Boori Ma diligently sweeps the stairs of a four-story apartment building in Calcutta (or Kolkata) a few years after Partition, likely in the 1950s. Though the narrator rarely offers direct psychological characterization, the story’s realism emphasizes the individual plight of Boori Ma. Her stories about herself, and the way Lahiri captures both her character and her backstory, are incredibly individualistic; Boori Ma is different from every other character in the story. She is also the most mysterious, insofar as her character’s ambiguity involves the highest stakes.

The story opens immediately with realistic detail, building a portrait of the protagonist even while revealing little about her. Boori Ma’s work is becoming more difficult for her: The stairs feel steeper, and they’re harder for her to climb. Physically, “[s]he [is] sixty-four years old, with hair in a knot no larger than a walnut, and she look[s] almost as narrow from the front as she [does] from the side” (147). But what is most striking about Boori Ma is her voice: “In fact,” the narrator details, “the only thing that appear[s] three-dimensional about Boori Ma [is] her voice: brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut” (147).