Review: Honor by Thrity Umrigar
A tale of two couples and the sometimes dangerous challenges of love across religious and cultural divides
Smita, an Indian-American journalist, whose family had moved from Mumbai with no intention of ever returning, reluctantly goes back to India to cover a story. As she follows the case of Meena, a Hindu woman attacked and ostracized by her own family and village for marrying a Muslim man, Abdul, Smita comes face to face with complex social norms and, in the process, pieces together a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of her own past. As she grows from an unwilling bystander reluctant to cover a story to a deeply involved champion of Meena’s rights, Smita goes through an emotional journey that brings her face-to-face with judicial, social and individual failures.
The narrative voice is firmly female and moves from Smita to Meena who recounts the tender moments she shared with Abdul, the victim of a brutal “honour killing”. Umrigar deftly ties together disparate elements and sub plots spread across time zones and the divide between rural and urban India as she also exposes the fault lines within a seemingly progressive city. Through this documenting of human bias, prejudice, violence, caste discrimination and the divisions of faith, Umrigar paints an emotive landscape of familial ties. Meena recounts her sister’s assertion that the “true colour of the world” is the green of trees and the blue of skies while “anger is black. Shame and scandal are black, Betrayal is black. Hatred is black…”
The budding romance between Smita and Mohan, the Indian man she meets while on assignment and finds herself drawn to, is a parallel thread. She is “filled with an intense desire to study Mohan, like learning a foreign language that would open up new vistas.” Mohan taking her hand in his makes her cry harder because of “everything that gesture telegraphed -- sympathy, solidarity, caring.”
Inspired by Ellen Barry’s news articles about India in the New York Times, Honor is a poignant and tender tale of love, hope, betrayal, faith, sacrifice and notions of honour in a society. It examines gender roles, ideas of proprietorship over women, discrimination and violence that’s both mental and physical. It also explores inter faith love and the power of restrictive invisible boundaries created and enforced by society, and the ideas of family honour, masculine pride and the clash of cultures. Within this canvas, lies the story of two powerful everyday women who are trying to be true to their homelands and themselves.
A tale ultimately of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide, Honor by Thrity Umrigar is an immersive read.
Swati Rai is a communication skills trainer and freelance writer.