A Burning

Jivan returns home smelling of smoke. After she washes, she reads Facebook responses to the incredible event she just witnessed: the train station 15 minutes of her house was torched. On Facebook, people post declarations of solidarity with the attacked neighborhood and proclaim vengeance on what they label a terrorist attack. Many posts call for swift justice from the government, but jokes about police ineptitude are posted alongside posts of victims crying, telling the world that their loved ones died in the fire while the police stood by in their trucks doing nothing. Jivan, in a rush of inspiration, shock, and anger, posts a rash message she knows her mother would be embarrassed by: “If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean…that the government is also a terrorist?” (5-6).

As Lovely walks to acting class, she cheerfully interacts with the familiar people on her street, who turn away from her. As a transgender woman, known as a hijra, Lovely faces some admiration but much harassment as well. Undeterred, she makes her way to her acting class with Mr. Debnath. Lovely is one of the best actors in the class, and she stuns her fellow students in a marriage scene with Brijesh.