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The Space Between Us

by Thrity Umrigar

3.88 · rating details · 8,427 ratings · 1,583 reviews

Poignant, evocative, and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate harden...more

Paperback, 321 pages

Published February 1st 2007 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 2005)

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Community Reviews

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Jun 27, 2009

Lee rated it

Shelves: india, 2009-reads, favourites

This is a gorgeous story about friendship, family relationships and the artificial barriers created between the classes in India. From the first page, I was sucked into the life of Bhima, a hardworking servant to an upper middle class, Parsi housewife named Sera. Bombay is powerfully present as the book opens with Bhima awakening to the sounds and smells of the slum around her. I felt I was right inside her head and eavesdropping on the constantly fluctuating emotions of these two women was ...more

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Jul 24, 2007

Glenn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

In Thrity Umrigar's transportive novel, we come to know Bombay, as well as its residents, in its ugliness, its evocative beauty, and its uniqueness; and find how rare and difficult it is for people to transverse different parts of it, geographically and culturally.

Throughout The Space Between Us, there are details presumably unfamiliar to the reader not conversant with the colloquial language of Bombay; the rhyming, the slang; yet, it hardly matters, as the thrust and emotional mean...moreIn Thrity Umrigar's transportive novel, we come to know Bombay, as well as its residents, in its ugliness, its evocative beauty, and its uniqueness; and find how rare and difficult it is for people to transverse different parts of it, geographically and culturally.

Throughout The Space Between Us, there are details presumably unfamiliar to the reader not conversant with the colloquial language of Bombay; the rhyming, the slang; yet, it hardly matters, as the thrust and emotional meaning of each line are apparent, even if not immediately so, and Thrity's ability to communicate the emotional essence of thoughts and conversations rarely leaves doubt about what is happening.

The book delves deeply into the sufferings of women, of any caste, at the hands of men. Men, who either by their comfortable assertions of patriarchal power or by their own dissolution become neglectful, make the lives of the women in “The Space Between Us” a trial, no matter how egalitarian the relationship appears to the outside world. And the men who are not "evil," are merely ineffectual, even their kindest gestures too little to salve the wounds that other men have created.

And yet there are throughout The Space Between moments of intense passion and sensuality between the men and woman portrayed within. Strong feeling that keeps rising up, memory at once healing, wounding, reminding.

We come to see the loyalties between people of different classes. How individuals can be convinced that they have conquered the unavoidable distances that money and station can create, and how the removal of that illusion can be an unforgiving destroyer. And how the instinct for self-preservation may be strong, but without the means to preserve oneself, all the intent in the world can mean nothing.

Even when detailing the worst circumstances, the beauty and the power of the prose drives the reader onward. This is writing with movement, small, and broad, of astonishing economy and painful, precise splendor.(less)

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Jul 17, 2007

Colby rated it

My favorite quote from this book:
"...How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each lon...more

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Oct 05, 2008

Will rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Bhimi is a servant in contemporary Bombay. She works for Sera Dubash. The class divide between them is vast. Yet there are similarities to their lives that bind them across these lines. Bhima is an old woman with calloused feet, mildewy armpits and an affection for chewing tobacco. She is raising her granddaughter, Maya, by herself, her daughter and son-in-law having died of AIDS, her husband having left with their son, Amrit, many years back. Maya, a promising collegian, has dropped out of sch...moreBhimi is a servant in contemporary Bombay. She works for Sera Dubash. The class divide between them is vast. Yet there are similarities to their lives that bind them across these lines. Bhima is an old woman with calloused feet, mildewy armpits and an affection for chewing tobacco. She is raising her granddaughter, Maya, by herself, her daughter and son-in-law having died of AIDS, her husband having left with their son, Amrit, many years back. Maya, a promising collegian, has dropped out of school on finding that she is pregnant. Seraba Dubash is relatively well-to-do. Her children are faring well in the world. A child is on the way to her daughter Dinaz and her husband, Viraf, but this one is welcome. In learning of the history of the two central women we see that they have both suffered. Both had abusive husbands. Sera married into a family in which her mother-in-law was a maniac, constantly criticizing her when she lived with her husband’s family. Her husband turned out to be a true child of his mother, shielding his cruel side from her until after the marriage. Gopal, Bhima’s husband was the light of her life in the beginning of their marriage. But after an accident took three fingers and an unscrupulous company accountant tricked her into signing away all his rights, drink, depression and rage overcame him and he became a dark force, abusing her, blaming her for his misfortunes and ultimately leaving.

