Chapter 2 travels back in time to the summer of 1947, when the country is on the cusp of Independence and possible Partition. Tensions between Hindus and Muslims have increased, The wealthy Muslim Hyder Ali has moved his family to Southern India, where he hopes to avoid the expected violence of the Punjab—a region that straddles the newly drawn border between India and Pakistan.

Raja has fallen ill and doesn’t leave the house, although the narrator does not share details of his illness with the reader until later in the section. Bim sees her brother as a hero, different from the other young men of his generation. She is still in love with the English Romantic poetry of Tennyson and Byron. Her brother, however, is moving deeper into his appreciation of Urdu poetry, something Bim cannot share with him.

Raja has been spending more time studying Urdu in Hyder Ali’s private library, and he considers his house odd and drab in comparison to the vibrancy of his wealthy Muslim landlord’s home and family. Raja wants to go to the Muslim Jamia—a university in New Delhi—to pursue his higher education, but his father, who is usually too distracted playing cards at his club, denies his son’s request.