Honor

In interviews, Thrity Umrigar describes her upbringing in India as one that was both cosmopolitan and secular. She is a member of the privileged Parsi minority, followers of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion who fled religious persecution in Iran in the 10th century. According to legend, when they arrived in India, their priests were presented with a glass of milk to show that the land was full and could not accommodate immigrants. The priests added sugar to the milk, explaining they would fit in like sugar dissolves in milk, “sweetening” the land as they assimilated. The Parsi community quickly adapted to British rule, sometimes taking Anglicized names to signal professions, such as Engineer, Driver, or Merchant. The Parsi community has largely been protected from the communal violence that has haunted India since the Partition in 1947. Being educated, wealthy, and influential, the community has also largely escaped religious tensions among Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh populations; for example, the wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, and the husband of Indira Ghandi, the third Prime Minister of India, were both Parsi. Being part of this privileged yet largely invisible minority makes Umrigar a less biased observer of contemporary Indian life, the subject of all but one of her 10 novels.