A House for Mr Biswas: Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

A messenger brought the news of the calamitous rains to Hanuman House that same evening. The sisters and husbands convened, the sisters conferred, and they all ultimately decided to send the men to Green Vale. Sushila and the children performed rituals to protect Hanuman House and banish misfortune; the children went to sleep and the sisters played cards and read downstairs, with Chinta going back and forth between “her frowning card-playing manner” and the Ramayana she had resolved to be the first of the family’s women to read.

The men returned with Anand sad and sleepy and Mr Biswas in Govind’s arms, “deeply exasperated and fatigued.” Although he had not spoken to Mr Biswas since fighting with him years ago, Govind “put himself on the side of authority,” and Chinta acknowledged this by taking care of Anand. They put Mr Biswas in the Blue Room and gave him sweetened milk with spices, brandy, and butter; he was comforted to be there, better safeguarded from the rain by Hanuman House’s thick walls, but found himself “continually awakening to a new situation” mysteriously linked to disjointed events from his past. He noticed that the objects around them were in their proper places and quickly fell asleep, comforted by the sound of the rain.

The next morning, it was still raining and dark, and the children were excited to stay home from school, investigate the events of the night before, and play outside in the flooded streets. The rain stopped and the town dried up in the mid-morning, and Shama proposed that they bring the furniture in Green Vale to Hanuman House. A trusted Catholic Indian doctor stopped by, prescribed Mr Biswas a regime of vitamins, and proposed he see a specialist in Port of Spain. Then, the thaumaturge came to purify the Blue Room; the miracle worker proposed hanging aloe in doorways and windows and getting a black doll, and unsuccessfully offered Mr Biswas a concoction.

The Tulsis hung the aloe and black doll, and then moved in Mr Biswas’s still-soaked furniture. Savi was frustrated that the children “misused” the rocking chair by fighting to pull one another off it, so she complained to Shama, who told her not to worry about it. A few of Mr Biswas’s painted placards were also put up in the hall and Book Room.

As he “slept and woke and slept again” in darkness, Mr Biswas found comfort in “the absence of the world” and peace in surrendering, which led him to “this worldless room, this nothingness.” He felt distant from the depressed mindset that had so thoroughly enveloped him.

Pratap and Prasad visited Hanuman House, treating the children kindly but underestimating their number and chatting politely with their brother Mr Biswas. So did Ramchand, who was now working as a warden at Port of Spain’s Lunatic Asylum and recommended that Mr Biswas, like his patients, listen to music on a gramophone. He also suggested Mr Biswas join him and Dehuti in Port of Spain; on his way out, Sushila and Chinta commented on his evident low caste.

Later that night, Seth visited Mr Biswas, who neither wanted to nor even could return to Green Vale—the people there burned his house down, and although Mr Biswas cried, he was overjoyed and relieved at the news, noticing his anxiety and anguish disappear, feeling incredibly grateful to Seth and somehow wanting “to embrace him, to promise eternal friendship, to make some vow.”

Shama gave birth that night, but Mr Biswas never recorded it in his Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare book. The midwife took care of the new daughter in the Rose Room, and Mr Biswas took his medicines. He realized that his fingernails were healing and felt himself overcoming his “periods of darkness,” gaining strength through his confinement in the Blue Room. He even got nearly all the children drinking Ovaltine, which was part of his treatment.

Feeling “safe and even a little adventurous,” Mr Biswas left the Blue Room and found Hari on the verandah, wondering how he became so respected among the family for his knowledge of Sanskrit and scripture. Mr Biswas thought for a second that he, too, could become an esteemed pundit but stepped back to take stock of his life and discovered that he had found no true vocation his entire life and would soon have to do something about it. However, this did not worry him, for his unparalleled dissatisfaction at Green Vale was now his gold standard for misery, and he now he recognized how lucky he was for his children to have food and shelter.

Slowly, Mr Biswas spent his remaining money on Ovaltine; soon, he had to vacate the Blue Room in anticipation of Owad’s return. Not wanting to interact with him or Mrs Tulsi and not wanting to live elsewhere in Hanuman House, Mr Biswas packed his clothes and paintbrushes in a small cardboard suitcase and set out early in the morning “into the world, to test for its power to frighten,” to finally plunge himself into “real life.”

Mr Biswas thought about going to meet Shama and her new baby but “his senses recoiled” at the idea, and he left as soon as the children left for school. High Street was bustling with vendors, and he felt he could safely ignore his fears, as though “the world had been restored to him.”