Haunting Bombay Author:Shilpa Agarwal ?In her stunning debut novel Shilpa Agarwal takes on the ghosts that bedevil young Pinky Mittal's extended family and dispatches them with rambunctious wit and affection. The result is like finely wrought mirror work, a glittering tapestry of vibrant contradictions, characters, and mysteries. Haunting Bombay flirts deliciously with the ... more »true spirit of India.??Aimee Liu, author of Flash House After her mother?s death crossing the border from Pakistan to India during Partition, baby Pinky was taken in by her grandmother, Maji, the matriarch of the powerful Mittal family. Now thirteen years old, Pinky lives with her grandmother and her uncle?s family in a bungalow on the Malabar Heights in Bombay. While she has never really been accepted by her uncle?s family, she has always had Maji?s love. One day, as monsoons engulf the city, Pinky opens a mysteriously bolted door, unleashing the ghosts of an infant who drowned shortly before Pinky?s arrival and of the nursemaid who cared for the child. Three generations of the Mittal family must struggle to come to terms with their secrets amidst hidden shame, forbidden love, and a call for absolute sacrifice. Shilpa Agarwal was born in Bombay and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Duke University and UCLA and has taught at both UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. As an unpublished novel, Haunting Bombay won the 2003 First Words Literary Prize for South Asian Writers. It is her first novel.« less
One of my FAVORITE books. I was NEVER bored, had rich characters and descriptions of food and traditions in India in the 1950's. Amazing story that will have you on the edge of your seat the entire time.