Through the eyes of these women we get a taste of how life is lived on either side of the class tracks in India today. Sera cannot expunge her class biases, her racism. Bhima always seems to fall back on low class subservience even when she is in the right.

The shame of Maya’s pregnancy is mirrored by Sera’s pride in Dinaz’s. Maya has an abortion, with the help of Sera, who had already rewarded Bhima’s care of and loyalty to her and her children by paying for Maya’s education.

Although they are from opposite worlds, it is clear that the two women need each other, but their interaction is not quite healthy. Sera never gets past seeing Bhima as a dumb, filthy prole. And while she is more than eager to see the worst in Bhima, who is clean in body and soul, she is blind to the corruption in her own household.

The story comes to a logical conclusion, with a wonderful final sequence in which Bhima unties herself from her anchor of a situation and lightens her emotional burdens, in a magical metaphor. It was quite moving. This is a wonderful book, with moving characters, payload re class and ethnicity in India, a tale with much feeling, nifty book club fodder.
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Oct 13, 2007

Agnes rated it

Meh. This is the kind of novel I used to like - exploring gender and class issues in a foreign setting - but I found it unsatisfying. The author describes the crushing powerlessness of illiteracy and poverty well, but the rest of the book I found overly dramatic.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The one redeeming feature of the book to me was the fact that the two women characters in the book whose lives are profiled, do NOT find a way to bridge the class gap between them. However, t...more

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Aug 17, 2011

Sweetdhee rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: bahasa-indonesia-terjemahan, punya

hati-hati dengan lelaki yang penuh dengan pesona..
#halah

Bhima, seorang pelayan yang mengabdi kepada keluarga Sera semenjak masih gadis
Mengalami pahitnya cinta yang hilang karena liciknya perlakuan terhadap kaum buruh yang dialami suaminya
Hingga suaminya pergi bersama anak lelaki kebanggaannya entah kemana
Anak perempuannya meninggal bersama dengan menantunya karena AIDS

Yang tertinggal hanya cucu nya, Maya
Yang ia besarkan sepenuh hati dan tenag...more

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Jul 06, 2008

Candice rated it

Recommends it for: Ellen, Jamie, people who like books set in India

I had wanted to read this book for a long time and finally got a chance. Now I have a new author to add to my favorites. This was a wonderful book and well-written. I like books set in India.

It is the story of two women - an upperclass Parsi, Sera, and her lower caste illiterate housekeeper, Bhima. Although prejudices exist - Sera does not permit Bhima to sit on their furniture, and Bhima must use her own glass for drinking at Sera's house - the two form a friendship and are priv...more

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Oct 11, 2007

Kim rated it

Read for October book club. This was an easy read and well written. At first I didn't think that it was a good book club book, but after reading several reviews, and finding some recommended discussion questions, determined that it does make for an interesting book club forum. I finished the book, feeling grateful that I was educated. One discussion question I found, that made me think was "Is blood really thicker than water and what does this bode for society at large?" - For me, y...more

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Jan 29, 2009

Artemis rated it

I loved this book. The content wasn't always a pleasure but the reading was. The writing in this book flows like honey even though the message is often bitter. This book looks at class and caste destinctions in India and how even if you love someone, your place in the social spectrum outweighs all... and it is understood.

