Boori Ma lives in and sweeps the stairwell of a building in India. She is unable to sleep for two nights. The third day in the morning she shakes mites out of her quilts under the letter box and again by the entrance to the alley. She makes the crows scatter. It is the beginning of the rainy season when her knee swells. In order to climb the four flights to the roof she holds her knee with one hand and holds her bucket, quilts and broom with the other. Boori Ma is sixty-four and looks as thin from the front as from the side. Twice daily she sweeps the stairwell and recites in her shrill, bitter and tart voice her sorrows since the Partition. She claims to have lost her husband,.....
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