At the end of Murder in Old Bombay, when Captain Jim and Lady Diana left India, I knew they would return only under the direst circumstances. And yet, I knew they would return. Adi is Diana’s beloved brother, almost her twin. He’s also Jim’s closest and dearest friend, “as near to blood as I could have.” What could be more dire than saving Adi from the gallows?
I wrote Murder in Old Bombay after being inspired by the real-world tragedy of the Godrej girls, Bacha and Pilloo, two young ladies who fell to their deaths from Bombay University’s Rajabai Tower in 1891. A widower at just twenty-two, Ardeshir Godrej mourned his wife Bacha deeply. He went on to found Godrej Enterprises, now a vast multinational conglomerate. This real-life hero’s resilience, fortitude, and devotion moved me deeply.
However, Godrej’s first business venture failed. As a young man, he’d invested in a factory making steel scalpels and other surgical equipment. In those days, no one believed that high-quality goods could be made in India, so he was asked to stamp “Made in UK” on his products. He refused and the business failed. This prompted me to write an adventure about my character Adi’s venture, making surgical equipment. The real-life hit play Charley’s Aunt with a cross-dressing rascal is real enough, though the rest is fiction: Adi finding himself in terrible trouble, facing the noose.
It occurred to me that a surgical scalpel is a perfect murder weapon, one that could be wielded by anyone in a moment of rage, thus offering a wide range of potential suspects, each with a different motive. This setup gave me the opportunity to explore India’s caste system and the possible impact upon bold young men. An elderly Indian friend once told me that all the important decisions in his life had been made by his parents: his career, the selection of his wife, where he’d live, and much more. It was expected that he would comply and be grateful. The traditional structure offers clarity and purpose. Duty grips with a strong hold. But oh, how he longed to make his own decisions!
While there is much to admire about a social structure that protects children, seniors, and disabled and mentally ill individuals within the joint family system, few have counted the cost to an individual’s psyche. What toll does it take to be constantly told what one must do, must like, must buy? Does it chafe, to be limited by the expectations and demands of the clan’s leader, the karta?
I’ve long been fascinated with crime and how we rarely know where the story begins. There are grey boundaries: awful deeds may come from a moral cause. Here I studied a man desperate to save his child from a terrible fate; a father willing to risk anything—lie, cheat, and steal to rescue his daughter. Is he a crook? Certainly! But if we grasp the whole story, that verdict isn’t as easy. Compare Satya with Burjor—another man trying to help his daughter, who seeks to negotiate his way out of difficulty. Diana’s actions place her family in social jeopardy, but they do not abandon her. Fifty years later, in 1940, the late Sir Dinshaw Petit is said to have deserted his twenty-two-year-old daughter Ruttie Petit as punishment for eloping with Mohammed Ali Jinna, the future founder of Pakistan.
Captain Jim’s adventure at the end of this book also parallels Satya’s. Both are faced with the need to commit crimes to rescue a child. However, Jim possesses assets that Satya lacked: resourceful allies in the Parsi family, relationships within the constabulary and an inventive wife, Diana.
As I worked through this mystery, it became clear that murder victim Satya had a dark secret. Each person saw a different aspect of him. But which of the many people he cheated had actually killed him? The poignant answer stunned me; everything he had done was for Sona, his child, but he had told her none of it. In the end, his secrecy is his undoing, and hers, too.
Many individuals and events in this book are sourced from history. During the 1890s, a Parsi, Bomanji Dorabji Padamji, had charge of the Bombay mint. In 1903, he was awarded the title of Khan Bahadur for decades of faithful service. His son was, in fact, a crack shot and won many rifle competitions.
Diana being expelled from the fire temple also has a precedent in history. The 1903 lawsuit Petit v. Jeejeebhoy was initiated after Suzanne Tata (mother of J. R. D. Tata), the twenty-three-year-old Frenchwoman who married forty-six-year-old widower Ratanji Tata, was denied entry into a Parsi temple. Interestingly, she took the name Soona (pet name Sooni, or “Golden”), which reflected her blond hair.
