Summary
Boo begins "The Business of Burning" with the narrative of Fatima, also known as "the one leg" by many Annawadians. Boo describes Fatima's challenges and desires in life in order to complicate the reductive, negative view of her which the majority of Annawadians hold. The residents of Annawadi know her for her lust and her "spectacular rages" (71). Her neighbors suspect that her rage was a result of Desi liquor, but Boo writes that "much of her outrage derived from a belated recognition that she was as human as anyone else" (72). Fatima's parents, ashamed of her difference from other children, hid her in their hut while her siblings attended school. Surprisingly, given the premise of the story, Fatima sees Zehrunisa as a confidante. She tells Zehrunisa Husain about her childhood trials and her journey to self-acceptance.
Boo then focuses in on the Husain family in the time immediately after Karam, Abdul's father and Zehrunisa's husband, is released from the hospital where he stayed for two weeks to breathe pure oxygen and regain some of his respiratory strength. Their neighbors in Annawadi remark on how after his stay in the private hospital, Karam looks twenty years younger than usual. The stay cost them 20,000 rupees, but business is up, and the money seems to have bought Karam a fresh lease on life. Karam talks more about the prospect of moving to their partially owned plot of land in Vasai, a Muslim neighborhood with cleaner air, a healthy distance from the garbage industry that funds their lives.
But Zehrunisa is sick of Karam's dreams of moving to Vasai and the obvious shame he feels for their home in Annawadi. She calls their land in Vasai "the ghost house" and reminds him that it is here, in Annawadi, that his children grow up and experience life. She suggests focusing their money and efforts on small improvements to their Annawadi home, like ventilation and better quality countertops to promote hygiene, in order to make the best out of the situation they are in, rather than saving their money for a dream situation that Karam may not even live long enough to experience. Zehrunisa also understands that living in Annawadi allows her a degree of freedom as a Muslim woman; in Vasai, she would be expected to acquiesce to her husband's every whim and demand. Her swearing tirades and haggling sessions would likely become a thing of the past, and they are currently necessary for the maintenance of their family business.
The Husains prepared their home for renovations by moving all their possessions outside and temporarily entrusting some of the more valuable ones, like their television, to other Muslims in Annawadi. The downside of having all of their possessions outside is that it reveals to other residents that the Husains aren't as downtrodden as they like people to think. The very act of renovating one's home draws attention to their relative success; as Abdul puts it, "it was like standing on the roof bragging that a Muslim family was out-earning the Hindus" (86).
To make matters more difficult, the Husains share a wall with Fatima, or more accurately, they allow Fatima to use their brick wall as a wall of her own hut without charging her. This issue is that when Abdul has to chip away at the bricks in order to create a hole for his mother's new countertop, the chipping disturbs Fatima and sends her into a rage. She confronts Zehrunisa about the disturbance outside; they scream and make a scene, but Abdul pulls his mother away before it can escalate. Shortly after the confrontation, neighbors report that Fatima left Annawadi in a rickshaw to report Zehrunisa to the police. Zehrunisa quickly follows after her in order to clear her name. At the station, the police send Fatima away but keep Zehrunisa, she thinks, because she owes one of the officers money. It is not uncommon for officers in Mumbai to extort money from citizens, especially vulnerable business owners like the Husains who live on property technically owned by the Airports Authority.
As Zehrunisa sits in a police station, her daughter, Kehkashan, broods in their family's home. The home is in a state of total disarray; Karam underestimated the cost of ceramic tiling, so the floors are still covered in exposed wet cement. Their possessions still sit stacked in the street, mostly intact. Their television, on which they still owe installments, is now broken at the hands of the brothel-keeper's son. And Fatima, after landing Zehrunisa in a police station, cooks in her hut. Kehkashan can't stand it. So she confronts Fatima, and it turns into a shouting match. They threaten each other. Fatima calls Kehkakshan a prostitute, which inspires Karam to order Abdul to beat Fatima. Before Abdul can refuse, Kehkashan tries to de-escalate the situation and says they should wait until Zehrunisa returns to make any decisions. She sends Mirchi to check on her.
