Real Durwan by Jhumpa Lahiri

¶ … Real Durwan]

From their earliest beginnings, humans used storytelling to enlighten and affect emotion. Envision a scene in the French Caves of Lascaux 17,000 years ago: The family huddles around the fire. The father embellishes his conquests with wall drawings of wooly rhinos and elephants. The children listen with rapt attention. With frugality of words, expert narrators transform new characters and environments into old friends and situations. Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri relates such stories. In the "A Real Duran's" brief 11 pages, she deftly portrays Boori Ma's alienation. By the closing words, the reader deeply feels the loss and sadness of this poor woman's plight.

Boori Ma is one of scores of Hindus who migrated from Pakistan to India during the 1940s' Bengal deportation and Partition. She lost her family, home and financial support. Much worse, she left behind her identity. Now her past only consists of a set of skeleton keys and dwindling life savings -- not even a real name. No where in "A Real Durwan" is the woman's name revealed. In Bengali, "Boori Ma" means "big mother." Many old South Asian household workers had this title. This is Lahiri's way of quickly showing that the sweeper has no persona. She does not appear "three-dimensional" except for a brittle, sorrowful voice.

What would it be like to have no one call your name? To be seen, but not seen?

It is no wonder that twice a day Boori Ma enumerates the details of her troubles and losses suffered. While slowly climbing the four flights of stairs, she once again tells her story of sweet-smelling rosewater, mustard prawns in banana leaves, a thriving fish pond. To fully portray Boori Ma's present state, Lahiri contrasts these words of recalled richness with the description of her "burning ears," "swollen knee" and bed bugs. Also, Lahiri reports, no one believes the old woman's story. They would rather imagine their own tale of her past.

Yet, Lahiri relates, the 64-year-old Boori Ma still retains her pride. Every day in her makeshift home she spotlessly cleans the crooked stairwell, screens itinerant peddlers and summons rickshaws. At night, she sleeps by the collapsible gate to deter thieves. It may not be much, but it gives her some personal value. She even has a friend in Mrs. Dalal, although more out of pity than companionship. "In short," adds Lahiri, Boori Ma honored her responsibility "and maintained a vigil no less punctilious than if she were the gatekeeper of a house" in a fancy neighborhood.