September 23, 2022
Honor by Thrity Umrigar
Smita is an Indian American journalist who lives in New York and works for a major U.S. newspaper. When the local journalist is hospitalized due to an accident, Smita is assigned to cover the story of an Indian woman named Meeta whose brothers murdered her husband and left her horribly disfigured. Because Meena is a Hindu and she married a Muslim man, her brothers were outraged at how she disgraced their family honor, and their honor in their village. Although she was born in India, Smita has not been back for over 20 years, and while the cities are quite modern, rural areas like the village where Meena lived are the same as they were a hundred years ago, except for the village head man. The case forces Smita to revisit the secrets in her own painful past. At the same time, she finds herself increasingly attracted to an Indian man named Mohan. Smita can't help contrasting her own ability to have a love affair with Mohan, against the sadness of Meena's love story.
Wonderful writing, well narrated, horrible story. Meena's story is just so sad. From everything that I've read and seen about India, it sounds like a terrible place to live if you are a woman. It is incomprehensible that two men would murder their sister and her husband just because of some ancient notion of honor. At the beginning of the story, Mohan expresses his belief that India is the most wonderful place in the world. He has lived all his life in the city of Mumbai, and the closest he has been to a rural area is his family's country estate. The way Meena and her sister lived was like a revelation to him. The contrast between city life and rural life in India could not be greater - Indian villages look virtually the same as they have for hundreds of years. I did like the way Smita's story worked out, even though the novel reinforced my belief that India is one of the places that I have no desire to visit.
Mumbai, 21st century
Rural India. 21st century