Meanwhile, everyone returns to their respective homes. Fatima continues to threaten the Husains, promising to put them in a "trap." Mirchi returns to report that Zehrunisa is sitting, talking with a female detective; she seems safe. The sun sets. The cooking fires of Annawadi begin to drift within noseshot of the guests of nearby swanky hotels. Then, a commotion erupts in Fatima's hut. She has set herself on fire. Her daughter screams. Neighbors rush to the scene. They hesitate to put her out, worried that either they will be implicated in the fire, or that if she dies, her ghost will inhabit them. Eventually, someone chokes the flame and a young woman brings Fatima water. She is seriously hurt, but still living. Asha pays for a rickshaw to the hospital but refuses to accompany Fatima, not wanting to entangle herself in the drama. Fatima blames the Husains for the fire even though everyone seems to know that she set it herself.
Fatima finds herself in a filthy public hospital atop a urine-soaked foam mattress, her body swollen and aching from burns. She regrets that in an attempt to an inflict a minor burn, she instead caught her entire body on fire; however, people are already treating her differently. Respected women from Annawadi are visiting her. Even Asha, who only expends her time on that which she deems absolutely necessary or worthy, comes by to counsel Fatima at her bedside. Asha advises her to tell the truth about how she was burned instead of falsely blaming the Husains, reminding Fatima that hundreds of witnesses can testify to their innocence.
However, due to an English law that criminalizes encouraging suicide, an investigator is able to coach Fatima into giving a compelling (and technically truthful) account of how she came to light herself on fire. She frames her story as if the Husains' threats and cruelty drove her to the act. The investigator hopes, with a strong enough case against them, that the Husains will feel forced to issue a generous bribe to her and her colleagues.
Meanwhile, Karam and Abdul are brutally beaten and held unlawfully at the police station. They are questioned for days on end until one afternoon, the head officer, Thokale, receives a call from Asha. According to Thokale, Asha tells him that Abdul and his father are innocent and that there is no use in beating them. Abdul takes comfort in what he interprets as a surprising act of kindness by Asha, but Karam knows better; he suspects that Asha is colluding with Thokale in order to ensure that they both receive a payout from Zehrunisa.
But as Kehkashan awaits news from the police station in Annawadi, holding out hope that Fatima will live and she, her brother, and her father would avoid a murder charge, Fatima succumbs to an infection in the hospital. The overseeing physician downplays the infection as a cause of death in order to save the hospital from liability issues, thus falsely citing the burns as being 95% the cause of death. Kehkashan is hauled away to jail after she and her mother wash Fatima's body, as is customary in their Muslim culture. Fatima's children are sent to the convent to be raised because their father's long hours as a garbage sorter would leave them vulnerable during what would be long and unstructured days for them in Annawadi.
With Fatima dead, the Husains face much graver consequences than if she had survived her hospital stay. At this point, the best Zehrunisa can do for her family is to prove to the authorities that Abdul is, in fact, child, so that he is held at a juvenile facility rather than the dreaded and extremely dangerous Arthur Road Jail, where she fears Abdul may be tortured and raped by other inmates or guards. After navigating an obstacle course of bribes and bureaucrats, Zehrunisa manages to have a document forged "proving" that Abdul is a young teenager and thus should not be treated like an adult in the criminal justice system. The fact is, Abdul likely is a child; his parents simply don't remember when he was born.
After Zehrunisa presents the document to the proper authorities, Abdul is transferred to Dongri detention center for boys. He is processed and brought to a crowded room full of boys from as young as six years old to their late teens. Muslim boys are overrepresented in the criminal justice system in India, so many of the boys are Muslim, like Abdul. At first, Abdul resists the mandated baths and meals, but at the threat of violence, he acquiesces and bathes. At Dongri, without his work to fret over, Abdul becomes more politically conscious and outraged at the senseless detainment and injustice surrounding him. He cannot fathom why six- and seven-year-olds are in jail for violating child labor laws. He thinks, "Being so poor that you had to work so young seemed like punishment enough" (128).
