{"id":5026,"date":"2023-06-30T09:12:09","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T16:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5026"},"modified":"2023-06-30T09:12:09","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T16:12:09","slug":"sujata-massey-the-mistress-of-bhatia-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/sujata-massey-the-mistress-of-bhatia-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Sujata Massey: The Mistress of Bhatia House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perveen Mistry #4<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The much anticipated return of Sujata Massey\u2019s Perveen Mistry is well worth the wait.\u00a0 It opens with this wonderful sentence: \u201cSisters will fight. It\u2019s true whether they are raised together or meet as sisters-in-law in a joint family household.\u201d\u00a0 It sets the tone and theme for the novel, which is about the power of female connection.\u00a0 And murder, of course.<\/p>\n

Perveen the only female lawyer in 1920\u2019s Bombay, lives with her family after a disastrous marriage.\u00a0 As the book opens, she\u2019s attending a fund-raising party for a new women\u2019s hospital at Bhatia House. Her sister-in-law and former best friend, Gulnaz, has just given birth to the family\u2019s first granddaughter, and she cannot attend.\u00a0 In her stead, Perveen is bringing Gulnaz\u2019s donation.<\/p>\n

The party is a mixture of wealthy Indians as well as British, and the family that lives in Bhatia House is managed by two formidable women, sisters in law: Uma and Mangela.\u00a0 Toward the end of the party, there\u2019s an accident, and Uma\u2019s young son catches on fire.\u00a0 He\u2019s saved by the quick action of his ayah, Sunanda, who literally throws herself between the boy and danger, getting badly burned herself.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a doctor at the party who helps the family manage the burns, and she and Perveen strike up a friendship.\u00a0 Massey is so good at dissecting and illuminating the many, many different slices of culture present in India.\u00a0 Perveen and her family are Zoroastrians, and the doctor is Jewish.\u00a0 Because both she and Perveen are both working in typically male professions they have a bond, one which serves them well throughout the story.<\/p>\n

When Perveen is on an errand for her firm the next day, she sees Sunanda under arrest at the jail.\u00a0 Perveen can\u2019t simply stand by and she goes to court, though as a female, she\u2019s not allowed to advocate.\u00a0 Nevertheless, she gets Sunanda, who is accused of abortion, out on bail and takes her home, as one of her bail conditions is that she not return to Bhatia House.\u00a0 And it turns out that despite Sunanda\u2019s heroic action, she\u2019s been fired; and not only that, but the family also withheld the necessary burn care from her, and she\u2019s in a bad way.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Gulnaz is returning home with her new baby, Khushy, and she’s has been prickly, difficult and over the top emotional.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear reading this with a 21st century eye that Gulnaz is probably suffering from post-partum depression, but at the time, all her of family thinks she\u2019s merely overly emotional.<\/p>\n

This is an excellent mystery, and there\u2019s a death as the lynch pin, but the real crime is the accusation of Sunanda.\u00a0 Her accuser is known to no one, and her employers are willing to believe a stranger.\u00a0 Massey\u2019s examination of the way women were treated \u2013 accused of a crime if they aborted a baby, the way they are not listened to, and the way the more powerful members of a family take away their agency, is the true theme of the novel.\u00a0 True to the first sentence, it\u2019s also look at the relationship between Perveen and Gulnaz; at the dynamic between the sisters in law at Bhatia House; and even at the way Sunanda is treated by her own sister-in-law.<\/p>\n

Perveen is fighting with all of it – in a lady like and civilized manner, of course.\u00a0 She will question powerful men as well as a system that imprisons women in their bodies, forcing them to have baby after baby.\u00a0 It\u2019s an incredibly timely topic.\u00a0 The dynamic between the treatment of women and the skillful storytelling that holds the book together makes this a compelling read, one of the best books of the year.\u00a0 This series has always been a standout, but this installment is one of the most powerful, addressing themes of women\u2019s lives in a way Massey has always concerned herself with as a writer, from her Rei Shimura<\/a> series through to this one.\u00a0 This is a writer whose work I always anticipate with delight, and I am never disappointed.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perveen Mistry #4 The much anticipated return of Sujata Massey\u2019s Perveen Mistry is well worth the wait.\u00a0 It opens with this wonderful sentence: \u201cSisters will fight. It\u2019s true whether they are raised together or meet as sisters-in-law in a joint family household.\u201d\u00a0 It sets the tone and theme for the novel, which is about the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[108,10,106,664,107,1219,1220],"class_list":["post-5026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1920s-india","tag-historical","tag-perveen-mistry","tag-soho-crime","tag-sujata-massey","tag-the-mistress-of-bhatia-house","tag-womens-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5093,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026\/revisions\/5093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}