Birds (Symbol)
The symbol of birds are used many times in Burnt Shadows, in a variety of different ways. In "The Yet Unknowing World," Hiroko teasingly refers to Konrad's journals as birds. Konrad was making notes on foreigners in pre-war Japan, meaning the contents of his journals would put him at risk for imprisonment if they were found in the wrong hands during the war. To hide them, he strings them up from a tree, which makes them resemble birds: "And so, the night Germany surrendered, Konrad constructed a mobile of strong wire and hung each of his eight purple-leather notebooks from it. . . The wind twirled the purple-winged birds in the moonlight" (9). Here, the birds symbolize the loss of Konrad's scholarship and freedom in Japan. He can no longer move freely through Nagasaki; instead he is treated with suspicion and contempt.
Later, Hiroko carries scars in the shape of birds on her back as a result of the atomic bomb. They resemble everything she lost on that day—Konrad, her father, her homeland. When she shows them to Sajjad, years later, he calls them "beautiful," which enrages her. For her, they are nothing more than symbols of the death and destruction caused by wartime hatred.
Flowerpots (Symbol)
"There was Delhi: city of the Raj, where every Englishman's bungalow had lush gardens, lined with red flowerpots. Flowerpots: it summed it all up. No trees growing in courtyards for the English, no rooms clustered around those courtyards; instead, separations and demarcations" (33).
In the passage above, Sajjad ruminates on how the portion of Delhi where Indians live (which he calls Dilli, to mark the difference) and the part of Delhi where the English live are different. British yards are regimented; nature is relegated to different containers. For Sajjad, these flowerpots symbolize English colonial attitudes toward Indians. Despite the fact that they have lived in India for almost a century, the colonizers do not consider themselves "Indian" and do little to learn to speak Urdu or learn about Indian history or culture. This kind of attitude is reflected in James and Elizabeth, who know little about Sajjad, his family history, or where he comes from.
Sajjad's Clothing (Symbol)
"James turned. Walking through the mist towards him was Sajjad, dressed as he had been the first time James saw him, and never since, in white-muslin kurta pyjama" (111).
"'I have uncles and cousins who work for the English. It's what we do during the day. It's employment. And then we come home, and take off our shirts and trousers, replace them with kurta pyjama and become men of our moholla again. That's our true world'" (114).
In the first passage, James sees Sajjad for the first time after the Burtons fire him and leave for their summer home in Mussoorie. In the second passage, Sajjad is speaking in private to Hiroko. In the eight years that Sajjad worked for the Burtons, he has worn English clothing. His allegiance, however, has remained tied to his "true world"—a place where he can wear his own clothing. That Sajjad has appeared in Mussoorie wearing the kurta pyjama symbolizes that he has turned away from his employers and the English as a whole. ("'I am done with the English,'" he says, after he is coldly fired by the Burtons). He is ready to inhabit his true world instead of walking along the border between his Dilli and the Burtons' Dehli any longer.
Glossy Pictures from a Magazine (Symbol)
"Hiroko blinked once, twice, and the image was gone. In place of the young boy whose two chief delights were multilingual cross-words and stories told by his mother. . . there was a sixteen-year-old tracing his finger over pictures from glossy magazines advertising the various electronic gadgets his cousin in the Gulf claimed to own" (131).
Raza spends time looking at the advertisements for electronic gadgets that his cousin sends him with longing. He wants a better life, far away from his current circumstances. In this way, the advertisements symbolize Raza's hopes for the future. The fact that they are clippings from a magazine and not photographs, as Sajjad points out, suggests their inauthenticity. Similarly, Raza's fantasies about his future are not completely based in reality. As he learns over the course of "Part-Angel Warriors" (in particular, his expectations about the mujahideen training camp versus the reality) and later, while he is living in Dubai, the real world is never as glossy as the fantasy.
Mangoes (Symbol)
"'Can you explain this smell to me?' I didn't understand what he meant. It never occurred to me he wouldn't know the smell of mangoes" (76).
"He wanted his parents. He wanted his bed, and the familiarity of the streets in which he'd grown up. For no reason he could explain, he wanted a mango" (231).
The first passage above is spoken by Sajjad, as he tells Hiroko about his first time meeting Konrad. He cannot fathom that someone wouldn't know what the smells of mangoes are because they are so familiar to him. In the second passage, Raza is wishing for home from the mujahideen training camp. In both passages, mangoes symbolize the feelings of familiarity and belonging that come from being in one's own home.
