A Real Durwan

A REAL DURWAN By Jumpha Lahiri

Contents

A.

Brief summary of “A Real Durwan”

B.

Analysis of the story I.

Characterization of the most important persons 1. Boori Ma as the main character 2. Mr. Chatterjee 3. Mrs. Dalal 4. Mr. Dalal

II. Rather poor setting of the story III. Dismal atmosphere due to the setting IV. Consistent and casually linked plot V. Plausibility of the short story VI. The story is presented from a omniscient point of view with focus on Boori Ma VII. Interpretation of “A Real Durwan” 1. Lying can have far reaching effects 2. People can change their opinions quickly 3. Effects of Boori Ma‟s breaking her habit 4. Boori Ma‟s clothing as a support of her authority 5. The inability of leaving behind the past as a problem of many immigrants C.

Lahiri‟s short story is well worth reading

Analysis of “A Real Durwan”

Jhumpa Lahiri‟s short story “A Real Durwan”, which was published in 1999, is about Boori Ma, sweeper of the stairwell, who is a victim of partition and has been deported to Calcutta as a result. She sleeps under the stairs of the building where she is allowed to live, functioning as a doorman, or durwan, for the building. Every day Boori Ma recalls in detail about her woes and sufferings ever since she was deported to Calcutta and talks about all the wealth she supposedly used to have, making the other residents feel uncomfortable. One day Mr. Dalal, resident of the third floor, becomes promoted and buys two basins for the building which also encourages the other residents to improve it. Because of many people passing through the gate now it becomes impossible for Boori Ma to keep track of all of them and she decides to go around the neighborhood for a change. When she returns, however, the basins have been stolen and she is being held accountable for informing the robbers and thus gets thrown out of the flat-building. Boori Ma is the main character in the story and is characterized directly in the beginning. She is “sixty-four years old, with hair in a knot no larger than a walnut” (p. 70) and she looks “almost as narrow from the front as she [does] from the side” (p. 70). Furthermore, her voice is the only thing that appears “three-dimensional” (p. 70) about her, as it is “brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut” (p. 70). She is a refugee and got deported to Calcutta after Partition and lives underneath the letter boxes of an old flat-building now. Over time, Boori Ma developed from a merely sweeper of the stairwells, to a durwan, a doorkeeper in other words. Her sole belongings consist of a bucket, a broom, quilts and skeleton keys from old coffer boxes she left behind. She has a hard time getting over the past and therefore keeps talking about how rich and well-off she used to be and how pathetic life in Calcutta is for her at the moment. Though it is stated at the beginning that these

“throaty impostures” (p. 73) hurt no one and “all agreed that she was a superb entertainer” (p. 73), the reader gets the impression that her exaggerating about her past actually does make them feel at least a little uneasy, as when the other residents turn against her they say: “for years we have put up with your lies, […] you expect us now to believe you?” (p. 82). She also wants to be special, which is evidenced in her reaction to finding herself terribly itchy one morning: “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” (p. 75). Another important character in the story is Mr. Chatterjee. In his opinion Boori Ma is “the victim of changing times” (p. 72) and it is also stated in the text that his opinions are always highly esteemed even though he hasn‟t “opened a newspaper since Independence” (p. 72). His role is significant because he is the person who decides that the building needs a “real durwan” (p. 82), resulting in the fact that Boori Ma has to leave. Mr. and Mrs. Dalal, residents of the third floor, are meaningful characters as well. Mrs. Dalal has almost transparent eyelids and very slender toes with rings on them. Moreover, she has a soft spot for Boori Ma and helps her frequently. She gives her some ginger paste to flavor her stews once in a while or she offers to buy her new quilts, for instance. Her husband “sells toilet parts” (p. 75) and has “purple crescents under his eyes” (p. 77). However, he gets promoted later due to his distributor‟s opening a second branch, and because of that promotion he buys two basins for the building, which causes the other residents to also want to improve the building. One should also bear in mind that the story takes place in a rather poor district in Calcutta in India since the author portrays the flat-building as “very old” (p. 71) and “the kind with bathwater that still had to be stored in drums, windows without glass, and privy scaffolds made of bricks” (p. 71).This setting is important for the later development of the story due to the fact that there will be a sort of competition among the residents to try

