The Widows of Malabar Hill

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of racism, addiction, abuse, and violence.

“In a corner of the office, a tall Godrej cabinet was Perveen’s alone. It held umbrellas, extra clothing, and the Bombay Samachar article touting her as Bombay’s first woman solicitor.”

Perveen’s status as the first woman solicitor is both a source of pride and an obstacle. Massey symbolizes this dual nature by the fact that she must keep the newspaper article about her career hidden in a cabinet, rather than framed downstairs since her father worries that it might frighten potential clients away. Though he is proud of his daughter, his practicality recognizes that people are still prejudiced against women in the legal field.

“Their relationship had started with Perveen serving as Alice’s confessor. The Englishwoman’s revelation that she’d been expelled at sixteen from Cheltenham Ladies’ College for having a girl in her bed had confounded Perveen. It was natural for female relatives and friends to sleep close together. But after Alice explained the longing, she still felt for a long-ago classmate, Perveen understood how multifaceted relationships could be.”

Early conversations between Alice and Perveen reveal their emotional closeness and cultural differences. The fact that anyone would be surprised at the physical closeness between female friends astonishes Perveen. She does not understand Alice’s lesbian identity until it is explained to her. Despite their differences, the two women bond over mutual compassion and their status as independent women who do not always follow their parents’ desires for them.

“The young man with her was dressed like a Parsi and had thick black curls that tumbled perfectly over his forehead. Esther’s companion had an attractive profile with the kind of hooked nose that made Perveen think of portraits of ancient Persian royalty.”

Perveen’s first sighting of Cyrus, her eventual husband, emphasizes his physical beauty and his charm—traits that are very different from the cruel young men who torment her at college. However, despite Cyrus’s profile which is compared to “ancient Persian royalty,” his outer beauty hides a rotten core. Perveen later learns not to trust appearances after seeing the abuse Cyrus is capable of inflicting.