Anita and Me: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

When Meena enters her home, she sees her parents sitting on a fake leather chair, which they all find funny because it makes leathery farting sounds. Her mother stands up to go to the kitchen and her father tells her to sit down. He asks Meena to tell them in the future if she wants something. He then tells her a story that he calls the boy and the tiger, but that Meena recognizes as The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

After the story, Meena apologizes for lying and asks her father if he, too, fought in the war and did dangerous things. Papa tries to explain that Indians were involved in another battle and mentions that he did do something dangerous right before Partition, the historical moment when the English divided up India into India and Pakistan, leaving scores of people to flee their homes. Meena learned about this event during one of her father’s mehfils, or evenings of poetry and music, for which her father, an excellent singer, is legendary.

Meena describes the magical atmosphere that her father creates during such evenings. She recalls being woken up once by a fierce discussion between guests one evening, as people discussed the horrors of Partition, with its massacres and forced evacuations. Meena was horrified to hear some of these stories and heard many guests weeping. Her father then took part in the conversation, describing being in a carriage where Hindus entered and cut off a Muslim man’s head. He also described spending time in a refugee camp. That night, after these stories, Meena had terrible nightmares.

Now, Meena is excited to hear what her father might have to say about Partition. Papa then describes being paid to deliver a package to a house, only to realize, after dropping it off, that it was a bomb, meant to kill a Muslim merchant. Meena asks him if there was anyone in the house. Her father begins to say that he doesn’t know but catches himself, insisting that there was no one there. Papa then tells Meena that she should eat, revealing that her mother has made her something special. At that moment, mama comes in, bearing a plate of fish fingers and French fries.

That night, Meena is woken up by the sound of an ambulance siren. She looks outside and sees a gathering by the Christmases’ house, where two men are carrying Mrs. Christmas’s body out of her house. Mama enters Meena’s room, asking her what she is doing. Both of them hear then Deirdre’s loud voice explain that she went to talk to Mr. Christmas, who had said something to Anita, when she saw Mrs. Christmas in front of the television, the state of her face suggesting that she had been dead for weeks. Mr. Ormerod comments that Mr. Christmas was probably too confused to know what he was doing.

Overwhelmed by the sight of a dead body and the idea that, if Anita hadn’t disturbed Mr. Christmas, no one might have known about Mrs. Christmas’s death, Meena feels sick and has to lie down. She worries that Anita’s and her screaming might have killed Mrs. Christmas. After her mother puts her to bed, she gets up one last time and sees Anita in the street. The girl looks up and winks at her (or so Meena is convinced).

Mr. Christmas dies three weeks later in his sleep. While mama gets ready to go to the funeral, Meena notices that her father is in one of his bad moods. She argues that he should cry from time to time, to release his sadness. Meena hears her parents talk while she watches the television and understands that they are talking about her grandparents. Her mother tells her father not to worry about them, but her father gloomily replies that they will die in the absence of their children, far away from them.

Meena then describes what she knows about her grandparents, noting that her paternal grandfather Dadaji was a staunch communist who kept his son from having an acting career because he believed people should be involved in politics, not entertainment. This anecdote has led Meena to feel sad about not having a famous actor as a father. Mostly, though, she knows that her father’s job does not fit with his personality, and that he must feel sad not to be able to express who he truly is.

After Meena’s parents talk about their own parents, she sees them holding hands and realizes that her parents are much more affectionate toward each other than any other adult couple she knows. She recalls seeing Sam Lowbridge and his group of friends hold hands with girls in the same way that her parents do, though they seem to change girls every week. She also notes that she never sees their English neighbors behave affectionately. Rather, she describes the loud noises at the local nightclub, where many women get drunk and then loudly discuss their marriages in the street. Although Meena admires her parents’ close relationship, she feels fascinated by the English people’s bold, provocative behavior, free of deep emotions.

As Meena reflects on these issues, realizing that her father always gets depressed whenever he hears news about death, her father suddenly announces that her mother is pregnant and that Meena will soon have a baby brother or sister. He asks her if she is happy about this, but Meena keeps her eyes locked on the TV and utters a clear-cut “no.”