Summary
It is winter and Lenny is cold all the time. When Hari takes her out to Mrs. Pen’s, his hands are calloused and freezing. Hari is more reserved when it is cold out and Mrs. Pen is more lenient.
After lessons, Lenny goes to Godmother’s house. She and Slavesister tell Lenny that Mr. Rogers, the Inspector General of Police, has been murdered. His body was mutilated and dumped in the gutter. Lenny has never known anyone who was murdered, let alone mutilated. She remembers the time Mr. Rogers came over for dinner and got in an argument with Mr. Singh, who almost stabbed him in the eye. The thought of his death shocks Lenny and she wonders if he will go to heaven. Slavesister says he, like all Englishmen, will go to hell for what he has done in the Punjab. The thought of him burning in hell makes Lenny cry.
Godmother and Slavesister begin arguing. Godmother yells at Slavesister for putting the thought of hellfire in Lenny’s mind. Slavesister says that the British deserve to burn in hell for what they have done in the Punjab while Godmother argues that one should not badmouth the dead. Lenny wants to know what they will do with Mr. Rogers’ body. Will he be put in the Tower of Silence (known as the Dungarwadi)? This is a big round wall with no roof in which Zoroastrians like the Parsees leave their dead. Vultures eat their flesh and the sun dries out their bones. Parsees do not believe in wasting fuel to burn bodies or polluting the earth by burying them. Instead, they want their bodies to feed animals, seen as God’s creatures. Lenny asks many questions about the Tower of Silence and wants to see it. However, as a Christian, Mr. Rogers will not be put there and will instead be buried. Then Mini Aunty and Godmother get in a fight about whether it is better to be buried or put in the Tower of Silence: to be eaten by worms or eaten by vultures. Then they fight about Zoroastrianism. All the talk of rotting bodies makes Lenny feel sick and unable to eat her lunch. Godmother accuses Slavesister of talking back and being too big for her britches. She tried to rebel but now Godmother has put her back in her place.
Yousaf, the family’s odd-job man, takes Lenny out to walk around the Lawrence Gardens and admire the flowers. They pass by a Brahmin, a high-caste Hindu, sitting cross-legged on the grass and eating out of a bowl. Lenny and Yousaf’s shadows glide over the bowl and the Brahmin looks at them with “terror, passion, and pain.” Because they are lower than him in the hierarchy, their shadow has violated his food. As they pass, “he looks at his food as if it is infected with maggots” and throws it away. Yousaf is angry and sad. Lenny begins thinking of herself as a maggot. She thinks that religion often does this to people. She remarks that she will feel a similar “degradation” a few years later when she tries to shake hands with a Parsee priest at a wedding. Thinking that she may be menstruating and therefore unclean, he cringes at her. In both situations, Lenny feels like an outcast.
Later that evening Lenny hears the familiar sound of the household teasing Hari and trying to snatch away his dhoti (Indian-style short trousers). Lenny feels a strange hatred for his dhoti (”like a diaper between his stringy legs”) and his bodhi-style hair (which she sees as a way of “flaunt[ing] his Hinduism”). She joins the group of people trying to tear off his dhoti. Soon he is standing with his genitals out. Imam Din throws a shawl at him and tells him to cover up. However, instead of his normal manner of teasing, there is something strange in Imam Din’s voice. He is not used to being cruel. Similarly, Ayah turns her face away and Lenny feels uneasy. Then there is a strange shape of a man entering the house compound. Lenny is nervous until she realizes that it is only Ice-candy-man.
Analysis
The chapter begins with a quotation from the Urdu poet Muhammad Iqbal: “The times have changed; the world has changed its mind. The European’s mystery is erased. / The secret of his conjuring tricks is known: / The Frankish wizard stands and looks amazed.” The lines describe how the rest of the world sees Europe. It was once perceived as a mysterious wizard with all sorts of power, but now his tricks have lost their effect. As colonized people gain power and independence, they are no longer in awe of the Europeans. This quotation can be analyzed in the context of what happens to Mr. Rogers in the chapter. This British chief of police once seemed invincible, but he has now been murdered and mutilated—most likely by pro-independence Indians. The argument between Godmother and Slavesister also shows that there are a variety of opinions about the British. While Slavesister thinks that they are all evil and will go to hell for what they have done to the Punjab, Godmother does not think one should speak ill of the dead, no matter what they have done.
The discussion of the Tower of Silence reveals that Lenny still does not quite understand the differences between religions. She assumes that Mr. Rogers’ corpse will be laid out like a Zoroastrian, but in fact he will be buried as a Christian. The theme of religion also comes out in the scene where Yousaf and Lenny pass by the Brahmin in the park. He sees them as inferior. Even their shadow passing by his food can pollute it. Lenny thinks that “One’s man religion is another man’s poison.” Yet in the scene where all the staff at home try to tear away Hari’s dhoti shows that Lenny is also capable of religious judgment. She has begun to resent Hari for the visible signs of his Hinduism. At the same time, picking on him leaves everyone in the house feeling uneasy. It is as if the stakes of treating or seeing people differently based on religion are higher now. Everyone seems aware that with the threat of violence looming, it can no longer be a light-hearted joke. The appearance of Ice-candy-man at the end of the chapters foreshadows the fact that he will have something to do with this violence.