In 1898, Mlle. Delphine Menant published a book in French, Les Parsis, based on her association with Parsi visitors to France. The Indian lawyer M. M. Murzban, who had corresponded with her, then undertook an English-language version. Imagine my surprise when I read about Rata-bai and Mehr-bai, daughters of Parsi lawyer Ardesir Framji Vakil. While Mehr-bai was a Glasgow-trained physician, her younger sister Rata-bai translated chapters of Menant’s book into English. Sadly, in 1896, she died at the age of twenty-six, probably of bubonic plague. M. M. Murzban published an English version of Menant’s book in 1917. I devoured the reprint from 1995 and decided that the two sisters should feature in my story as Diana’s new girlfriends.
My own history is referenced in this book, too. My family name was Parakh, given to those with the hereditary occupation of testing the purity of gold. It comes from the Hindi verb parakhna, to perceive. Dara Parakh is fictional, but I could well imagine him wrestling with a quandary, to call out the fake bar or spare his friend’s reputation.
About the Miracle of the Gold Brick—it happened too! Dastoor Jamshed Sorab Kukadaru is revered by many orthodox Parsis for miracles attributed to him. And this priest was extremely liberal! In 1882 he performed the (first-ever) navjotes (initiation into the Zoroastrian faith) of the “Mazagaon eleven,” who were mixed-race adults and children. At the time, this caused great tumult in the Parsi community. Ervad Kukadaru is said to have conjured a gold brick that funded the 1897 completion of the glorious Anjuman Atash Behram (fire temple) in Mumbai. How I enjoyed writing the scene where he grills Captain Jim and recruits him to defend a fellow Parsi’s reputation! Of course, my story is a fictional explanation for the Miracle of the Gold Brick.
The Bombay dog riot was real as well, although I moved it six decades to fit into this tale. In 1832 a group of Parsis protested the overzealous dogcatchers who were killing stray dogs for their bounties. The Parsis then marched to the City Court, went on strike, closed their businesses, and paralyzed the city. When word reached them that the army garrison would be called out, the Parsis crowded the cantonment gates to prevent deliveries of food and water to the army! The Riot Act was then read out and their leaders arrested. These were released when the court determined they had rioted for the sake of dogs and not for political gain. Although it happened in 1832, I could not resist using this as the diversion to aid Captain Jim’s escape during his fake embezzlement of bullion from the Bombay mint. I hope readers enjoy this as much as I did while writing it!
The aachu meechu ceremony is just as described. It is likely a remnant of a time when each journey might be one’s last, so farewells took on a poignant significance. My grandma blessed us this way each time we came to spend the summer in Poona with her and my uncles. She repeated the ceremony when we departed, gifting me a little envelope of cash even at six years old! On the envelope she scrawled blessings in auspicious red ink. As children we loved to be made a fuss of, with the red teeli on our foreheads and grains of rice clinging to it. The words of blessing mentioned are directly from my beloved mum-in-law, Roda. We always giggled at the end, as she exhorted the recipient, even toddlers, to “become old and ancient!” In North America we maintain the practice on birthdays, weddings and ceremonies during pregnancy and babyhood. I hope they continue.
False testimony was indeed offered for sale during the Raj. Superintendent of Police C. J. Forgett’s book describes the payment for a false witness who could stand cross-examination as one rupee (sixteen annas) but only half that if he was less skilled a liar. Little knots of candidates for the witness box could be found sitting around a banyan tree inside the court compound, being coached what to say in pending cases!
“You didn’t even greet me!” That complaint comes from a favorite family story that was retold to much laughter at reunions. Apparently, I was the three-year-old who felt neglected and growled at my urbane six-foot uncle Jamshed. He and his wife hold a special place in my heart, so it seemed only right to preserve that moment in my novel. The temple at the climax of this book does exist at Surya Arghya statue near Bunker Museum, Malabar Hill, but the mammoth white stone Ganesh is elsewhere.
I am indebted to Jay Langley, retired executive editor of the Hunterdon County Democrat newspaper. My writing partner and co-conspirator, he offered developmental and line edits for this manuscript that elevated it to be one I am truly proud of. I’m grateful to Sumi Mehta, who offered insights into the functioning of the joint-family system and sonar communities. I’d like to thank the team at Minotaur: Kelley Ragland, Katie Holt, Hector DeJean, and Stephen Erikson. Thank you to the fun team on the board of the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America. My writing group, Elissa Matthews, Kathleen Schumar, Pamela Hagerty, Mary Olmstead, J. R. Bale, thanks for the delightful craft talks and support.
To my family members, who offer quiet support and encouragement: You are my reason for being.
And thank you dear readers, for your warmth and loyalty as we discover the adventures of Captain Jim and Lady Diana!