A Burning

These chapters introduce PT Sir, a dissatisfied gym teacher (hence the name PT Sir, meaning Physical Training Sir) who taught Jivan years ago. Although he liked Jivan and encouraged her athletic training, when he sees Jivan on the news as an accused terrorist, his memories of her are warped into resentment that she never properly thanked him for the extra attention and kindness he gave her. This immediately portrays PT Sir as petty in his own self-importance, but it also reveals his feelings of invisibility in life. Although he has a good relationship with his wife, PT Sir is bored with his professional life, tired of the unglorified and thankless work of encouraging athletic activity in preteen girls. This safe but uninspiring life undergirds PT Sir’s awakening when he comes across the Jana Kalyan Party rally. Though he can see through some of the rhetoric, he is carried away by the combined voices and sense of community. It is, in his own words, the first time he feels free (ironic, given Jivan’s status as a prisoner).

Once associated with the Jana Kalyan Party, PT Sir almost instantly feels seen and acknowledged in ways that he never feels in his work teaching schoolgirls. This initial and authentic fit of inspiration foreshadows PT Sir’s future ambitions with the party. He is the third main character in Majumdar’s novel, one who also strives to raise his station in life. This theme of upward mobility is revisited throughout Jivan, Lovely, and PT Sir’s narratives, though PT Sir is markedly different from the other two main characters. First, PT Sir is not as low on the socioeconomic rungs as Jivan and Lovely. Though he is not rich or powerful, he has a steady job, a stable income, and a home life that seems to fulfill him. Second, while Lovely and Jivan’s chapters are told through a first-person point of view, PT Sir’s chapters are told through a third-person omniscient perspective. In deviating from the relatable introspection found in Lovely and Jivan’s viewpoints, Majumdar seeks to analyze PT Sir’s character from the outside. This difference in perspective foreshadows the dichotomous characterizations of Jivan and Lovely and PT Sir, emphasizing that although PT Sir plays an important role in the novel, he is separate from Jivan and Lovely in fundamental ways.

Meanwhile, Jivan continues to suffer in prison, although each week gets better. Jivan’s new routines and relationships in prison demonstrate how adaptable human beings are, but Majumdar does not necessarily promote this resiliency. The introduction of secondary characters in Jivan’s prison world shows that adaptability is often borne of permanent oppression. Many of the women in prison with Jivan are victims, and their ability to accept prison and even become comfortable behind bars shows how limited women are in India’s caste-patriarchal system. Far from being happy in prison, the women are simply resigned to their lives, hopeless that the public or the courts will sympathize with the violence and suppression they’ve experienced throughout their lives. In surrounding Jivan with women like Kalkidi, who is imprisoned for having acid thrown in her face by her own husband, Majumdar uses subplots to foreshadow that if an innocent and abused person like Kalkidi cannot be released, then there is little to no hope for Jivan.

Majumdar further uses these subplots to criticize the injustice of India’s prison system, one that is based on public shaming with little empathy. This system is perpetuated by India’s beliefs in castes and male superiority; many of the women in prison are there because they defended themselves against attacks from men. Although all the women are charged with victimizing others, Majumdar suggests that the true victims are the women themselves. This criticism also highlights how easy it is for these women to become marginalized prisoners, thereby warning readers that Jivan’s tragic fate could, at any moment, become theirs.

Another example of the poisonous patriarchy is seen in PT Sir’s character. He assumes the worst of Jivan because of his perceived slights, proving how quickly the public can turn against a fellow human being simply because of what the media tells them. When PT Sir decides to volunteer himself to the police as someone who once knew Jivan, he is essentially gaining notoriety from a tragedy. Thus, while Jivan is sequestered from her family in prison, PT Sir uses her trial for personal gain, demonstrating the disparity of power and opportunities between men and women. That Jivan’s trial is seen not as an examination of guilt or innocence but as a media sensation further foreshadows the hopeless future ahead of her.