Boori Ma
E1011920
Bengali woman
destitute person
elderly woman
fictional character
literary character
short story character
Boori Ma is a destitute, elderly Bengali woman who serves as the self-appointed gatekeeper of an old Calcutta apartment building in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “A Real Durwan.”
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Boori Ma canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T12944100 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Boori Ma Context triple: [A Real Durwan, mainCharacter, Boori Ma]
-
A.
Bugaloo
Bugaloo is a minor character in the 1994 basketball-themed drama film "Above the Rim."
-
B.
Ballu
Ballu is a French surname most notably associated with architect Albert Ballu.
-
C.
Taroombal
Taroombal is a clan of the Darumbal Aboriginal people, a First Nations group traditionally associated with the Rockhampton region of central Queensland, Australia.
-
D.
Baashha
Baashha is a hugely popular 1995 Tamil action film starring Rajinikanth, celebrated for its iconic dialogues, mass appeal, and enduring cult status in Indian cinema.
-
E.
Mookajji
Mookajji is the wise, introspective grandmother figure at the heart of the Kannada novel "Mookajjiya Kanasugalu," known for her visionary dreams and philosophical reflections on life and tradition.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Boori Ma Target entity description: Boori Ma is a destitute, elderly Bengali woman who serves as the self-appointed gatekeeper of an old Calcutta apartment building in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “A Real Durwan.”
-
A.
Bugaloo
Bugaloo is a minor character in the 1994 basketball-themed drama film "Above the Rim."
-
B.
Ballu
Ballu is a French surname most notably associated with architect Albert Ballu.
-
C.
Taroombal
Taroombal is a clan of the Darumbal Aboriginal people, a First Nations group traditionally associated with the Rockhampton region of central Queensland, Australia.
-
D.
Baashha
Baashha is a hugely popular 1995 Tamil action film starring Rajinikanth, celebrated for its iconic dialogues, mass appeal, and enduring cult status in Indian cinema.
-
E.
Mookajji
Mookajji is the wise, introspective grandmother figure at the heart of the Kannada novel "Mookajjiya Kanasugalu," known for her visionary dreams and philosophical reflections on life and tradition.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Bengali woman
ⓘ
destitute person ⓘ elderly woman ⓘ fictional character ⓘ literary character ⓘ short story character ⓘ |
| ageStatus | elderly ⓘ |
| analyzedFor |
themes of memory and loss
ⓘ
themes of migration ⓘ urban class dynamics in Calcutta ⓘ |
| appearsIn |
"A Real Durwan"
ⓘ
"Interpreter of Maladies" ⓘ
linked to:
Interpreter of Maladies
|
| associatedWith |
memory
ⓘ
nostalgia ⓘ post-Partition displacement ⓘ poverty ⓘ social marginalization ⓘ |
| characterIn | a short story set in post-Partition India ⓘ |
| createdBy | Jhumpa Lahiri ⓘ |
| economicStatus |
homeless
ⓘ
poor ⓘ |
| ethnicity | Bengali ⓘ |
| featuredIn |
South Asian American literature syllabi
ⓘ
postcolonial literature courses ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | 1999 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedInCollection |
"Interpreter of Maladies"
ⓘ
linked to:
Interpreter of Maladies
|
| gender | female ⓘ |
| hasRole |
durwan
ⓘ
gatekeeper ⓘ |
| knownFor |
guarding the entrance of the building
ⓘ
sweeping the stairwell of the apartment building ⓘ telling elaborate stories about her past ⓘ |
| language | Bengali ⓘ |
| literaryFunction |
symbol of class tensions
ⓘ
symbol of displacement ⓘ symbol of unreliable memory ⓘ |
| nameOf | Boori Ma ⓘ |
| nationality | Indian ⓘ |
| occupation | self-appointed gatekeeper ⓘ |
| publisherOfFirstCollection | Houghton Mifflin ⓘ |
| relationshipToTenants |
caretaker
ⓘ
outsider ⓘ |
| residesIn |
Calcutta
ⓘ
an old Calcutta apartment building ⓘ |
| settingOfLife | a dilapidated Calcutta tenement ⓘ |
| storyCollectionGenre | short story collection ⓘ |
| storyGenre | realist fiction ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Boori Ma Description of subject: Boori Ma is a destitute, elderly Bengali woman who serves as the self-appointed gatekeeper of an old Calcutta apartment building in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “A Real Durwan.”
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.