Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Renovations on the house begin and all the Husain children are kept home from school to help. They cart all the family’s possessions to the street where Karam and Zehrunisa guard them so nothing will be stolen. Other Annawadians pass by, curious to see what the Husains really have. They are richer than their neighbors suspected, with real furniture and ceramic cooking wear.

Kehkashan grumbles at the obvious jealousy of their neighbors, but Zehrunisa is proud to show off their good standing. Improving the house has obvious health benefits, but it also means that the Husains could be in better standing to receive housing relocation if Annawadi is ever destroyed by the airport. Slum residents who have squatted here since 2000 are entitled to an apartment, and the Annawadians think that a better house will convince officials that they have been there longer.

By the second day, the small window is finished and the Husains hammer their stone floor flat to prepare for tiles. Karam goes to buy the ceramic tiles while Fatima yells through the wall at the Husains to keep the noise down. Abdul ignores this, focused on making a flat shelf on a crooked wall in a house on a crooked foundation. He decides he should chip into the wall to cement the shelf into place.

Fatima yells even louder as the wall that her hut shares with the Husains begins to shake. Zehrunisa half-heartedly placates her while Abdul continues to ignore her. Fatima gets louder, until Zehrunisa gets irritated that Fatima is complaining about a wall that the Husains built and nicely let Fatima’s family use. Meanwhile, Abdul is disappointed to find that the bricks of the wall are so poorly made that they are disintegrating when he tries to chip into them.

Zehrunisa and Fatima each go outside, yelling and shoving each other about the wall. A crowd forms to watch the fight, and Abdul rushes outside to pull his mother away from this shameful display. Fatima leaves and Abdul goes back inside to finish while she is gone. He is heartbroken to see that the stone shelf has fallen in his absence, taking another chunk out of the wall. Abdul sighs and gets back to work.

Fifteen minutes later, a neighbor tells Zehrunisa that Fatima has gone to the Sahar Police Station to accuse Zehrunisa of assault. Kehkashan tells her mother to go to the station to share her own side of the story. While Karam returns home empty-handed, Zehrunisa runs to the station and interrupts Fatima’s story of how the Husains beat a cripple. Both women begin to cry, making the police angry that they have bothered official police with silly women’s problems. The officer tells Fatima to go home and leads Zehrunisa to a chair to wait.

Asha, at the police station helping police offers fix a government loan, sees Zehrunisa and jumps on the chance to increase her goodwill and influence in Annawadi by solving this fight. Asha tells Zehrunisa that she will convince Fatima to give up the accusation for 1,000 rupees. Zehrunisa does not trust Asha, and turns down her offer. Zehrunisa doesn’t trust the police either, who often ask for bribes to make sure justice goes to the right person. She already paid off an officer named Thokale for running a business on airport land, and does not want to pay any more.

Back in Annawadi, Kehkashan is guarding her family’s things and fuming at the sight of Fatima putting on elaborate make-up. Kehkashan insults Fatima and threatens to twist off her other leg, while Fatima insults Kehkashan’s inability to keep a husband. Karam comes outside to defend his daughter’s virtue.

Inside, Abdul is trying to clean up after finishing the shelf. He is disappointed that the grand plans for improving the wall have turned out so poorly, then shocked to hear his father, Karam, call him to come beat Fatima. Abdul has never disobeyed his father, but he doesn’t want to hit a cripple. Luckily, Kehkashan interrupts and leads Karam home while Fatima continues to threaten them from inside her house.

Kehkashan starts a fire for dinner. Meanwhile, Fatima’s daughter Noori returns home for dinner to find the door to her house shut. Noori gets her mother’s friend Cynthia, who can’t open the door either. Cynthia lifts Noori up to a hole in the wall where Noori can see her mother pour kerosene on her head. Noori starts to scream that her mother is on fire. Men rush across the street and break down the door where they find Fatima inside, having set herself on fire and then doused the flames.

A crowd forms outside, clucking at Fatima for burning herself for attention. Fatima screams that this is the Husain family’s fault. Kehkashan tells her brothers to go to the police station to tell their story before Fatima can accuse them of burning her. Fatima begs for water, but only a poor girl named Priya will get near to her; everyone else is afraid of ghosts if Fatima dies.

The crowd argues about who should take Fatima to the hospital, eventually settling on Asha. Asha offers to pay for an auto rickshaw, but refuses to go herself. Secretly, Asha thinks that Zehrunisa should have let her help before Fatima became this hysterical. She laughs that the Husains would be in prison forever if Fatima were to say that the Husains burned her for being born Hindu. The crowd disperses, deciding to let Fatima’s husband worry about the hospital.