Climate Change and Scarcity: The Collapse of Hope in A Guardian and a Thief

Thematic Claim: Scarcity Strips Away Morality, Leaving Only Survival

In A Guardian and a Thief, Megha Majumdar presents a near-future Kolkata where climate change has ravaged agriculture, water supplies, and daily life. The novel’s core thematic claim is that environmental collapse and resource scarcity do not merely create hardship—they systematically dismantle the moral frameworks that once held society together. Every character, whether stealing food, forging documents, or looting a billionaire’s estate, acts from a place of ferocious love for family. Yet the very conditions of scarcity force these loves into collision, revealing that when survival is at stake, the line between guardian and thief blurs and finally disappears.

Scarcity as Daily Violence: The Collapse of the Market

The novel opens on Day 1 with a stark scene: Ma steals rice and eggs from the shelter where she works to feed her family. The narrative immediately establishes that the shortage is not a temporary crisis but a systemic failure. Farmers have fallen to fevers in air that no longer cools; pests devour grain; drought and saltwater have ruined croplands. In the markets, vendors sell only sheets of seaweed—an alien food that Ma refuses, while Mishti cries for cauliflower. Dadu, haunted by memories of famines past (1770, 1876, 1943), voices the dread that this crisis is becoming historical.

Even getting to the consulate requires a rickshaw ride through a heatwave that makes the air an enemy. The rickshaw driver speaks of water distribution as a mere show—the bottled water boiled in the sun. Everyday acts of procurement become life-threatening ordeals. Ma’s theft from the shelter is presented as a natural response: she sees no alternative to feeding her daughter. This early theft establishes the pattern: shortage turns ordinary people into rule-breakers, and the line between acceptable and criminal action begins to dissolve.

Dadu’s Desperate Lies and the Ration Shop

Dadu’s journey to the ration shop on Day 4 deepens the portrait of scarcity’s psychological toll. Unable to bear Mishti’s hunger, he leaves home at night despite his age and exhaustion. At the shop, he finds a crowd of mostly women shouting at a cigarette-smoking owner who has skimmed supplies for himself. Dadu lies, claiming Mishti has diabetes, to evoke sympathy. The crowd’s response is immediate—they pounce on the owner, shoving him. Dadu’s lie is small, but it demonstrates how scarcity forces even a gentle grandfather to manipulate and deceive. He justifies his lie with the thought that “the pain of others was never as acute or compelling as one’s own pain.” This is a key moral calculus: scarcity shrinks empathy to the radius of one’s own family.

The scene also shows the breakdown of civic order. The ration shop is supposed to be a lifeline, but hoarding and corruption make it another site of struggle. Dadu’s earlier hope in the city’s resilience is fading—he realizes that his granddaughter’s hunger is unbearable and unbelievable. Scarcity has turned the city into a place where a child’s need justifies any action.

The Hexagon Looting: When Desperation Becomes Mob Action

The most explosive demonstration of scarcity’s power comes on Day 5, during the billionaire’s feast at the hexagon. Shanto, a ferry driver, leads an invasion of the compound after the guests receive only insults and crumbs. The mob, seeing food and medicine hoarded by the ultra-wealthy, rushes in. Boomba, who has brought Mishti to the island, joins the looting. He grabs a globe made of gemstones and, after spotting a fallen sack of rice, takes that too. The scene captures how systemic inequality, exacerbated by climate collapse, transforms a party into a riot. The billionaire’s guards hold their fire initially—not out of compassion, but to avoid bad press. Yet when the looting spreads to structures beyond the kitchen, she orders warning shots, and panic ensues.

Boomba’s looting is opportunistic, but also driven by his family’s constant hunger. The sack of rice—a staple that has become nearly impossible to buy—is his primary prize. The hexagon episode shows that scarcity does not create greed, but rather a desperate need to secure what should be available for all. The crowd, including parents with children, acts collectively because they “needed the food more than the billionaire did.” This is a direct challenge to the idea that property rights can survive when people are starving.

The Collapse of Escape: Flights Canceled

On Day 7, Ma and Mishti finally reach the airport, only to discover that all flights to America have been canceled due to American protests against climate immigrants. The looting at the hexagon has become a global news story, used by opponents of immigration to ground the planes. Scarcity has now destroyed even the possibility of escape. Ma had invested all hope in the climate visa—a lifeline that required years of documentation and waiting. Now she is stranded back in Kolkata with no future.

The cancellation is not merely an administrative failure; it is a direct consequence of the same scarcity logic that drives the novel. Americans, fearing competition for resources, close the door. Ma’s story becomes a symbol of how environmental collapse creates cascading failures: food shortages lead to looting, looting leads to political backlash, and the safety valve of emigration is shut. The novel’s final scenes show Ma returning to her house to find Boomba’s family occupying it, leading to a violent confrontation that may end her life. Scarcity has brought the two families into a fatal collision.

