Writing Historical Mystery by Sujata Massey

LUCY BURDETTE: First a warning--the rest of the week will have an Indian theme. Hope you enjoy the trip! 

I always read Sujata Massey's new releases, and was intrigued when she shifted her focus from Japan to India, and also from the present to the past. I loved the first book in her new series set in Bombay, called THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL, so I asked her to join us and tell you all about it. Welcome Sujata!

SUJATA MASSEY: When people hear that I write international mysteries, a frequent questions is, “Do you ever go there?”

I always go. I don’t think I could pull off a story in India if I couldn’t smell the air in a spice market, hear Hindi and Gujarati with my own ears and taste lemongrass-ginger tea on my tongue. Traveling for a book gives me the kind of descriptive details and plot ideas that make the work of writing more natural (but never easy). Traveling abroad is always exciting, and traveling abroad to learn things for a book gives me the perfect excuse to approach interesting people to bring me into places that aren’t in Lonely Planet or Frommer’s.

I was in India this past February doing research for my new series set in 1920s Bombay. The Widows of Malabar Hill introduces Perveen Mistry, an impetuous young feminist who becomes the city’s first woman lawyer. In 1921, Perveen lives in a world where Rolls Royce Silver Ghosts overtake horse-drawn tonga carts, a place where the British hold power and Indians are striving to get the right to self rule. Perveen is the daughter of a successful Bombay solicitor, Jamshedji Mistry, who wants his daughter to succeed to build status for the family. Women’s progress is her socially minded mother Camellia’s goal. It takes Perveen a bit of time to come around to accepting her destiny, but once she’s qualified as a solicitor, she realizes she’s got much more freedom than other women—and the power to help those in need.  

Crawford Market, Mumbai

The Mistrys are members of the Parsi community, the name given to Zoroastrians who left Persia more than a thousand years earlier to settle in India. The British government favored the Parsis over other Indians in construction, shipping and business contracts. Also, