Summary
Lenny and her whole family go to see Master Tara Singh, the Sikh political and religious leader, speak behind the Queen’s Garden. There is a massive crowd of people gathered to hear him speak. He has a white beard and swords and daggers attached to his body. He wastes no time in giving his message: “We will see how the Muslim swine get Pakistan! We will fight to the last man! We will show them who will leave Lahore!” The Sikhs in the crowd go wild, waving their swords. And the Muslims there yell back, saying that they will celebrate Holi with their blood (Holi is the festival of colors that Hindus and Sikhs celebrate).
In the next scene, the old walled city of Lahore is on fire. Ice-candy-man, Ayah, and Lenny are watching from a rooftop. They point out the landmarks and watch the fires burning. They see English soldiers, mobs of Sikhs, and crowds of Muslims in the street. Seeing this violence, Lenny is full of rage. She wants to stop the mob of people but knows she cannot.
The butcher and Masseur join them. Masseur says that they should not have brought Lenny here. Lenny says she wants to go home. Meanwhile, the mostly Hindu area around the famous Shalmi market burns. Here are explosions that Lenny and company can feel even from their rooftop. The heat reaches them as well. A fire brigade comes out trying to extinguish the fires. Lenny notices that Ice-candy-man has a huge grin. Finally, when it is night, Ayah and Lenny are able to travel home in a cart.
Back at home, Lenny starts going through all her old dolls from her drawers and toy chests. She has never really played with dolls and thinks about how many different types there are. She begins pulling one doll’s legs apart. She takes another and has Adi help her pull it apart. He hesitates and she screams at him. When the doll splits, she looks at its insides and falls sobbing on the bed.
Various neighbors begin to flee the city, including the Shankars. Lenny is uncertain how long the fires will go on. “How long does Lahore burn?” she asks. “Weeks? Months?” She knows that the steel, tin, and wooden structures can only burn for so long. Yet it feels like ages.
Analysis
The tensions that have been simmering in Lahore and the countryside for months and years finally break out in this chapter. Master Tara Singh’s speech makes the position of the Sikhs clear for the entire community. They threaten to kill the Muslims and the Muslims threaten to kill them in turn. Then begin the fires across the city. Lenny is traumatized by the experience of seeing her city burn. She wants to stop the mob, which she compares to a massive, many-headed monster, but she cannot. When she tears her dolls apart at home, she is in some ways mimicking the violence that she has seen in the streets. However, it does not give her any relief to practice violence on her toys. Adi even asks her why she acted cruelly if she could not handle it.
Besides trauma, this chapter also takes up the theme of memory. To Lenny, it seems as if the fires lasted for months. Yet she knows this cannot be true: “But in my memory it is branded over an inordinate length of time: memory demands poetic license.” She also makes a number of comparisons. She compares the “monstrous mobs” burning the city with the chanting procession of street urchins that she used to join. She also compares the “hellish fires of Lahore” to the fires that Imam Din fans to cook food in the kitchen. In both comparisons, we have a more innocent crowd or fire versus the extremely violent and dangerous crowds and fires that are tearing apart her city.
