A House for Mr. Biswas

After the prologue, the narrative returns to a time before the birth of Mr. Biswas. His mother Bipti and his father Raghu are Indians who now live on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Like India, Trinidad is part of the British Empire. Demand for cheap labor in Trinidad grew in the late 1800s following the abolition of slavery and many Indians emigrated across the Empire in search of work.

When Bipti is pregnant, she argues with her spendthrift husband and leaves him. She lives with her mother, Bissoondaye, which is where she gives birth to Mr. Biswas. The birth is celebrated with the arrival of a wise man, colloquially referred to as a pundit. Many aspects of Mr. Biswas's birth displease the pundit. The baby was born as midnight, and he was born "the wrong way" (13). Mr. Biswas has an extra finger on one hand, which is also deemed disturbing. The pundit predicts that Mr. Biswas will grow up to be a cheap lecher and a liar, a person whose sneeze alone can bring bad luck. The pundit warns that Bipti must keep her baby away from Raghu for 21 days and that she should always keep her child away from "water in its natural form" (14), such as rivers and streams. Eight days after the birth, Mr. Biswas's extra finger falls off. Bipti buries it. She holds a celebration for his birth when he is nine days old and she is horrified that Raghu attends, even though he is not invited. She tells him about the pundit's predictions, and he promises to leave and return when the allotted time is finished. Whenever he wants to look at his son, he must use a shiny surface to see the baby's reflection rather than look at the baby directly.

Bipti and her baby return to live with Raghu. He works as a laborer on the vast sugar estate but stays at home any day when he hears Mr. Biswas's "particularly unlucky" (16) sneeze. Raghu is notoriously cheap and refuses to share all his wages with his family, choosing instead to bury the money in a secret location, so much that rumors spread that he is "the richest man in the village" (17). These rumors panic Raghu and make him even more miserly. Mr. Biswas—whose full name is Mohun Biswas—is the youngest of four children. His growth is hindered by malnutrition and regular outbreaks of sores. His two brothers, Prasad and Pratap, care for the buffalo on the sugar estate while his sister Dehuti is too young to work. One day, the young Biswas is given care of a neighbor's calf. However, he is distracted by seeing "the forbidden stream" (18) for the first time and the calf wanders away. Biswas panics. He fears punishment from his parents, so he believes that "the best thing for him to do" (19) is to hide at home. A crowd searches for him but they cannot find him. Raghu worries that his son is at "the bottom of that pond" (21), so he dives in to save him, speaking loudly about his "duty" (22). He finds the drowned calf, but he cannot find his son. Diving deeper still, he disappears from view. Mr. Biswas appears behind the crowd. He sneezes. Raghu does not come back. He drowns in the pond and his body is dragged back to the surface. A funeral is arranged, and Raghu is buried while Bipti becomes "a widow forever" (23).

Raghu's death leaves the family in dire financial straits so that they must "split up for good" (25). Bipti turns to her sister, Tara, who is more successful than the Biswas family. Tara offers Dehuti a job as her servant, while inviting Bipti and Mr. Biswas to live in the house she shares on the sugar estate with several relatives. Meanwhile, Pratap and Prasad are forced to move to a more distant sugar plantation in search of work. As they are the eldest children and have the most experience with work, Bipti hopes that they can make enough money to help the family. The wages which Raghu buried are never found, even though Bipti (and many neighbors) search for a long time. The two elder brothers are upset by their neighbors' greed while the family is grieving. Bipti has no one to call, so she tells her sons to leave the neighbors to dig up the garden in their desperate search for Raghu's buried money. When they leave the house, Mr. Biswas begins the defining part of his life in which he is a "wanderer" (28) with no home of his own.

The buried money is never found, but many years later, the area where Mr. Biswas spent his first years is "found to be rich with oil" (29). Mr. Biswas moves to Pagotes, where his aunt Tara and uncle Ajodha live. After "official notice" (31) is made of his existence with a birth certificate, he is sent to a Canadian Mission School where he meets a fellow student named Alec. To the amazement of the other students, Alec knows how to turn his urine a "clear, light turquoise" (32). He does this by stealing kidney medicine from his sister-in-law. With Alec's help, Mr. Biswas discovers that he has a talent for lettering. He can draw precise and legible letters on signs. Despite his talent, he spends six unhappy years at the Canadian Mission School. During this time, he and his mother live in a small hut on Tara's property and the embarrassment for his poor living conditions fills him with "anger and depression" (33). Tara looks down on Mr. Biswas and Bipti, turning to them only when she wants to impress people. Mr. Biswas is a member of the Brahmin caste; the Indians who emigrated to Trinidad brought with them the Hindu caste system, a social stratification of society in which every person is assigned to a ranked group of castes. The Brahmin are considered to be priests and teachers. As such, they are one of the most respected groups and the presence of Brahmins on Tara's property is a notable novelty for her friends when she hosts Hindu ceremonies. At these times, Mr. Biswas is "respected as a Brahmin and pampered" (34) but then immediately returns to his low status as a poor laborer's son.

Tara decides that her nephew should become a pundit, the wise men like the one who made significant predictions shortly after the birth of Mr. Biswas. Despite his unhappiness, Mr. Biswas is a good student, so he is surprised that he must spend eight months learning about Hinduism and Indian culture. The man who teaches him is a cruel, severe pundit named Jairam. One day, Mr. Biswas does not ask before eating two bananas gifted to Jairam by a devotee, believing that they will "not be missed" (35). He is wrong and Jairam is furious. His punishment is to eat seven bananas, making him sick. Afterwards, he feels constipated, and this is the first of many instances of "stomach trouble" (37) that Mr. Biswas experiences in his lifetime. The constipation issues mean that, in the following days, Mr. Biswas is forced to use a handkerchief to wipe himself after using the bathroom. He throws this handkerchief from a window, where it drops onto an oleander bush. The flowers of this bush are used in Hindu rituals but now it is considered soiled. Jairam is so disgusted that he ends Mr. Biswas's education and sends him home, insisting that Mr. Biswas "will never make a pundit" (38).

Mr. Biswas returns home to learn that Dehuti has eloped with a laborer, a man with such low status that he is considered to be "the lowest of the low" (39). Her sudden marriage is insulting to Tara, who now sends Mr. Biswas to work in her husband's rum shop.

The shop is owned by Ajodha but run by Ajodha's brother, Bhandat, who drinks heavily, beats his wife, and keeps "a mistress of another race" (40). Like his time as a trainee pundit, Mr. Biswas is treated badly by Bhandat, who thinks that Mr. Biswas is spying on him for Ajodha. The customers in the shop sarcastically ridicule Mr. Biswas as "a real smart man" (41) so Mr. Biswas spits in their drinks. Bhandat has two sons who are fascinated by women and sex, as they are "full of scandalous and incredible revelations about sex" (42). Mr. Biswas realizes that Bhandat's paranoia is fueled by his constant embezzlement of funds and the fact that he frequently steals from the shop. One day, a drunken Bhandat accuses Mr. Biswas of stealing. He beats him and sends him away. Rejecting the need for help from his aunt and uncle, Mr. Biswas decides that he should be more independent and "get a job on [his] own" (44). While searching fruitlessly for a job, he meets his sister's husband Ramchand, who now has a well-paying manual labor job. The couple lives in a small but well-kept home, but Dehuti seems "careworn and sulky" (47), unlike her charismatic husband. Mr. Biswas and Dehuti struggle to rekindle their old relationship and they have become "separate" (48). After, Mr. Biswas returns to his talent for sign writing. He and Alec plan to start a business together. At this time, he is beginning to worry that he is "never going to get married" (51).