Summary
Hiroko and Sajjad continue their Urdu lessons, getting to know each other better in the process. They talk about Konrad, who had met Sajjad several years previously during a visit to Delhi. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and James argue over whether or not to let their son, Harry, come home for the summer holidays. Harry attends a boarding school in England, even though he spent most of his youth in Delhi. As Hiroko gets to know Sajjad and the Burtons better, she understands that they occupy different versions of the same city—Sajjad's "Dilli" versus the Burtons' "Delhi."
One day, Hiroko asks Sajjad to show her his "Dilli" in front of James, who says that they should all go together to Qutb Minar so that Sajjad can show them around. At Qutb Minar, however, James takes the role of tour guide and explains the architectural significance of the building to Hiroko. Hiroko gets frustrated, realizing that she is not experiencing Sajjad's India at all. Sajjad similarly gets frustrated as he muses on his relationship with his employers and how the English relate to the Indians and Indian history as a whole. Tensions rise between Sajjad and the Burtons as they discuss the fact that English settlers don't consider India "home." Elizabeth, who has picked up on a flirtation between Sajjad and Hiroko, pointedly asks Sajjad about how his family's arranged marriage for him is coming along. This causes Hiroko to angrily walk away from them and towards the car. The Burtons leave Sajjad at Qutb Minar and head home.
The next morning, Sajjad drinks a cup of tea with Lala Buksh, the Burtons' housekeeper. Like Sajjad, Lala Buksh is Muslim. They discuss the current political unrest in India, with violence breaking out between Hindus and Muslims. Lala Buksh says that he believes that India will be partitioned and he intends on moving to Pakistan when that happens.
During their Urdu lesson, Hiroko asks Sajjad why he did not previously tell her about his marriage. Sajjad explains that nothing about his marriage is set in stone and asks if she finds it strange that he will be marrying someone he has never met. Hiroko tells Sajjad that she is not the Burtons and that she thinks she would find more to relate to in Sajjad's world than that of the Burtons. She then tells Sajjad that she will never marry because of what happened to her. She undresses and shows him the scars that were left by the bomb on her back. Sajjad touches her back and tells her that everything about her is beautiful. This enrages Hiroko, who says that the atomic bomb "did nothing beautiful" (93). She begins to yell and hit Sajjad.
Elizabeth sees Hiroko's yelling and half-dressed state and immediately assumes that Sajjad was trying to sexually assault Hiroko. She insults Sajjad, fires him, and kicks him out of the Burton home. By the time they realize the truth, they decide to immediately move to the family's summer home in Mussoorie, taking Hiroko with them. Instead of apologizing to Sajjad about the misunderstanding directly, they send Lala Buksh with severance pay and the offer of a reference for his next employment. Hiroko spends her time in Mussoorie sad and missing Sajjad. Elizabeth tells her that it's for the best that they left; in her opinion, Hiroko and Sajjad's worlds are too distant from each other. Additionally, Sajjad's family would never let him marry a woman like Hiroko.
Three months later, Sajjad's mother, Khadija, dies. In that time, Sajjad had been working in the family calligraphy business. Sajjad's three brothers—Altamash, Iqbal, and Sikandar—argue about what they are going to do. Ali Zaman, their brother-in-law, is also part of the discussion. Iqbal says that he wants to marry his mistress as a second wife in order to keep her from moving to Pakistan. Ali Zaman says that he will be moving his family to Pakistan as well. Sajjad feels as if his plans for the future are stalled by the British withdrawal from India and the Partition (see the Political Context part of this guide for a closer look at these political changes and what they meant for Delhi citizens). Without his mother, he does not see a place for himself within his household. However, he cannot see himself walking away from his family's support. He tells his brothers that he wants to marry Hiroko and runs away from them before he can hear their reaction. Eventually, however, his brother Altamash catches up to him and cajoles him to "cling on to your family" (109).
Back in Mussoorie, James is reflecting on the fact that he misses Sajjad's company when Sajjad approaches him. Sajjad no longer feels any loyalty to the Burtons and is cold in relating to them. Nevertheless, James extends an apology to Sajjad, which Sajjad does not accept. He says that he is here to talk to Hiroko. Hiroko and Sajjad break away to talk to each other. Sajjad tells her that he intends to buy a house in Dehli and start a life there with a new wife, implying that he wants her to be his wife. Hiroko says that she cannot in good conscience marry anybody, as she does not know what the lasting effects of the atomic bomb will be on her body. Sajjad tells her that they cannot prepare for what will come in the future and instead should focus on today.
Elizabeth and James wait at the house, wondering what Hiroko and Sajjad are up to. James asks her if she is willing to make a new start in their marriage when they return to England. Elizabeth, however, has already decided that she is leaving James and will be moving to America to live with her cousin Willie, who is a homosexual.
Sajjad and Hiroko decide to marry. They do so immediately, by stealing a car from the Burtons and heading to the nearest mosque. On the drive there, Hiroko converts to Islam by repeating the Kalma three times. After this, they find a shadowy part of the woods to consummate their marriage. They return to the Burton home, where Elizabeth and James congratulate the newly wedded couple. Elizabeth gives Hiroko a diamond set as a wedding present.