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Nov 16, 2011

Jessica rated it

Shelves: india, servants, friendship, social, class

The Space Between Us is a story set in India. It focuses on two women living their lives through heartbreaking betrayal, tragedy, death and overwhelming joy. Bhima is an old, sad, uneducated woman who resides in the slums and works for a rich family. Serabai is Bhima's mistress. She lives a life that Bhima is jealous of. She has education, riches and power. Throughout the years of working for Serabai, Bhima and she have become close and even friendly despite their employer/employee status...more

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Mar 06, 2009

Lauren rated it

Recommends it for: fans of Indian fiction, people who liked Slumdog Millionaire

This is a novel about social class in Modern Bombay. It tells the story of two women - Sena, an upper middle class Parsi woman and her servant Bhima, who resides in the slums. The novel starts out with two pregnancies, that of 16 year old Maya, Bhima's granddaughter and of Dinaz, Sena's daughter. Dinaz' pregnancy is cause for celebration but Maya's is tragic because she is unmarried and forced to quit college because of her pregnancy. Bhima sees this as a disaster. Sena had paid for Maya's ...moreThis is a novel about social class in Modern Bombay. It tells the story of two women - Sena, an upper middle class Parsi woman and her servant Bhima, who resides in the slums. The novel starts out with two pregnancies, that of 16 year old Maya, Bhima's granddaughter and of Dinaz, Sena's daughter. Dinaz' pregnancy is cause for celebration but Maya's is tragic because she is unmarried and forced to quit college because of her pregnancy. Bhima sees this as a disaster. Sena had paid for Maya's education through the years and Bhima sees education as the only way out of the slums. Through the years, the novel shows how her illiteracy, lack of education, and poverty have made her life extemely difficult. Although she did not see education as important for her now dead daughter, after a horrible incident where Bhima is taken advantage of because she cannot read, she realizes that even a girl needs to read.

The novel traces Sena and Bhima's histories. Both have suffered as women in a patriarchal society. Umrigar captures well the bond between servant and mistress, as they know each other's secrets because they are together day in and day out. Yet, Umrigar also captures the distance between them. Umrigar does a fine job of depicting Sena's middle class sensibilities - for example, how she would not permit Bhima to sit on the furniture or use the same plates and cups as her family and her guilt over this or her inability to not project her revulsion for the slums onto Bhima's person. At the end, when the secret of who fathered Maya's baby is revealed, the nvel ends in tragedy, stemming from the complicated class relationship between Bhima and Sena.

In Umrigar's writing, you can almost smell India - the sounds, sites, and flavors are all in the novel and she has captured the cadence of Bombay voices. Having been to Bombay, I recognized the city, its sounds and its people. The only negative I saw was Umrigar's tendency to over-write. Sometimes, she was too wordy which detracted from the story. This is definitely a dark novel throughout. While Sena and her daughter are kind to Bhima throughout, ultimately, Bhima and her employers cannot traverse class (i.e. the "space between them.") (less)

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Nov 23, 2008

Amanda (Amanda's Weekly Zen) rated it

Shelves: fiction

The Space Between Us is a fictional look at the relationship between two very different women. Set in modern day India the novel explores how class affects the lives of women. There are two main characters which the novel moves between. One woman is an upper class Parsi housewife, Sera Dubash and the other is her servant of twenty years, Bhima. The novel reveals the similarities that each woman has by focusing on domestic abuse, loss, and disappointments. The novel begins with the disappointment...moreThe Space Between Us is a fictional look at the relationship between two very different women. Set in modern day India the novel explores how class affects the lives of women. There are two main characters which the novel moves between. One woman is an upper class Parsi housewife, Sera Dubash and the other is her servant of twenty years, Bhima. The novel reveals the similarities that each woman has by focusing on domestic abuse, loss, and disappointments. The novel begins with the disappointment in Bhima’s life that affects not only herself but Sera and her family. Maya, Bhima’s seventeen year old granddaughter, is pregnant and unmarried.

