Featured image: A more modern view of Mumbai, India| Photo from Envato by wirestock

Set in the 1920s, inspired by Bombay’s first female lawyer

by Sally Jane Smith

A visit to India can be a sensory explosion – wherever you turn there is a joyful cacophony of colour and sound. Traffic surges with an incessant orchestra of horns, the bustling crowds are clad in fabrics of every texture, and the air hosts a suite of scents ranging from the rank to the sublime. Each meal bursts with flavour, each monsoon brings a deluge, and each step you take grounds you in this country which, for many of us, feels very different from our own.

In our August book club pick, author Sujata Massey takes us deep into early-20th-century Bombay (present-day Mumbai). The Widows of Malabar Hill has everything a JourneyWoman could want from a novel: a powerful sense of place with recognizable landmarks, insights into the diverse traditions of multicultural Indian society, a sampling of delicious foods, glimpses of architecture both grand and vernacular, and a fast-paced story that will keep you turning the pages. It can be read as a light-hearted romp of a whodunnit, if that’s how the mood takes you. Or you can unwrap the cosy mystery story like a sari, revealing the serious themes that run through the book like strands of gold thread.

Perveen Mistry, the protagonist of the series, is a young Parsi (Indian Zoroastrian) woman in 1920s Bombay. She is also Bombay’s first female lawyer. Because women are prohibited from joining the Bar in this time and place, she works as a solicitor in her father’s firm. Given her own struggles against being sidelined because of her gender, both in her studies and in her home, the routine task of winding up an estate becomes her primary concern: if she doesn’t speak up for the secluded widows of Malabar Hill, who will?

The character of Perveen is inspired by the real historical figure of Cornelia Sorabji, who was born in India in 1866, studied law at Oxford University (although it took three decades for the university to award her the degree she’d earned), and worked to make legal representation accessible for purdahnashins – women living in seclusion according to cultural and religious tradition.

“[Massey] does a wonderful job of taking life in India at the beginning of the 20th century. She gives enough cultural details without overwhelming readers with facts. The two plotlines wonderfully depict the development of the main character and the mystery as it unfolds… Fresh and original.” —Library Journal (starred review)

Download or purchase the book here.

Book Club Discussion Questions: The Widows of Malabar Hill

The story is set in India. Have you ever travelled there? Did the setting feel familiar to you from your own travels?

1. What was your favourite passage or part in the book, and why?
2. Perveen faces enormous challenges as a woman in her profession. How would your own (current or previous) job be affected, if you were not permitted full accreditation because of your gender?
3. What did you think of Perveen’s father’s decision not to display the newspaper article lauding her as Bombay’s first woman solicitor? (Page 6)
4. The book is filled with food references, and there are selections of recipes in the back matter (and on the author’s website). Have you ever cooked – or otherwise sought out – a dish you encountered in a novel?
5. What did you think of Omar Farid, the deceased textile-mill owner, and the provisions he made to take care of his wives, both during his life and after his death?
6. Perveen endures significant negative peer pressure from her fellow students at her university, culminating in a major life decision made on the spur of a moment. What advice might you have given to Perveen at that time?
7. Were you surprised by how Cyrus developed as a character?
8. Have you previously come across particular rules or taboos for menstruating women, either in the books you read, in your travels, or in your own society? How do you feel about them?
9. What did you think of Jamshedji’s strategy during Perveen’s court case in Calcutta (now Kolkata)? Was he right to share such sensitive information publicly? Do you think lawyers should disclose their planned arguments to their clients beforehand?
10. Perveen folds her sari in the style of a Parsi woman – except when it is strategic not to do so – and the book makes it clear that this is distinctly different from the way other Indian women wear their saris (e.g. see page 85). Have you noticed variations in patterns of dress as you’ve travelled from one part of the Indian Subcontinent to another?
11. When you began reading the book, did you know that Perveen was partially inspired by a real historical character? Does knowing this affect the way you feel about the book?
12. Apart from the protagonist, who was your favourite character in the book and why?
13. Were you surprised when you found out ‘whodunnit’?
14. Did you learn anything about India that surprised you?
15. Did the book make you want to travel to India?

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