Six Days in Bombay ★★★☆☆

Meh! Six Days in Bombay had everything going for it on paper: late-1930s Bombay, a half-Indian half-English protagonist navigating colonial identity, a murder (?) at the center. In practice, the city itself is largely absent. Beyond name-dropping landmarks, Joshi doesn't do much with the setting. Bombay as atmosphere, as tension, as a place on the edge of independence, mostly missing. The foreign locales in the latter half get more descriptive attention than the city in the title.

What works, when it works, is the identity material. There's a sharp observation about the protagonist's mixed heritage: she wears her otherness "like a scratchy blouse I couldn't wait to take off at the end of the day," while another character flaunts hers like a peacock's train. That contrast does more for characterization in two sentences than most of the plot manages across chapters. Similarly, the exchange about privilege, "if we don't try to help, what good is our privilege?", has some weight to it, even if the characters delivering it feel schematic rather than lived-in.

That's the consistent problem. The ideas are present; the people carrying them aren't. The characters are functional rather than convincing, which makes it hard to care about the mystery wrapped around them.

It's not a bad book. It's a middling one, which for a setting this rich is its own kind of disappointment.

Edition Read

• Edition Type: ebook
• Date First Published: April 15, 2025
• Publisher: MIRA
• ISBN10: 0369761189
• ASIN: 0369761189
• Language: English

Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist, this sweeping novel of identity and self-discovery takes readers from Bombay to Prague, Florence, Paris and London, to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter's death.

When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and Sona is excited to spend time with the worldly woman who shares her half-Indian identity, even if that's where their similarities end. Sona is enraptured by Mira's stories of her travels and shocked by accounts of the many lovers she's left scattered through Europe. Over the course of a week, Mira befriends Sona, seeing in her something bigger than the small life she's living with her mother. Mira is released from the hospital just in time to attend a lavish engagement party with all of Bombay society and invites Sona along. But the next day, Mira is readmitted to the hospital in worse condition than before, and when she dies under mysterious circumstances, Sona immediately falls under suspicion.

Before leaving the hospital in disgrace, Sona is given a note Mira left for her, along with her four favorite paintings. But how could she have known to leave a note if she didn't know she was going to die? The note sends Sona on a mission to deliver three of the paintings—the first to Petra, Mira's childhood friend and first love in Prague; the second to her art dealer Josephine in Paris; the third to her first painting tutor, Paolo, with whom both Mira and her mother had affairs. As Sona uncovers Mira's history, she learns that the charming facade she'd come to know was only one part of a complicated and sometimes cruel woman. But can she discover what really happened to Mira and exonerate herself?

Along the way, Sona also comes to terms with her own complex history and the English father who deserted her and her mother in India so many years ago. In the end, she'll discover that we are all made up of pieces, and only by seeing the world do we learn to see ourselves.

Source: GoodReads

Notable Highlights

She wasn’t beautiful. My mother would have said she was striking, that her face had character. [loc. 82]

there is joy in the stillness of my paintings. The serenity of the Indian people—so unlike Europeans who seem obsessed with what the future holds—soothes me. Even as the women roll chapattis. Even as the dhobis slap wet cloth against the rocks. Even as the henna artist draws on the hands of a betrothed, there is joy. And warmth. And tranquility. Of the likes I haven’t found in Europe. I needed to come to India to find it.” [loc. 809]

There was a major difference between us, even in our half-half heritage, however. She considered her otherness a source of pride. She flaunted it, like a peacock’s train. It made her special. It made her an artist. A painter. I, on the other hand, wore my otherness like a scratchy blouse that I couldn’t wait to take off at the end of the day. [loc. 819]

When I’d first met her, I’d thought Mira’s ways were too big for the world I inhabited. But like breath, my life seemed to expand whenever I was around her. [loc. 824]

Rebecca said. “You realize, don’t you, that it’s easier for us—you and me—to do what you’re suggesting than it is for Indira? We are protected. We can do things an Indian woman can’t.” I took a deep breath. “I know. But if we don’t try to help, what good is our privilege?” [loc. 855]

Wasn’t it enough that our bodies, our limbs hurt? Why did we also have to hurt in our heart, the pain tucked so deeply in the soft tissue that we couldn’t just pluck it out? [loc. 1109]

It was Mira and not Mira. It looked like her. But it wasn’t her anymore. It was the same way I’d felt about the sketch of Indira that Mira had made. [loc. 1878]

Mira’s talent had been a source of pride for Indians. One of our own made it despite those who held us back, who belittled every one of our attempts to create, build or improve India for Indians. I caught myself in my hypocrisy. Here I was aligning myself with the Indian side of me while holding the English side of me accountable. Being an in-between, how convenient was it for me to switch allegiance as my mood suited me. [loc. 2032]

There was a time when the British government encouraged marriages like ours—like your mother and father’s—to create liaisons and ease tensions between themselves and Indians. But the ill will could never be eased, not as long as the British were in power. Mixed marriages were the casualties. [loc. 3449]

The higher we went, the more the fear—and the thrill—gripped me. At the top, you pointed to the buildings and parks and lakes I’d only ever seen on a map. And when we got to the bottom, I wanted more than anything to go back up again. [loc. 4476]