While Maya was away at college, which Sera paid for, she involved herself with a mystery man and became pregnant. At first she refused to hear Bhima and Sera requests that she abort the baby. Bhima hounds the girl each day about the pregnancy, desperate for the knowledge of who had done this to her granddaughter. Exhausted Maya tells Bhima the name of a young man at her college. Bhima travels to the college on loaned money from Sera to confront the man. What she finds is not only does the young man completely deny his involvement in Maya’s pregnancy but he also does not really know who Maya is. Disappointed and completely hopeless for Maya’s future she tells the girl she must get rid of the baby. Ultimately the more time she spent locked up in Bhima dirt shack in the slums the more she realized that she could not have the baby and went to the doctor friend of Bhima’s son in law. After the abortion Maya was sullen and refused to speak to Bhima or Sera.

After we learn about the initial conflict in the story we are then taken through the lives of the main characters. We find out how Sera and her dead husband really got along. How Sera believes that Bhima has been her best friend throughout the years but refuses to acknowledge the woman’s importance to her completely because she does not want to give her servant that power over her.

I gave this book a 3 out of 5 because the book moves slowly and too much time is spent bouncing between the two main characters lives that often times it becomes unclear who is the subject of the chapter. It takes a long time to reach the main story’s plot (although you suspect who the true father of Maya’s baby is shortly after meeting his character and hearing about his marital problems he and his wife “had.”

Also many times the accents seem forced making certain characters less of a sympatric being and more of a joke.

This novel is not a complete waste of time however. Some of the metaphors used in the novel are actually quite poetic and fit the idea that the author was trying to portray. (less)

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Feb 05, 2012

Jo Anne B rated it

This was a well told story about the lives of two women from different classes in modern-day India. Bhami is a servant to the upper middle class Serabai. Even though they have vastly different economic incomes, both have had their share of unhappiness. This book is about their unhappiness and also about the injustice done unto the uneducated lower class by those above them.

Despite being there to witness each other's pain and suffering, Bhami and Serabai will never be close because the...moreThis was a well told story about the lives of two women from different classes in modern-day India. Bhami is a servant to the upper middle class Serabai. Even though they have vastly different economic incomes, both have had their share of unhappiness. This book is about their unhappiness and also about the injustice done unto the uneducated lower class by those above them.

Despite being there to witness each other's pain and suffering, Bhami and Serabai will never be close because they are from different classes. Bhami was there to witness Serabai's bruises after the many beatings she suffered at the hand of her husband Feroz. Serabai and Feroz were there when Bhami's husband Gopal was in the hospital after a work-related accident and paid for him to have the best of care. Serabai paid for Bhami's granddaughter Maya's college education. But still Bhami was always treated as nothing more than the servant that she was. She was not allowed to use the same glassware and dishes when she ate at Serabai's house, nor could she sit on any chair or couch. Feroz made sure of this so that servants would know their place and not demand more pay. Serabai continued this tradition even after her husband passed away despite her daughter Dinaz's requests not to.

The problem with this book was the same problem everyone in this book had with their relationships. No one knew who each other was. The reader never knows any of the characters. I am not sure which came first. But it makes it hard to feel anything for the characters in the book. The story of their lives and what they went through were wrong and tragic, but because of the lack of depth to the characters I was never sad about it or teary eyed. What I knew for sure about all the characters in this book was that they were all out for themselves and they were all unhappy. How at the end of the book Bhami could find the strength and desire to look forward to another day is beyond me. By the end of the book you are left feeling so hopeless about the state of humanity you just want it to end.

