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By BERYL EICHENBERGER
What would it mean to be of mixed race in the India of 1937, when fighting for independence could mean a blurring of identities? Where do you belong? That is just one of the challenges that protagonist Sona faces in Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi. A beautifully written, empathetic novel, her first stand-alone novel since The Jaipur Trilogy, although each of the three books could be read individually.
Joshi is an intelligent writer; she allows the reader to sink in to her stories, opening windows on the richness of the Indian culture, the turmoil of transition and beyond, relationships, the resourcefulness and creativity of women breaking the bonds of poverty. Her novels are sensory: the chatter, the silences, colour, tastes and aromas permeate the pages bringing that full sense of life. She uses her power as a storyteller to champion women who need to be acknowledged. Their roles in the arts, science, maths, music or education, as important as the men. With her deft pen, a vivid imagination, lots of research and political savvy, she crafts novels whose characters linger.
In this gripping novel she has used as inspiration the mixed-race artist Amrita Sher-Gil. Born of a Hungarian Jewish mother and Indian aristocratic father, she died at age 28 in 1941, but her body of work has given rise to her being known as the ‘Frida Kahlo of India’. Colourful paintings influenced by not only the masters in Italy and France, where she studied, but reflecting the life and people she encountered when she returned to India. Amrita was, by all accounts ‘flamboyant, sexually fluid, political, outspoken, talented and charming’, a woman who could influence and entice. Joshi has loosely based her character of Mira Novak on Amrita, with a Czech father and Indian mother, propelling us into a different time and place. A story that has resonance and tangible reality, even today.
It is 1937 and famous artist Mira is admitted to a hospital in Bombay, after a miscarriage. 23-year-old Anglo-Indian nurse Sona Falstaff is assigned to her. They form a bond. A friendship. To the unworldly and poor young nurse, Mira’s stories are romantic, daring, unimaginable. But when Mira dies suddenly, Sona is implicated. Four of Mira’s paintings are left to Sona with instructions to take them to friends she spoke about: in Prague, Florence, Paris and London. To exonerate herself, and with Europe on the brink of war, this is a journey Sona must take. In need of a companion, the kindly old Dr Stoddard steps in.
Sona embarks on a voyage that reveals the complexity of the artist, that people are never quite as they seem –and what is identity? It becomes not only a search for herself, and her lost British father, but a belief that she can achieve anything. It’s a visceral story that will immerse and enchant the reader.
Available at good bookstores and the Gitlin Library.
Alka Joshi will be at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in May.
Author Alka Joshi was born in India and raised in the US from the age of nine. She has a BA From Stanford University, and an MFA From California College of Arts. Joshi’s debut novel The Henna Artist became a New York Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was longlisted for and award. In 2024 Joshi was selected for the Forbes 50 Over 50 List celebrating women shattering age and gender norms over all sectors of the US economy and culture.
