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Boori Ma, the story’s protagonist, is a 64-year-old Bengali woman who has been a refugee since Partition in 1947. As a durwan, or “doorkeeper,” it is her job to clean the apartment building where she lives and watch the front door in exchange for a place to sleep and eat. She is an outsider in comparison to the people who live in the building, since she is a solitary woman, in a lower class, and from a different region (Bengal). Each day, as she cleans, Boori Ma recounts the ease of her former life prior to Partition and the difficulty she has encountered since then. She claims that she once had a husband and four daughters, a comfortable two-story house, and a yard spilling over with guavas, dates, and hibiscus flowers. The details of her tales change often, entertaining the residents but leaving the truth hazy. Although Boori Ma is a laborer in the building, working for a roof over her head, the residents seem to genuinely respect her, especially Mrs. Dalal. When Mr. Dalal receives a promotion at work and installs a communal wash basin in the building, the other residents decide to make further updates to the building; however, the flurry of construction displaces Boori Ma from her daily routine. She goes for walks in the marketplace, where the skeleton keys to the building and her meager life savings are stolen. She returns to the apartment building to find the wash basin missing and the residents angry with her. Although Boori Ma is adamant that she’s telling the truth and had no role in the theft—her pleas of “Believe me, believe me” feel genuine and urgent compared to the flippant way she would end her tall tales with “Believe me, don’t believe me”—but the residents won’t listen. They decide that she has lied about her involvement with the crime (implying that she gave her keys to the thief) and throw her and her belongings out onto the street. She leaves, penniless, carrying only her broom.
Boori Ma Quotes in A Real Durwan
The A Real Durwan quotes below are all either spoken by Boori Ma or refer to Boori Ma. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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A Real Durwan Quotes
In fact, the only thing that appeared three-dimensional about Boori Ma was her voice: brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut.
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“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.”
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So she garbled facts. She contradicted herself. She embellished almost everything. But her rants were so persuasive, her fretting so vivid, that it was not so easy to dismiss her.
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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.
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Knowing not to sit on the furniture, she crouched, instead, in doorways and hallways, and observed gestures and manners in the same way a person tends to watch traffic in a foreign city.
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To occupy the time, Boori Ma retired to the rooftop. She shuffled along the parapets, but her hips were sore from sleeping on newspapers.
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Her mornings were long, her afternoons longer. She could not remember her last glass of tea. Thinking neither of her hardships nor of earlier times, she wondered when the Dalals would return with her new bedding.
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It was there, while she was standing in the 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.
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Though none of them spoke directly to Boori Ma, she replied, “Believe me, believe me. I did not inform the robbers.”
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“For years we have put up with your lies,” they retorted. “You expect us, now, to believe you.”
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“Boori Ma’s mouth is full of ashes. But that is nothing new. When is new is the face of this building. What a building like this needs is a real durwan.”
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From the pile of belongings Boori Ma kept only her broom. “Believe me, believe me,” she said once more as her figure began to recede. She shook the free end of her sari, but nothing rattled.
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Boori Ma Character Timeline in A Real Durwan
The timeline below shows where the character Boori Ma appears in A Real Durwan. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
A Real Durwan
Boori Ma , “sweeper of the stairwell,” wakes up after another sleepless and uncomfortable night. After shaking...
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Boori Ma is a Bengali woman, a refugee who crossed the border during Partition years ago for...
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Boori Ma explains that she once lived a life of luxury—her yard was overflowing with guavas, dates,...
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The details of Boori Ma ’s recitations change daily. On some days, she insists that she crossed the East Bengal...
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...for a wholesale distributor that sells tubes and pipes. Mr. Chatterjee, another resident, admits that Boori Ma ’s “mouth is full of ashes” but that her stories are harmless. She is, in...
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Some of the residents decide that Boori Ma must have once worked for a wealthy zamindar, and that’s why she embellishs her past...
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...entire building is Mrs. Misra’s private telephone, but the residents are nonetheless glad to have Boori Ma standing guard. Plus, she’s able to call a rickshaw at impressive speed, she’s discerning about...
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On this particular day, Boori Ma feels as if she's been bitten by mites and takes her quilts to the roof...
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Boori Ma retorts that it is absolutely not prickly heat. She explains, “I used to keep a...
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Mrs. Dalal says she’ll provide Boori Ma with powder for prickly heat, but Boori Ma is adamant that it’s mites, not the...
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After she beats her quilts, Boori Ma returns to work. Shortly after, the monsoon rain begins, practically dissolving her quilts on the...
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Boori Ma often enjoys some time with the neighbors in the afternoon, as is her plan this...
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...make up for all that?” Their argument lasts through the evening, and everyone listens in. Boori Ma finishes her next round of sweeping in silence and goes to sleep on a pile...
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When the basin is finally installed, Boori Ma laments that she once had bathwater scented with rose petals, adding, “Believe me, don’t believe...
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With so many workers about, Boori Ma retreats to the roof, continuing to sleep on newspapers with long days of monsoon rain...
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When Boori Ma returns to the building, the residents are waiting for her angrily, as “baleful cries rang...
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Boori Ma claims innocence, repeating, “Believe me, believe me,” but they've already decided her guilt. They claim...
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