A Room in Bombay: A Memoir

by Manil Suri

English 1 edition

‘This room that has been my crucible, controlled and tormented and driven me-how much has it shaped my history, my current self?’ Author Manil Suri grows up in a large, crumbling flat in Bombay which his Hindu parents share with three Muslim families. Their single room is a refuge from the religious and territorial tensions ravaging the apartment. But it is also a prison that holds them captive – one that makes Manil’s playback-singer father drift towards alcoholism and his mother towards increasing isolation, while restraining Manil from exploring the dawning realization that he might be gay. As the shared room shapes the consciousness of its residents, we find ourselves asking: Will Manil manage to break free from the flat and find the freedom to embrace his sexuality? Will his mother dare step beyond the threshold of an unfulfilling marriage to pursue deeper, riskier joys? Set against the backdrop of a fast-transforming city, where the price of real estate keeps rising and neighbours conspire to take over any available space, A Room in Bombay is as much about a physical enclosure as it is about the human capacity to reach beyond through the sheer power of imagination. At its heart, this is a deeply moving memoir – drawn from over 2,700 letters Manil wrote to his mother across three decades – that bears testimony to the abiding, unbreakable bond tying mother and son.