James then convinces Sajjad that he and Hiroko must go to Istanbul rather than return to Delhi, where political tensions are mounting. He tells Sajjad that Hiroko shouldn't have to face violence and political unrest like she did in Nagasaki. Sajjad agrees, and they spend several weeks on a honeymoon in Istanbul while planning their life together in Delhi. However, Sajjad is told at the Indian Consulate in Istanbul where they told him that he was one of the Muslims who chose to leave India and that such a decision is irreversible. This means that he can't go back home.
Analysis
As the characters in Burnt Shadows converge despite their vastly different backgrounds, it is language that unites them. Hiroko (and later, her son, Raza) is exceptionally skilled at learning languages, which bridges her differences with other people. Language becomes a place where people from different nationalities can meet each other and form intimate bonds. For example, Hiroko and Elizabeth feel as if they are speaking a "secret language" when they talk to each other in German. Even more strikingly, Hiroko and Sajjad fall in love while he is teaching her Urdu. Later, when Hiroko tells him about the bomb, he asks her if she wants to be consoled in English or in Urdu: "'There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming 'ghum-khaur'—grief-eaters—who take in the mourner's sorrow. Would you like me to be in English or Urdu right now?" (78). Here, national difference, as communicated via language, becomes a strength so that Sajjad can learn how to give Hiroko what she needs.
While Sajjad can speak to his employers on their terms and in their language, neither James nor Elizabeth bothered to learn Urdu. In fact, when Hiroko said that she wanted to start taking Urdu lessons, one of their friends told Hiroko that Urdu was the "language of mercenaries and marauders" (66). As the characters in "Veiled Birds" uncover, this is a fact about the English relationship to India through colonization—they will profit off of the country but they will not assimilate to its culture, language, or people. Sajjad sees this clearly while he is showing the Burtons and Hiroko around Qutb Minar: "It struck him as he did so that this was how things should be—he, an Indian, introducing the English to the history of India, which was his history and not theirs" (81). He tells Elizabeth, later, "'My history is not your picnic ground'" (82). He also angrily asks James, "'Why have the English remained so English?'" (84). As Sajjad reflects on the near-century-long English colonial rule in India, it makes him angry that the English have fought so hard to keep their culture, language, history, and more separate from the Indians.
Because of the way that the English as a whole have treated the Indians, Sajjad is incapable of seeing his employer without also seeing his nationality. When James and Elizabeth betray Sajjad by jumping to conclusions despite their years of knowing each other, Sajjad decides that he is done with the English as a whole. When James and Sajjad come face-to-face again in Mussoorie, James realizes this shift: Sajjad no longer sees him as an individual and instead sees his political category first. He asks Sajjad, "'When did you and I become the Englishman and the Indian rather than James and Sajjad?'" (112).
It is the fault of the English that Sajjad's "Dilli" and the Burtons' Delhi feel like different worlds. Nevertheless, Elizabeth warns Hiroko that she will feel like an outsider if she marries Sajjad because she is not native: "'His is a world you either grow up in or to which you remain forever an outsider'" (98). Hiroko and Raza's experiences in Karachi in "Part-Angel Warriors" suggest that this is somewhat true—Hiroko will forever maintain her status of "outsider" in India and Pakistan. However, she doesn't fit in the Burtons' world, either, and she tells Elizabeth as much.
Hiroko's place as neither an English colonizer nor an Indian subject means that she wades in uncertain waters, "disrupting all hierarchies" (84). Hiroko can find common ground with English culture and Indian culture, telling Sajjad that she "could find more in [his] world which resembles Japanese traditions than [she] can in this world of the English'" (91). Ultimately, Hiroko finds her place amidst political unrest through the creation of a "new world. With new rules" (115). After Sajjad's mother dies, he no longer feels the need to carry on with family tradition and accept an arranged marriage. In this new world, he can marry the woman he loves, even if she is not Muslim or has not been chosen by their family. There, she can be different, but not out of place. There, she and Sajjad can get married and imagine a future for themselves.
The political unrest in India brings Hiroko and Sajjad a "new world" in which they find their way, but it is also characterized by extreme loss. Sajjad no longer feels at home anymore, feeling more emotional ties to ghosts than the living: "Dilli. My Dilli. But today it was absence, not belonging, that the Old City echoed back at him" (104). Sajjad's belonging in Delhi is in question because of his religion; in the light of the English departure from India, many Muslims are being pushed out of the country into newly-created Pakistan. Because of this, people who were once neighbors have now become potential enemies. Sajjad notes, "Relationships that had seemed to be cast in steel disintegrated under the acid question: are you for India or Pakistan?" (106-7).
Eventually, Sajjad and Hiroko have no choice but to move to Pakistan even though their original intention was to stay in Delhi. Pakistan's physical proximity and political ties to Afghanistan will bring Harry Burton back into their lives in the next section. It will also set their son, Raza, down a dangerous path.
