A Real Durwan

by

Jhumpa Lahiri

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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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:

“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.”

Related Characters: Boori Ma (speaker)
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:

To occupy the time, Boori Ma retired to the rooftop. She shuffled along the parapets, but her hips were sore from sleeping on newspapers.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Related Symbols: The Wash Basin
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:

Among the wives, however, resentment quickly brewed.

Related Characters: Mr. Dalal, Mrs. Dalal
Related Symbols: The Wash Basin
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma, Mr. Dalal, Mrs. Dalal
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Related Symbols: The Skeleton Keys
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:

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

Related Characters: Boori Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Skeleton Keys, The Wash Basin
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:

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

Related Characters: Boori Ma
Related Symbols: The Wash Basin
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

“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.”

Related Characters: Mr. Chatterjee (speaker), Boori Ma
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Boori Ma (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Skeleton Keys
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.