After adjusting to the routine of Dongri, Abdul attends a lecture by a man referred to by other inmates as "The Master." He preaches to the boys about being upright citizens, making better choices, and turning their lives around. He moralizes and tells emotional stories from his own life, at times breaking down in tears; the boys, in turn, also break down. Abdul is genuinely touched by The Master's presentation and thinks that perhaps, through religion and adhering to a strict moral code, he can improve himself and his life.
Analysis
The title of Part Two, "The Business of Burning," immediately clues the reader in to Boo's intention of demonstrating the depth and breadth of corruption in Mumbai's government institutions. Fatima's self-immolation quite literally becomes a business opportunity for so many people in the local Mumbai government sphere. Among the beneficiaries of her pain and subsequent demise, Fatima, herself, is conspicuously absent. The burning begins as a way of lashing out; she clearly never meant to burn her entire body. When she does, though, there is no turning back. Instead of lamenting this terrible mistake, Fatima immediately revels in the way it changes her status among "important" people, especially in Annawadi. Boo writes, "There was no mirror in Burn Ward Number 10, Cooper Hospital, the large hospital serving the poor of Mumbai’s western suburbs, but [Fatima] didn’t need to see herself to know that she was bigger. The swelling was part of it, but there were other ways in which the fire had increased her" (99). She goes on to write that Fatima begins to feel like a "mattering person" (99) in the midst of the commotion.
The sad truth of the matter is that it is not Fatima, the person, in whom the local shot-callers are suddenly interested; it is her situation's potential to yield them a profit. Boo leads her readers to the cynical but central question: Who stands to gain? Asha tries to extort money from Zehrunisa for the service of convincing Fatima to renounce her claim that the Husains pushed her to suicide. The investigator's motivation for convincing Fatima to blame the Husains for her suicide attempt lies in the prospect of blackmailing the Husains, charging them a large sum of money to make the very case she's creating disappear. Officer Thokale can extort money from Zehrunisa on the basis that if he's paid, her husband and son won't be beaten as badly in police custody. Doctors and school officials stand to profit off of Zehrunisa's need to prove Abdul is a child, so he can be detained in a juvenile facility and avoid adult charges. On top of all those under-the-table fees that amount to no more than flimsy insurance policies against an overwhelmingly corrupt system, there are lawyers to pay and young children to feed. The web of corruption and extortion drawn from Boo's investigation demonstrates how inverted the justice system really is in Mumbai. Rather than seeking to serve justice for a crime that it confirms has been committed, the system invents a crime from which its many participants can try to gain advantage.
Boo also illustrates the overwhelming disadvantage of minorities in India; in the case of Annawadi and Mumbai, that minority is Muslims like the Husains and Fatima. Even though the primary inciting incident is a feud between two Muslim families, neither side wins because Muslims are treated as second-class citizens. Fatima dies, and the Husains are bled dry by the goverment, their charges presumed true without due process. What's more is that there is no attempt by any official to deny the corrupt nature of the system. In Chapter Two, which focuses on Asha, Boo writes, "In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained" (28). This proves to be a central theme of the work; corruption ruins India's poor while elevating other members of its lower economic classes. Corruption promises opportunity and advancement for some at the ultimate cost of others. As Abdul navigates the juvenile justice system, he finds himself feeling sympathy for corrupt doctors and policeman. He considers, from their own testimonies, the idea that they engage in extortion because they aren't compensated enough for their official work. Of course, "enough" is always relative, but Abdul's considerations underscore the widespread and insidious nature of corruption in India; so long as people continue to play along and participate, it will never end.
