” (170).