Born Behind Bars

“Beyond the bars, framed by the high, square window, slides a small patch of sky. […]

My thoughts, always eager to escape, shoot out and try to picture the whole sky—even the whole huge world.

But my imagination has many missing pieces, like the jigsaw puzzle in the schoolroom. All I’ve learned here in nine years, from my mother and my teachers is not enough to fill the gaps.

Still, it doesn’t stop me from imagining we’re free, Amma and me, together, exploring the wide-open world that lives beyond the bars.”

Throughout the text, a jigsaw puzzle symbolizes the outside world and Kabir’s place in it. Having literally lived his entire young life in prison, he currently can’t imagine what the outside world is like or how he might fit into it, but he knows that, no matter what, he belongs by Amma’s side.

“‘But, Amma, what’s the point of being good if the police might lock you up anyway? Especially if you’re poor like us?’ I’d asked.

‘If you’re good, God will be happy,’ Amma said. […]

‘Never mind about God, boy!’ Grandma Knife told me. ‘Be good for your own sake. If you’re good and make friends with good people, you’ll have a better chance of a good life once you get out of here.’ […]

I decide I’d better be good […] most of all, because I know it’ll make Amma happy. […]

Amma beams me a smile sweeter than the candy melting on my tongue. I’m glad I was good, because her smile will stay inside me long after the candy is gone.”

Adults give Kabir several reasons to be “good,” but preventing more prison time isn’t really one of them, because due to caste-based prejudice, he could easily get sent back regardless, just as Amma was sent to prison originally. To Kabir, the best reason to be good isn’t to help himself or even avoid Hell but to please Amma; this helps develops The Importance of Friendship and Family as a theme.

“Before this, Amma was a maid in a house where a rich family lived. A house is a place filled with rooms, and all the rooms belong to just one family. In houses, doors are locked from the inside. In houses, doors don’t have bars through which guards can peek in anytime.”

This quote develops the difference between a house (a type of building) and a home (which is more than a building, a place filled with people who care for each other). However, some aspects of prison don’t match Amma’s ideal home, despite their being together there. Amma’s idea of home isn’t just being together but being free together, as they eventually are when Amma comes to live in Patti and Thatha’s apartment, which may not be a “house” either but is surely a “home.