Customer Reviews

Home on the Hill: A Bombay Girlhood

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This is an excellent book written from memory by Miss Whabiz Merchant of her own childhood spent in Bombay India, in a house (a bungalow built by an Englishman actually) on Pali Hill in the 60s (now a posh neigborhood of Bollywood = Bevely Hills, Hollywood, CA). The author's intial years of growing up were pleasant with all the trappings of an upper middle class life, including servants. In her later years she talks about the bitter divorce proceedings between her parents, whom she loves equally, but who have manage to build up a wall betwen themselves filled with so much hatred for each other. The divorce court case of her parents takes up almost all of the latter half of the book, and the author's eventual break with it all by emigrating to America. The tragic end of the divorce case was totally unexpected. I would say this is a must read for all of us who were teenagers in the 1960s in India and a good read for all adolesecence psychologists, especially those who practice divorce law. I could not put down the book once I started reading it, her early life mirroring mine in the same part of the same city. The book has shades of "Anne Frank's Diary" in some parts, and "Ann of Green Gables" in others, but all enjoyable reading all the same. I recommend this book without reservations. At the price it is unbeatable

From the tiny Parsi community of the City of Bombay, which has also produced the orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta, comes the eldest daughter of a prominent industrialist, W.D. Merchant. I had an amazingly good time reading about her childhood. She tells family anecdotes that truly reel in in the reader.

Merchant's community included not just Parsis but Hindus and Muslims, and she talks here and there about how people lived together. The only hint of discord is between her parents. These two were CHARACTERS, and the book is worth reading just to learn their story. Apparently Merchant's father first saw her mother at a wedding and told someone next to him, "That's the girl I'm going to marry."

"But that's the bride!" his companion objected.

This father was very handsome and so gifted vocally that an Indian film producer who heard him sing tried to offer him a contract via the servant working in their garden. The good servant retorted, "My master sings wonderfully but can swear even better. Besides, he is rich enough to buy several producers like you."

What the same father does when Merchant's mother tosses an emerald ring into the sea will keep you reading. As will every other anecdote!