Bombay Time

by Thrity Umrigar

Book Overview

Bestselling author Thrity Umrigar's deeply felt first novel set in modern India, Bombay Time.

At the wedding of a young man from a middle-class apartment building in Bombay, the men and women of this unique community gather together and look back on their youthful, idealistic selves and consider the changes the years have wrought. The lives of the Parsi men and women who grew up together in Wadi Baug are revealed in all their...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312286236
• ISBN13: 9780312286231
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Skillful use of words

This book was good all around. A very light and easy read. 1. It shows us that people seem to like to be miserable wherever they are and at whatever time we choose to observe them. It doesn't seem to depend on anything. 2. The length was neither too long nor too short. Some books just drag on and on and on. In addition to the strong characterizations, the author gave us an idea of the magnitude of poverty in India and the destructive nature of the caste system that people don't seem to want to emerge from no matter how many centuries pass. 3. The characters were very well developed and believable. Again, just enough detail was used-- but not too much. And many of these characters are something that we might imagine having seen in real life.

Beautiful, Enthralling, Memorable

I was completely enthralled with the book and the characters. I absolutely love Thrity Umrigar's writing style and the way in which she was able to make the reader truly identify with each of the characters, their lives, their pains. I have to say that the most disappointing part of the book, was when it ended.I could NOT put this book down. This author has a special way of really making you feel like you are inside the characters heads and hearts. I think this is a wonderful book about India, but for ANYONE and EVERYONE, from any country in any culture. If you are interested in reading a book rich with emotion and culture, a book that you will think about long after you are finished, and make you hungry for more of these people, and this author, THIS is the book to read! I honestly cried at several points and had to put the book down to contemplate the emotion and thoughts that were conjured up in me. I also laughed heartily at moments.I carried this book with me everywhere, stealing a sentence here and there while at work, and reading it everynight for about 3 days until I greedily ate up every word. This is a book you can finish in one sitting, but to savoir it, I would recommend spanning it over a couple days, if you can bare it!

Deeply Moving

Thrity Umrigar's Bombay Time is one of the best recent books from the Indian subcontinenet. It tells the stories of the residents of Wadia Baug, a block of apartments mainly peopled with Parsis. Each story is told simply and beautifully, with conviction and honesty. All the stories meld into a whole which is held together by the wedding of one of the residents. Thrity has two of the most important attributes of a great novelist: a great ability to tell a story and a huge heart. Each character is made compelling by her compassion and respect for their meager lives.It is somewhat unfortunate for Thrity that she is treading on the same ground as Rohinton Mistry who is another of the great novelists of our time. However, this should not in any way diminish her book except perhaps to those who read books from India as an exploration in the exotic rather than the universal human condition.If you can afford only one book this year, this should be the one!

a charming and sensitive novel

In Bombay Time, Thrity Umrigar focusses on a small neighbourhood community of Parsi Indians. All share a common bond for the apartment block that they share, and a common bond of heritage and religion.On the face of it, the characters all have a reasonably high standard of living, but Umrigar scratches the surface to guide us to the real hearts of the characters. The starting point for this exploration is the tail end of a wedding reception for the son of one of the couples, when the only guests left are those that have grown old together. The groom, Mehernosh, has grown up in the company of all the favoured guests, and has surprised most of them by returning to Bombay after studying law in the US. Each successive chapter concentrates on one or two of the reception guests, and reflects upon formative incidents in their lives. These incidents may have left them physically or mentally scarred, but all have grown through their pain into new more fully-fledged people. For the final two chapters, all the characters are brought together to share joy and fleeting pain, and all again finish the evening wiser than they started. Although very much in the background, the city of Bombay too develops its character as the novel progresses. Umrigar writes beautifully and sensitively, and I recommend highly this delicate and thoughtful novel.

A Little Piece of India

Of late, a suprising number of novels coming out of the Indian diaspora have focused on small apartment buildings within Bombay: SWIMMING LESSONS, BEACH BOY, SUCH A LONG JOURNEY, and THE DEATH OF VISHNU are a few outstanding examples. Each has in common a deeply felt affection for the people and families who live in the building, many of whom have lived in close proximity for generations, and rich understanding of the complexities of the lives of these people. BOMBAY TIME can proudly take its place with these fine novels. Thrity Umrigar has a lively, sympathetic but unsentimental view of her richly diverse characters. Her writing is lush and sensuous, conveying in few words the smells and sounds and colors and heat of a decaying but vital community. Her ability to convey the heart of her characters is striking, making reading her work a pleasure. Though each of these novels focus on a small Bombay community, each is its own gift. In the case of BOMBAY TIME, it is each individual character who provides a gift to the reader, the gift of understanding how another sees the world, and another way to make sense of the world. I finished BOMBAY TIME sadly, knowing I would miss each character, from the odiferous Tehmi to the rageful Coomi. Each character was memorable and gave me yet another little piece of India, another little piece of humanity. I cannot recommend it highly enough.