The fifth instalment in the excellent Perveen Mistry series sees our feisty, intelligent, eminently likeable heroine introduced to the world of films.
Today, Bollywood is a widely recognised genre (& word), but back in 1922, films were a relatively new phenomenon, arousing some suspicion. It was a world that spoke of glamour and a more liberated lifestyle, and Perveen is excited to be involved in a case involving India’s biggest female film star, the beautiful Rochana, whom she admires for her on-set bravery (the lady is reputed to do all her own dangerous stunts).
Even so, being a film star was frowned upon:
“Film was considered a dubious profession for most women in India. This was the reason that most of the stars in India had international backgrounds. Jewish girls like Ruby Myers, now called Sulochana, and the Anglo-Indian Patience Cooper rode high on the top of the theatre marquees.”
Perveen’s father, with whom she works in his legal firm, knows nothing about cinema or the film stars and directors, so he lets Perveen lead on what seems to be a fairly straightforward case of a contract disagreement. The lovely Rochana left Royal Indian Pictures for Champa Films, when she married the owner and producer Subhas Goshal, and now she is being sued for breach of contract.
But nothing is as simple as it would appear, and when Perveen and her best friend, Alice Hobson-Jones, go to a private screening of the latest film from Champa Films, events take a different turn.
I won’t plot spoil, but suffice it to say that Perveen gets to see the murky, often violent side of the film industry.
One of the enjoyable things about this series is the depiction of Bombay (now Mumbai) in the early years of the 20th century.
Change is certainly in the air as Perveen and her family go about their elegant, upper-class Parsi lives, but the British are still very firmly entrenched and in control of India. The fact that the best friend of Oxford-educated Perveen is the daughter of a senior British official allows us to see events and situations from different perspectives, which makes Alice an even more intriguing character in this novel, when she quickly befriends Rochana and subsequently seems to be hiding things from Perveen. For the first time in this series, their close relationship comes under strain.
Colin Sandringham is as likeable as ever, and as attracted to Perveen as ever, but we’re still in the will they/won’t they phase. Which means there has to be a next book, right? We need to know if these 2 young people get together, in spite of the societal pressures forcing them apart.
I enjoyed the book, because as a firm Bombay/Mumbai lover, the city is brought wonderfully to life by Ms Massey. I was particularly intrigued by the fabulous estate that Champa Films is renting for the shooting of their latest film – the Nanporia home in west Dadar – which sounds amazing, and I’d love to know more about the inspiration for this home. So, if any of you know more about the history of this amazing estate, do please let me know!
A fine addition to a fine series.