I have read many books like this one but you got to know the characters, not just an account of their actions. It added so much more to the experience of reading the book and left you fulfilled. This book lacked all of that and you just were left feeling empty, regardless of what the author's intentions were. (less)

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Jan 28, 2012

Trice rated it

Shelves: 2012, asia, travel-place, india

While I was rambling round the city yesterday, in denial as to the severity of my cold, I stumbled on this in the Silver Spoon Cafe. When I realized I didn't want to put it down, I bought it along with 3 other books I've been wishing I could read - book jackpot! You never find the books you're looking for when you're actually engaged in finding them - it's when you're not looking that they appear.

This story was painful in many respects, but beautiful also, especially in its seeking ...more

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Dec 29, 2011

Nisha rated it

I finished this book in two or three hours, late at night/early in the morning. The inevitable sleep deprivation that followed was totally worth it, because this book is fantastic. Perhaps it's because I feel a personal connection with the characters - my both parents grew up in Bombay. This story reminds me of a Bombay I vaguely know being US born and raised. The small insertions of Gujarati phrases and the very Indian style of English spoken come across clearly in this novel and for me, helped...moreI finished this book in two or three hours, late at night/early in the morning. The inevitable sleep deprivation that followed was totally worth it, because this book is fantastic. Perhaps it's because I feel a personal connection with the characters - my both parents grew up in Bombay. This story reminds me of a Bombay I vaguely know being US born and raised. The small insertions of Gujarati phrases and the very Indian style of English spoken come across clearly in this novel and for me, helped set the mood of the rest of the story.

This is a book of characters - battered Sera, tough Bhima, and charming men gone bad. I note many other reviewers criticizing Sera for staying in her abusive relationship, something that is beyond me. Yes, women should get out, but do they always? No. This book is sometimes hard to swallow because there is so much sorrow in it from both of the female protagonists, especially Bhima. Umrigar does not try to convince you that there is no class gap or that it has been bridged, but reminds you that we all feel pain and that we all suffer. Yes, some in greater degrees than other, but it's one thing humans share.

Another thing I like about this novel is how the climax in reached in the last 30 pages. It provided a very dramatic feel for the story. There was no resolution, no falling action. The book is left stagnating, in a state of exhilarating anxiousness. The book is finished with the promise of change, but you do not see it. As a reader, you are absorbed by the two women's stories for the majority of the book. There is buildup, but it is subtle, mostly because as time progresses in the story and events happen, you learn about the events that happened the furthest in the past. That isn't the best way to describe it, in fact it is probably the least eloquent way to do so, but the anticipation of what will happen next is enriched by what happened in the past. In the last pages, that becomes difficult to see. You cannot predict what will happen when the book ends, or atleast I could not because it is so wildly different than what you expected it to be.

This book made me cry, not out of sadness, but by the power of Umrigar's story. Definitely reccommended. (less)

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Nov 06, 2011

Christine Boyer rated it

Recommends it for: Readers interested in class & gender issues; east Indian culture

Great read! It had two main characters and was set in modern day India. Lots of class issues - the one character is a middle-class Parsi woman, the other is her poor, Hindu servant. The book is very character-driven, but still has a good plot weaving through it. At first, it took a moment for me to get used to the author's use of interior monologue to move the story along, but it worked in the end and allowed me to understand the many characters' motivations. Another good thing - minimal descrip...more

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Sep 20, 2011

Carol rated it

The Space Between Us is a beautifully written story about the 30 year relationship of a Parsi woman and her servant. The story examines the social constraints of the relationship. There was a close bond including raising children. I found some parallels between this story and the stories in the Help. The human nature of being superior to your help shines through! Here is a summary of the story "In The Space Between Us, by Thrity Umrigar, Sera Dubash an upper-middle-class Parsi housewif...more

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Sep 13, 2011

Josie rated it

I noticed it was a very smooth read. It flowed so well I just flew through the book. Not really because I was dying to see what happened next, but just because of the easiness of it. But from my experience with easy to read books, they often lack detail. The characters physical attributes were rarely mentioned and when they were they were vague. For instance Bhimas scanty hair, the wrinkles on ones face or how Viraf was "handsome" hardly gives us a clear visual. But I don't think it wa...more

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Sep 03, 2011

Marcy rated it

The "space" between two women, the employer who is rich, and her servant who is poor, is at times, intimate. Sera, the employer, had dreams of love with a man that were dashed by a mother-in-law who was hateful and demonic, and a husband who beat and berated her. Bhima, Sera's servant, healed Sera's wounds with medicinal messages, thoughts, and words that gave comfort.

