A Guardian and a Thief
47 pages • 1-hour read
Megha MajumdarA Guardian and a Thief
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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section contains discussion of sexual harassment.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Phone”
Ma and Mishti talk to Ma’s husband on the phone, and Ma lies, telling him that only her phone was stolen. He recommends going to the police, but Ma explains that they did not help. Ma’s husband wants to come to Kolkata for the last few days, but Ma reminds him that he would not be able to return to the US. Ma’s husband jokes that the pickpocket stole the phone while Ma will need a new one, anyway.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Day 3”
Ma’s neighbor, Mrs. Sen, was a professor, and she took in two parrots, Abba and Bee Gees. When the climate worsened, Mrs. Sen could not find food for them. Her cousins told her to sell them, not realizing they were like children for Mrs. Sen.
Ma, Dadu, and Mishti go to Mrs. Sen for help. She reveals that she has a security camera on her door. She shows them the footage from the night of the robbery. They see the thief with Ma’s purse and a bin of food, and Mishti notices that he is wearing a Scooby-Doo shirt.
Ma, Dadu, and Mishti go out in the rain with a picture of the thief and stop at the ironing man’s shack. He comments that shortages and floods happen all the time. The group leaves, and Ma feels hopeful.
They ask more people around town, none of whom recognize the thief’s photo. They find some marching activists, and one of them is the editor who published Dadu’s op-ed years prior. She offers to enhance the original video of the thief, which gives Dadu hope.
Ma and Mishti wait in a movie theater while Dadu talks to the editor. Mishti plays with two children, and Ma worries they might have lice. Ma realizes her motherly feelings only apply to Mishti.
They stop in a stationery store, where Dadu offers the merchant salted peanuts in exchange for crayons for Mishti, which irritates Ma. The merchant recognizes the thief in the image, saying the thief stole the Scooby-Doo shirt from him, but his wife stopped him from chasing the thief. He found the thief’s cooling handkerchief, which tells Ma that the thief is a shelter resident.
Ma brings the enhanced video to the shelter and remembers being harassed by men in the street. She worries about what she will do when she catches the thief.
The new shelter manager recognizes Boomba and tells Ma which room he is in.
Ma confronts Boomba and threatens to bring him to the police, but he threatens to report Ma for stealing from the shelter. Ma realizes she stole a lot of money over her time at the shelter; she demands the passports, letting Boomba keep the rest. Boomba admits he threw the passports away, but agrees to show Ma where he threw them out if she signs over her house to him and his family.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Boomba”
Boomba grew up in a village outside Kolkata. When he was 10 years old, he wanted to be an explorer like Ibn Battuta. His father got him a game of snakes-and-ladders for his birthday.
When Boomba was 12, flooding destroyed his family’s orchard, so his father took a job gathering honey. Boomba’s father was attacked by a tiger, so Boomba’s mother started working.
At 14, Boomba hunted crabs, but a crab-fisherman threatened legal action. Boomba helped farm shrimp, then continued hunting crabs in secret.
When Boomba was 16, his mother gave birth to another son, Robi, and Boomba became Robi’s guardian.
At 17, while Boomba was washing Robi’s clothes, he set their house on fire. The family had to move into a shack on stilts.
At 18, Boomba decided to go to the city, telling his mother there were opportunities for him. Robi cried, and Boomba brought his bike and game of snakes-and-ladders. Though bikes were not allowed on the train, Boomba brought it anyway and threatened another man. He liked the feeling of becoming someone else. A woman on the train offered Boomba a delivery job, and Boomba decided he would find freedom in work.
Police or robbers raided the shop two months later, and they took all Boomba’s money and his bike. Boomba decided that he needed to become meaner. Boomba took a job delivering online orders, but got fired when customers reported that he was stealing goods from their packages. Boomba then took a job operating a boat following flooding, and he grew close with another boatman, Shanto, and his son, who reminded Boomba of Robi.
At 20, Boomba saved enough to rent a room, and he told his family to move to the city. One night, the tree next to the apartment building fell, destroying Boomba’s room. The landlady threatened to sue Boomba for missing rent, and Boomba’s boss refused to let him sleep on his boat.
Twelve days before Ma was robbed, Boomba moved into the shelter. The new manager refused him, but Ma urged her to make an exception. Boomba called his family, who understood his misfortune. Boomba befriended another resident, an influencer planning a trip to Guatemala with his six-month-old son. Dengue fever spread throughout the shelter, and Boomba decided to leave and rob Ma.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
The second section of the novel presents the first deviation from the chapter structuring of Day and Phone chapters. Chapter 6 is titled “Boomba,” and it follows Boomba’s life until the point when he decides to rob Ma. This deviation establishes that Ma is the protagonist of the novel, while Boomba is the deuteragonist, or secondary protagonist. Boomba is initially the antagonist of the novel. However, his background chapter frames him as a sympathetic character, rather than focusing on his antagonistic behavior. Presenting this information in a separate, uniquely-named chapter allows Majumdar to explore his character while maintaining the overall focus on Ma’s family.
Boomba’s characterization is complex, especially when he feels malice or a desire to dominate others as he wrestles with Survival Ethics in a Collapsing System. He makes certain decisions, like hunting crabs, purely out of desperation and a desire to help his family. However, when Boomba brings his bike on the train, he lashes out at a fellow passenger, noting how he “smiled when he saw fear flash on the man’s face” (86). Boomba enjoys scaring the man for the sake of establishing a kind of power over him, which speaks to how keenly Boomba feels and resents his socioeconomic powerlessness in most of his experiences in life. This trend in Boomba’s character comes up again when he counters Ma’s threat with a threat of his own, followed by his demand that Ma let him and his family take her house.
Ma’s confrontation with Boomba highlights the tensions of survival as well, since both characters regard each other as antagonists or obstacles instead of recognizing that they are in the same situation. Ma openly accuses Boomba of thievery, but Boomba replies that Ma is also a thief, evoking the title of the novel, which hints at Boomba and Ma being both guardians and thieves. Ma, knowing Boomba is right, thinks: “No, she could not risk that at all. She would have to keep Boomba quiet” (73). Ma is thus conscious of her hypocrisy in accusing Boomba of theft, and knows that the exposure of her embezzlement could cause serious hardship to her.
Boomba, in turn, “saw the skinny bed, fit for him alone. And now a grander vision appeared” (74) as he realizes he can extort a house from Ma. Ma needs the passports to ensure her family’s survival, while Boomba needs a house to secure his own family’s survival. Though this arrangement initially appears as an exchange that benefits both parties, both Boomba and Ma hurt each other and the shelter residents through their behavior, exposing the way individualistic survival ethics destroy communities from the inside out.
Another key theme that appears in this section is The Challenges of Parenthood and Protectiveness, which comes up most prominently regarding Mishti, but also with Robi. The novel creates a parallel between Ma’s protective and loving instincts towards Mishti, and Boomba’s protectiveness towards Robi. These nurturing instincts speak to how, deep down, both characters are capable for caring for others, but struggle to determine how to balance their responsibilities to their families and dependents with their responsibilities in society at large. Boomba cherishes Robi, but does not hesitate to steal Mishti’s toy truck, just as Ma cares deeply for keeping Mishti safe from hunger, all while stealing food meant for other needy children at the shelter. The novel thus introduces the dilemma the characters face in trying to keep their loved ones safe, while highlighting how they often harm others to do so.
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