The Space Between Us (Hardcover)

Another thing a reader will notice is the ample use of Hinglish, or Indian-style English, such as the use of the word yaar almost as a punctuation, the word Mausi in certain social classes to address an old lady or a female family friend with respect, and even the peculiar use of language as a tool to signal how a relationship has changed (e.g. Bhima addressing Viraf as 'seth', a word for a rich or powerful man, towards the end and not as 'baba', a word of affection for boys used by their mothers or maternal women).

These 'literal' points aside, the book flows like a river once you start reading it. In a culture where servants are called and treated like servants, with their separate cutlery and sometimes entrances (latter not in this book though), there also co-exists deep poignancy and loyalty implied in the actions of both the servant and the sa'ab/ mem-saab. The story captures it beautifully. Bhima is but like Jeeves minus the clean clothes or the sharp wit, but with a deep sympathy and sense of loyalty for Sera. I wondered at the end how Sera would survive without Bhima, not because she cannot cut onions but because she loses a part of herself that she doesn't realise while our story ends.

The real touch of genius however lies in capturing the uncertain values of the emergent Indian generation (I daresay, my own), which picks and chooses from a smorgasbord of values to suit its own purposes, but amidst whom truly compassionate people like Sera's daughter Dinaz also exist.

The book holds many different threads together - how Chowpatty in Bombay has changed over the years, how the dwindling Parsi community still largely does not accept non-Parsi spouses with open arms, how the educated in India often balance a load of conflicting values and expectations to hold their lives in one piece - quite vividly.

Above all to me this wonderful book is a powerful narrative of the paradoxes that make up modern India. I could see bits of myself and my friends in Sera, Dinaz and even Viraf as well as Maya..

The only reason for giving it 4 stars is that I do not think this book is unique in its genre; I was also sometimes a bit confused by the use of Bambaiya (i.e. of Bombay) language in the book which is beyond even me and I found that distracting; I was also put off a bit by the repeated use of some metaphors such as a puppy eager to please and the use of double words such as slow-slow/ hot-hot which are commonly used but not often in contexts which the author has used them and did seem like a drag at times.

Sera Dubash is a wealthy educated Parsi, who lives a privileged upper-class life in Bombay. Her married life fraught with violence and brutality, she ached for a marriage that was different from all the "dead sea of marriages she saw all around her," a marriage begun with such high hopes that fizzled out. Now she is widowed and lives happily with her daughter and son-in-law, looking forward to the birth of her first grandchild.

Bhima is poor and illiterate, forced to eek out an existence on the edges of Bombay, enduring the stench and fifth, the open drains with their dank pungent smell, the dark rows of slanting hutments, and the gaunt and open-mouthed men. Bhima has worked for years as Sera's domestic housekeeper, and has built up a trustworthy relationship with her employer's family; Sera's the only person who treats her like a human being, has been steadfast and true to her, and never despised her for being ignorant, or illiterate or weak. Sera even promises to financially help Bhima's granddaughter Maya go to college. But no one - least of all Bhima - expects the seventeen-year-old Maya to get pregnant.

Bhima is convinced that only education is the key to success, an escape from the back breaking and menial labor that has marred the lives of her mother and her mother before her, and aware that a child will end Maya's chance at a better life, she tells her granddaughter she must have an abortion. Bhima seeks Sera's help; both convinced that terminating the baby is only way to ensure Maya will be able to break the hold poverty has had on the family.

Bhima, however, has had her own demons to contend with. Her daughter and son-in-law are dead, stricken by an incurable disease; the elderly woman talking herself into believing that this unborn child is but a "demon growing in her granddaughter's belly." Her emotions run the gamut of anger and fear, fear for this stupid innocent pregnant girl; yet she holds onto the unacknowledged hope that the child's father will perhaps step forward to assume his responsibility, to marry and build a life with the woman who would bear his first child.

Through their shared experiences, Sera and Bhima are inevitably bound; and it's almost as though Bhima has an eyeglass to Sera's soul, feeling exposed under the x-ray vision of Bhima's eyes. But they are divided by a hypocritical society that perpetuates discriminative caste differences, and looks down upon the poor: Sera is kindhearted and concerned for Maya's welfare, but during lunch, Sera always sits at the table, whilst making Bhima squat on her haunches on the floor nearby, forced to use separate utensils. Sera is secretly disgusted at the foul odor of the tobacco that Bhima chews all day long, the woman almost embodying everything that is repulsive about the slums just a short distance away.

Umrigar writes of a jolting, momentary world that is full of illusion and false hope, where Sera and Bhima – both disappointed by the men they loved – are obliged to make the best of any given situation they land themselves in. Sera often resorts to tears and frustration, determined to shut out the realities of the evil that lurks within her family, whilst Bhima is left to pick up the pieces, to soldier on, cloaked in anger and misery. Each wound penetrating deeper and deeper, as she feels the old familiar yearning of what she has left behind.

The author excels in vividly bringing to life the sights, sounds and smells of Bombay, the street urchins, the stray dogs, the impoverished nut vendors, and the hollow-eyed slum dwellers, a city mad with greed and hunger, power and impotence wealth and poverty, where the weak and vulnerable are elbowed out of the way, and where the poor treat the middle class like royalty, when they should actually hate their guts.

Gorgeously imagined, this intimate and sensuous tale is constantly fraught with tension, the human condition this author's specialty. It is impossible to imagine more frightening circumstances than those conditions that Bhima must endure at her age, her heart broken by the people around her with their deceit, their treachery, their fallibility, and their sheer humanity. Through the course of the story, Bhima learns that none of the old rules, the old taboos apply, hers is a fragile existence, a world constructed of sand – shaky ambiguous, and ultimately impermanent. Mike Leonard January 06.