In return, Sera offered her friendship and money to Bhima as she encountered each "wound" in he...more

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Jun 03, 2011

Debbie rated it

· review of another edition

I was often reminded of the movie Slum Dog Millionaire as read this book. The images of the slums in India from the movie combined with the narrative descriptions in the book created powerful images in my mind. The book filled in so much detail about slum life. The conditions are just so...very sad. The lack of education is also shocking. People dying of aids have no understanding of the disease. Most perplexing, of course, are the relationships among the characters. Growing up in the south ...more

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May 22, 2011

Marco Caetano rated it

· review of another edition

O título desta obra sugere por si só um choque cultural. Entre Bombaim e o resto do mundo? Eventualmente, mas não só! Fala do choque cultural entre classes sociais, religiões e etnias dos habitantes de Bombaim.

Sera Dubash pertence à classe média/alta da sociedade de Bombaim. Teve um casamento que nunca a satisfez como pessoa, como mulher. O marido não era por assim dizer uma “jóia”. A sogra ajudou a tratar do resto. Os primeiros anos foram bastante conturbados, porém com o tempo as c...more

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May 11, 2011

Hoosier rated it

Thrity Umrigar's writing immediately drew me into the book and I could not put it down. The novel begins with a peak into the lives of Sera and Bhima, Sera's housekeeper. Sera's life appears perfect. She lives with her loving, pregnant daughter and doting son-in-law in a beautiful apartment in Bombay, India. Bhima's fortunes starkly contrast with those of Sera. Bhima lives in a slum with her unmarried granddaughter, Maya, and works hard for Sera's family only to afford a few morsels of food. As ...more

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Mar 07, 2011

Ashley rated it

Shelves: own, 2011-challenge

it's been such a long time since i've read a book in 3 days time with a hectic schedule! i randomly picked it up at the bookstore and was hooked from the first sentence. i literally avoided my friends' phone calls and company all weekend because i just HAD to know what was going to happen next. it gave me the outlook that it really doesn't matter what side of the world you are on, all of our lives, problems and ways are similar in some way or another. i quickly fell in love with all the char...more

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Oct 30, 2010

Laura rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Umrigar had the makings for a really fantastic story about class divisions told from the parallel points of view of a middle-class woman and her houseservant. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong. The story is basically good, albeit predictable, but the writing overdoes it a bit. It takes so long for characters to realize things in the book that I grew impatient.

I liked the character of Bhima, the houseservant, and I wish that Maya, her granddaughter, had had more to say in the st...more

