The moon emerged from behind a cloud and illuminated the empty stretch of street, the tall, proud Gothic buildings. The fencing around the club—sharp, iron spokes, flat and rusted—drew a clear line of demarcation between those inside, who reveled and feasted, and those outside, who slept on the jagged pavement, their faces brown and placid, their hair damp with sweat, their bellies round and distended, their ribs gleaming under a velvet sky, and their arms and feet stiff like the branches of a fallen tree.
Yet they snored and slept peacefully, for theirs was not the vice of music, or of fine food, or of dance, or of clever conversation. Theirs was the vice of deep abysmal sleep, rising and falling, rising and drifting and feeding off the cool night air, the will of fate and the stars above, blinking uncertainly and sheepishly. And theirs was the vice of a single dream, an unchanging dream: to prepare for another day of labor, another day of toil, another day of survival, which would allow them to sleep on a half-empty stomach, or half-full, if they were that lucky, that is.
A Reading Group Guide
1. How has the book changed your understanding of Bombay? Does it make you want to visit?
2. Who are the characters you felt most drawn to? For what reasons were you drawn to them?
3. If you were residing in Bombay, how would you—as a responsible citizen—go about addressing these issues: unplanned development, corruption, encroachment, poverty, and class divide? If you were to start a nonprofit organization, which cause would you take up?
4. What role has the author intended for the women in the work? Please discuss in relation to Ritika in Breathless in Bombay, Silla Mullafiroze in The Great Divide, the three ladies in A Different Bhel, Shyla in Haraami, Kaveri in The Maalishwalla, and Vicki in Traffic. Which of the women captures the true essence of the Indian woman?
5. With temptation having set in at the ghat, what do you think happened to Mataprasad after the end of Dhobi Ghat?
6. Do you think Bheem Singh from The Maalishwalla returned to his village? Bearing in mind that going against tradition was to invite the wrath of the entire village, what course of action would you advise for Bheem Singh in his marriage?
7. Do you feel trading off his sense of ethics makes Chacha in The Queen Guards Her Own any less heroic?
8. Which portions of the work did you find most shocking, touching, humorous, and/or thought-provoking?
9. Did Madhulikar Srini in Babu Barrah Takka take the bribe eventually? If you were in his shoes, what would you do? How would you justify your actions to your wife and your to-be-married daughter?
10. Does the author’s approach to his work remind you of any American author, past or present?
11. By the author’s own admission, his work has one overriding goal—to sensitize the haves to the have-nots. Has he succeeded in his purpose? What feelings does the book leave you with?
First published 2008 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2011 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-447-21292-8 EPUB
Copyright © 2008 by Murzban F. Shroff.
The right of Murzban F. Shroff to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgment to the publications in which these stories first appeared in a slightly different form: “Dhobi Ghat,” in The Louisville Review. “Traffic,” in Natural Bridge. “The Maalishwalla,” in The Minnesota Review. “Haraami,” in Wisconsin Review. “Busy Sunday,” in Southwest Review. “The Great Divide” (under the title “This Old Guard”), in South Dakota Review. “Meter Down,” in The South Carolina Review. “Love in the Time of AIDS,” in Gulf Stream. “Babu Barrah Takka,” in The Best of Carve, Volume 5. “Jamal Haddi’s Revenge,” in The Mochila Review. “Breathless in Bombay,” in The Gettysburg Review.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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