Bombay Time is the debut novel of Thrity Umrigar, Indian ex-pat and professor at Case Western Reserve University (in my hometown, Cleveland!) I am only recently discovering her work and I am devouring it. She's wonderful. Umrigar really knows how to create characters; their pathos, their idiosyncrasies, their train of thought. She knows how to weave the inner workings of a character's mind with what other characters are thinking about them. She knows how to create relationships - real and complex relationships. My only complaints about her are she tends to get a little one-dimensional when she is describing characters' courtships (usually, she sticks to the standard 'man crazily pursuing woman' plot) and she can be a bit of a downer. But really, that's not even a complaint, because what can I expect, that every author is going to pull a a Jane Austen and serve us up a wedding at the end, neatly tied up in a bow? So, I suppose I retract that complaint and take it as the price one pays for reading fiction.
Bombay Time is a truly wonderful, real book. Several residents of an apartment building in Bombay have gathered together for the wedding of one of their own. They are middle-aged Parsis, all of whom have essentially grown up in and out of each others lives, business, kitchens, relationships. Some are happily married, some are unhappily. Some have lost the loves of their youth. Some were orphans with nothing promised to them, some have not lived up to their promise. Umrigar takes us in and out of the wedding, puling us aside with each character to walk down the corridor of their past. The rituals and customs of India are present on every page, which is to say, all sorts of customs are represented. From arranged marriages to forced sex, from dowrys and in-laws to torrid love affairs, there is no "typical" Indian courtship, career path, or lifestyle. The stories are vastly different, yet could only occur then and there, in India, in the Parsi minority. Umrigar's dialogue is peppered with Indian phrases, and she provides a somewhat incomplete glossary at the end to help the reader. My favorite characters are probably Coomi and Adi. Coomi is an unhappily married woman with a grown daughter who lives in England. She spends most of her days gossiping with a neighbor, often about her own husband. She is an extremely imperfect character, as evidenced by her caustic tongue she unleashes on her husband and her somewhat meddling-but not that bad- mother-in-law. However, she has redeeming qualities, and is likable. She has reached a point in her life where she as mellowed a bit and would like to regain some of the intimacy she has lost with hr husband. Adi is a young man who, while barely out of his teens, did something he regrets. He is a hauntingly sad character, I think for me, because he represents how often one bad decision can color the est of your life. Although I didn't exactly approve of him, I longed for him to forgive himself.
The final chapters of this story are kind of lame, almost like the characters - so loud, so deeply lined and sweaty and just alive- have leaped back onto the page and now are merely written words. Perhaps that is the effect the author desired, since the book wraps late in the night after a long day at the wedding. In spite of the somewhat tired ending, however, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.
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