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Sep 30, 2010

Casey rated it

Shelves: 2010, adults

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 06, 2010

Elaine rated it

· review of another edition

Parsi or Parsee (pronounced refers to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities from the Indian subcontinent, the other being the Irani community.
According to tradition, the present-day Parsis descend from a group of Iranian Zoroastrians who immigrated to Western India during 10th century AD, due to persecution by Muslims in Iran The long presence in the region distinguishes the Parsis from the Iranis, who are more recent arrivals, and who represent the smaller of ...more
Parsi or Parsee (pronounced refers to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities from the Indian subcontinent, the other being the Irani community.
According to tradition, the present-day Parsis descend from a group of Iranian Zoroastrians who immigrated to Western India during 10th century AD, due to persecution by Muslims in Iran The long presence in the region distinguishes the Parsis from the Iranis, who are more recent arrivals, and who represent the smaller of the two Indian-Zoroastrian communities.Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra, in Avestan, The Avesta is the religious book of Zoroastrians that contains a collection of sacred texts. It was founded in Persia (IranThe precise date of the founding of Zoroastrianism is uncertain. An approximate date of 1500–1200 BCE has been established through archaeological evidence and linguistic comparisons with the Hindu text. However there is no way of knowing exactly when Zoroaster lived, as he lived in what, to his people, were prehistoric times.
Zoroaster was born in either Northeast Iran or Southwest Afghanistan. He was born into a Bronze Age culture with a polytheistic religion, which included aniaml sacrifice and the ritual use of intoxicants. This religion was quite similar to the early forms of Hinduism in India.
The political power of the pre-Islamic Iranian dynasties lent Zoroastrianism immense prestige in ancient times, and some of its leading doctrines were adopted by other religious systems. It has no major theological divisions (the only significant schism is based on calendar differences), but it is not monolithic. Modern-era influences have a significant impact on individual and local beliefs, practices, values and vocabulary, sometimes complementing tradition and enriching it, but sometimes also displacing tradition entirely.
Today the parsi population in India is approximately 110,000.
A Tower of Silence is a circular, raised structure used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead.
The tower of silence is located in mainly big cities of India that has a big Parsi population.It is a place where a dead parsi is placed to be devoured by vultures.Zoroastrian tradition considers a dead body—in addition to cut hair and nail-parings—to be unclean, i.e. potential pollutants. Specifically, the corpse demon was believed to rush into the body and contaminate everything it came into contact with, hence the rules for disposing of the dead as "safely" as possible.
To preclude the pollution of earth or fire the bodies of the dead are placed atop a tower—a tower of silence—and so exposed to the sun and to birds of prey. Thus, "putrefaction with all its concomitant evils" "is most effectually prevented."
The towers, which are fairly uniform in their construction, have an almost flat roof, with the perimeter being slightly higher than the center. The roof is divided into three concentric rings: The bodies of men are arranged around the outer ring, women in the second circle, and children in the innermost ring. Once the bones have been bleached by the sun and wind, which can take as long as a year, they are collected in an ossuary pit at the center of the tower, where—assisted by lime—they gradually disintegrate and the remaining material—with run-off rainwater—runs through multiple coal and sand filters before being eventually washed out to sea. The ritual precinct may be entered only by a special class of pallbearers, called nasellars.

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Aug 07, 2010

Rebecca rated it

Umrigar paints a very stark and discouraging view of men. There was not a single redeemable male character in the book (with the exception of the skeleton of a character presented in Sera's highly peripheral father). While I felt that Umrigar's story is too unforgiving of men, I was touched by how it left naked the impossible choices women are often left to face in the wake of men who are careless with their power.

On the one hand, I found myself judging and analyzing Sera for her wi...moreUmrigar paints a very stark and discouraging view of men. There was not a single redeemable male character in the book (with the exception of the skeleton of a character presented in Sera's highly peripheral father). While I felt that Umrigar's story is too unforgiving of men, I was touched by how it left naked the impossible choices women are often left to face in the wake of men who are careless with their power.

On the one hand, I found myself judging and analyzing Sera for her willingness to stay with an abusive man. My outrage was deepened as the story evolved, revealing Sera as a well educated female with a supporting and open minded family.

But, after the dust of my fury settled, I found myself reflecting on how these seemingly villainous men were needed as a foil to demonstrate the impossible space the women inhabited. Many women are raised to believe that they are only half a person, made whole when they find a loving man. Regardless of age, race, economic status, it is a timeless story known to almost all cultures. The thinking cripples even the best of us, bringing us to our knees when "our better half" rejects us. If a woman has never felt the acute pain of rejection from a man, she may struggle to relate to the characters who remain in less than palpable relationships.

Not to mention, the countless number of women who are left undereducated and married off at excruciatingly young ages. For many of these women, their lives and the lives of their children depend on the good will and generous support of men, very much like the endearing character, Bhima.

