Babu finds peace and joy in the marble chippings that make art out of the floors he creates.
The narrator explains that Babu's preferences were tiles in the beginning. He was completely preoccupied with tiles. However, he changed his focus to marble chipping that he could use to mix with...
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cement and then lay it all out as a slab on the floor. This change is how the narrator says Babu achieved the mason's nirvana.
Babu explains to the narrator's father that the marble chips bring peace of mind. They are expensive but that money brings peace. It brings a beautiful and cool floor that cools a person down when they walk on it. That makes it worth the added expense.
As the world changes, Babu is less respected and finds it harder to get work. His attitude and willingness to be strict make it so that he isn't getting work. When the narrator is married with a child, he recognizes that Babu has become an old man who now does handy work for money and doesn't talk about the marble chips he loved so much anymore.
The narrator gives him a job to help with their home but warns him that he can't afford the marble chips for the floors. They have to be plain cement. Babu says he understands and works hard to surprise the narrator and his wife. When he unveils the house, they find out he's spent his life's savings and his daughter's dowry to give them the marble floors—his art—that he loves so much.