Thrity N Umrigar

Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima's only confidante. A woman who has endured despair...

"Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby--and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that she is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become. His unexpected appearance and assiduous attention revives her and...

American divorcée Armaiti has six months to live and her last wish is to see her three best friends again--Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta, all in Bombay. But Nishta's husband, Iqbal, a fellow university idealist turned fundamentalist, will be the biggest obstacle to fulfilling Armaiti's final desire.

Having lost their beloved only child to a sudden illness, Frank and Ellie Benton hope to rebuild their lives by accepting a job offer in India but find their new home compromised by Frank's efforts to heal his grief through a friendship with a young boy.

"During a terrible heat wave in 1991--the worst in a decade--ten-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects, alone, for seven days, without air conditioning or a fan. With no electricity, the refrigerator and lights do not work. Hot, hungry, and desperate, Anton shatters a window and climbs out. Cutting his leg on the broken glass, he is covered in blood when the police find him. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house...