While I believe the system that perpetuates the reality of this philosophy is toxic to both genders, I appreciated how Umrigar narrowed her focus on women.

Despite Umrigar's ending, demonstrating the indefatigable spirit of a poor, beaten down woman. I left feeling like women are doomed to the selfish and careless whims of men. The system that traps women, also traps men. What can be done to break this system? If feels like an impossible question.

Despite wishing for more complexity from characters like Viraf, I left this story contemplating inequities that help build and sustain structures that make stories like Thrity Umrigar's seem more non-fiction than fiction. (less)

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Jul 31, 2010

Colleen rated it

In the first part of the book, Urmigar sets up each character giving the reader a picture of who they are today while providing brief glimpses into the pasts that created them. We meet Bhima, see hardships she endures daily and feel her disappointment and frustration with her granddaughter Maya who has dropped out of university due to an unexpected pregnancy. We also meet Sera, for whom Bhima serves as a housekeeper and cook; she is a proud, self-contained woman but it is clear there is much b...more

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Jul 14, 2010

Tara rated it

This book is set in modern-day India and told through two women, one who is upper-middle-class and the other who is her lower-class household servant. Two very, very different women whose lives are intimately connected with one another...

"For my daughter's sake, I can be anything - brave, strong, fearless. For her sake, I can walk on crushed glass, lie down on hot coals, wade through ice-cold waters..."

"This is how history gets rewritten...th...more

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May 13, 2010

Lisa Dyer rated it

· review of another edition

I was pleasantly surprised when this month's bookclub book wasn't related to a war of somekind!

Set in India this novel details the relationship between an affluent parsi family and the family of their hindi maid. While both the lead female characters are drawn together by the secrets and trials they have shared throughout their lives (abusive husbands, illnesses, illegitimate children) it does not override the fact that they are from different class systems. When it comes to the cr...more

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About Thrity Umrigar

A journalist for seventeen years, Thrity Umrigar has written for the Washington Post, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other national newspapers, and contributes regularly to the Boston Globe's book pages. She teaches creative writing and literature at Case Western Reserve University. The author of The Space Between Us, Bombay Time, and the memoir First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of ...more

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First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood

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Quotes from The Space Between Us

“Or perhaps is is that time doesn't heal wounds at all, perhaps that is the biggest lie of them all, and instead what happens is that each wound penetrates the body deeper and deeper until one day you find that the sheer geography of your bones - the angle of your hips, the sharpness of your shoulders, as well as the luster of your eyes, the texture of your skin, the openness of your smile - has collapsed under the weight of your griefs.” — 32 people liked it

“ Perhaps the body has its own memory system, like the invisible meridian lines those Chinese acupuncturists always talk about. Perhaps the body is unforgiving, perhaps every cell, every muscle and fragment of bone remembers each and every assault and attack. Maybe the pain of memory is encoded into our bone marrow and each remembered grievance swims in our bloodstream like a hard, black pebble. After all, the body, like God, moves in mysterious ways.

From the time she was in her teens, Sera has been fascinated by this paradox - how a body that we occupy, that we have worn like a coat from the moment of our birth - from before birth, even - is still a stranger to us. After all, almost everything we do in our lives is for the well-being of the body: we bathe daily, polish our teeth, groom our hair and fingernails; we work miserable jobs in order to feed and clothe it; we go to great lengths to protect it from pain and violence and harm. And yet the body remains a mystery, a book that we have never read. Sera plays with this irony, toys with it as if it were a puzzle: How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long ago blow lives on into eternity in some different permutation and shape; perhaps the body is this hypersensitive, revengeful entity, a ledger book, a warehouse of remembered slights and cruelties.

But if this is true, surely the body also remembers each kindness, each kiss, each act of compassion? Surely this is our salvation, our only hope - that joy and love are also woven into the fabric of the body, into each sinewy muscle, into the core of each pulsating cell?” — 15 people liked it

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