and improve the building after Mr. Dalal installs the two basins, which will eventually result in Boori Ma‟s getting kicked out of the building. Furthermore, this poor setting contributes to a quite dismal and colorless atmosphere which tends to be almost boring at the beginning of the short story. This impression changes, however, when Mr. Dalal sparks the competition among the inhabitants and when they become hostile towards Boori Ma because then finally some tension develops, making the story line much more exciting. The actions in the story form a consistent and casually linked plot and are presented in a chronological manner with a few flashbacks as Boori Ma often talks about her earlier life. For instance, she tells the residents about her third daughter‟s wedding night: “We married her to a school principal. The rice was cooked in rosewater. The mayor was invited. Everybody washed their fingers in pewter bowls” (p. 71). Another example is: “Have I mentioned that I crossed the border with just two bracelets on my wrist? Yet there was a day when my feet touched nothing but marble. Believe me, don‟t believe me, such comforts you cannot even dream them” (p. 71). When the two basins get stolen and the other inhabitants believe Boori Ma informed the robbers, the conflict between the residents and Boori Ma peaks and the story reaches its climax. This conflict becomes eventually „solved‟ when Mr. Chatterjee says ”what a building like this needs is a real durwan” (p. 82), which leads to her being thrown out by the residents. The story starts with an exposition since at the beginning Boori Ma‟s appearance is described. It is difficult to tell whether the story ends with a solution or an open ending as it is kind of a combination of both: on the one hand the conflict is solved when Boori Ma gets thrown out of the flat-building, on the other hand the reader does not know what will happen to her next. Moreover, the story is plausible as no improbable events or coincidences occur. It is presumable that thieves pay more attention to the building when it has been recently improved because it sticks out more, especially

in a poor neighborhood. The ending of the story, when Boori Ma gets kicked out, reveals a negative aspect about human nature: that people always need a scapegoat to blame. As the author did not foreshadow this outcome, the reader didn‟t expect that to happen. It is also important to note that the narrator of the story is a third person narrator, since he is not a character within the events and one gets the impression that he is standing behind or next to the main character. Though this is the case, the reader also gets an insight into the thoughts of other characters, like Mr. Dalal, for instance, when he thinks that “a sink on the stairwell is sure to impress visitors” (p. 78). Therefore, the narrator is omniscient at the same time. It should be mentioned that the reader actually doesn‟t get to know many of Boori Ma‟s thoughts, thus it becomes hard to develop sympathy for the aged, stubborn Boori Ma, even though she is the main character. One of the main aspects of Lahiri‟s story is that it shows how lying, exaggerating and not telling the truth can have drastic and far reaching effects as Boori Ma becomes thrown out because nobody believes her that she did not inform the robbers about the basins. In addition, the story demonstrates how quickly people change their opinions. The residents “liked that Boori Ma, who slept each night behind the collapsible gate” (p. 73) and were “thankful that Boori Ma patrolled activities in the alley” (p. 73), yet they throw her out in the end without having any proof that she told the thieves. Also, there is a kind of ritual at the beginning of the story: Boori Ma always tells her stories while sweeping the stairwell. However, this changes when the residents start their competition in regard to improving the building. She can no longer tell her stories while sweeping now because “so many people passed in and out of the collapsible gate […] that there was no point in keeping track of them” (p.80). At first she is not thrilled about this circumstance but then she discovers the rewards of her new free time and enjoys circling around the neighborhood – which ultimately leads to her being kicked out though. One could say that when

she breaks that habit or ritual, she loses her position as a durwan and her home. Another aspect is that Boori Ma‟s clothing, her Sari, her skeleton keys and her broom appear as if they were a part of her. She needs them, especially the keys and the broom, as a support of her authority. With her broom and her skeleton keys she is able to “rout any suspicious character who strayed into the area in order to spit, urinate or cause some other trouble” (p. 73). That is why the moment she loses her skeleton keys, she loses a part of her authority. When the keys get stolen, though, Boori Ma loses a part of her past too. The keys used to remind her of it, as well as of better times, when she still was the wife of a wealthy man. Therefore, the robbery can also be seen as a sign for Boori Ma to stop thinking about the past and start looking towards the future. In general, the story shows a problem many immigrants have as they cannot forget or leave behind their past just as Boori Ma who still dreams about the way she used to live in earlier times before emigrating. It shows that if people aren‟t capable of letting go of the past, they won‟t be able to start a new, successful life. That is also why the belonging to a particular place and culture and yet having to live somewhere else as an outsider, creates a tension in Boor Ma which is a characteristic feature of many immigrants. Finally, we would like to present our personal opinion about “A Real Durwan”. Even though there isn‟t as much action as in the other stories Lahiri wrote, it still is exciting and interesting since it delivers an insight into the feelings of a person who has become separated from his home country and culture. It is remarkable that Lahiri manages to convey all this information through the way she lets her characters act, making the story quite subtle, despite of the use of a straightforward language which makes the level of speech adequate to the poor stairwell sweeper Boori Ma. In a nutshell, it is another of Jhumpa Lahiri‟s magnificent short stories

about the challenges and difficulties that many immigrants have to go through and it is well worth reading.