Symbol Connections

Several symbols in the novel tie directly to the theme of scarcity:

Passports: The stolen passports are the ultimate scarce resource—the legal ticket to a place where food, water, and safety exist. Their loss and later recovery (via a dump) represent how precarious hope is in a collapsing world. The forged passport with blurred ink underscores that even escape mechanisms are unreliable.
Pressure Cooker: This kitchen tool, normally used to cook scarce food faster, becomes a weapon in the final confrontation. Boomba’s father strikes Ma with it, symbolizing how the tools of survival turn into instruments of violence when scarcity reaches its peak.
Parrot: The parrot is used by Boomba as a distraction to break into Ma’s house. It represents the cleverness that scarcity forces—the need to use any available means, even a bird, to secure shelter.
Scooby-Doo T-shirt: The stolen T-shirt, later identified by a shopkeeper, links Boomba to the theft of clothes from a line. It shows that scarcity drives even minor thefts, and that objects once considered trivial become precious.

Character Ties

Ma is a guardian forced to become a thief—she steals from her own shelter. Boomba is a thief who sees himself as a guardian for his family, stealing to feed them. Both operate from love, but their paths cross disastrously. Dadu lies and bargains food for crayons, embodying the erosion of his former dignity. Mishti, the two-year-old, is the innocent whose hunger drives all actions. She cries for cauliflower and later asks if the plane is “stuck in a tree,” representing the incomprehensibility of collapse to a child. Boomba’s family—his father Bapi, mother, and brother Robi—enter the house as squatters, completing the cycle: the thieves become occupiers.

Complexity and Contradiction

Majumdar avoids easy morality. Ma’s theft from the shelter is framed sympathetically, yet it deprives other needy families. Dadu’s lie at the ration shop works, but he knows he is exploiting others’ sympathy. Boomba’s looting at the hexagon is both a justified rebellion and a crime that endangers Mishti. The novel asks: When the system fails, who decides which theft is acceptable? The billionaire hoards food while children starve, yet her property is defended by guards. The answer is unsettling: scarcity makes everyone complicit. There are no villains, only survivors—and some survive by crushing others.

The final invasion of Ma’s house is the ultimate contradiction. Boomba, who earlier showed kindness to Mishti (giving her sweets, carrying her during the looting), now displaces her family and possibly kills her mother. The same ferocious love that made him a protector also makes him a destroyer. The novel refuses to resolve this tension; it leaves us with the image of homeless children asleep on a bus-stop bench, suggesting that scarcity will continue to create victims on all sides.

Study Questions

How does the novel use the contrast between the city’s past abundance (chickens, okra, biryani) and its present scarcity to emphasize loss?
Answer: The narrative repeatedly juxtaposes nostalgic memories of well-stocked kitchens and vibrant markets with the current reality of seaweed and empty shelves. This contrast, seen in Ma’s farewell to her stove and Dadu’s memories of past famines, underscores that scarcity is not a temporary shortage but a collapse of an entire way of life. The loss is both material and emotional—the city itself has become unrecognizable.
In what ways does the hexagon looting scene challenge the idea of property rights during a climate crisis?
Answer: The looting is presented as a mass response to extreme inequality: the billionaire hoards enough food to feed hundreds while her guests receive crumbs. The mob takes only what it needs—food, medicine, a raincoat. The novel frames this as an inevitable consequence of hoarding, implying that property rights are untenable when people are starving. The billionaire’s concern for “bad press” over her guests’ lives further critiques capitalist priorities.
How does Dadu’s lie about Mishti’s diabetes reflect the moral compromises scarcity forces?
Answer: Dadu, a gentle and principled man, lies to the ration shop owner to gain sympathy. He knows other mothers in the crowd have genuinely sick children, but he rationalizes that his own granddaughter’s hunger outweighs others’ needs. This moment reveals that scarcity shrinks empathy: survival instinct overrides honesty and fairness. His lie works, but it damages his sense of self.
Compare Ma’s theft from the shelter with Boomba’s theft of clothes from the line. Are these acts morally different?
Answer: Both are driven by family need. Ma steals food from a shelter she manages, depriving other beneficiaries; Boomba steals a T-shirt from a family’s clothesline. Ma’s theft is systematic and premeditated, while Boomba’s is opportunistic. Yet both operate in a system where legal channels fail. The novel suggests they are morally equivalent—both are guardians acting out of love, both are thieves in a broken world. The only difference is whose perspective the reader inhabits.
Why does the novel end with the image of homeless children asleep on a bus-stop bench?
Answer: The final image underscores that scarcity’s victims are ultimately the most vulnerable—children who have lost their families or homes. It echoes Mishti’s earlier plea for “flowerflower” and cauliflower, now unmet. The bench is a public space, but there is no shelter, no food, no adult protection. The ending refuses closure or hope, insisting that environmental collapse has no easy resolution. It challenges readers to consider systemic change rather than individual heroism.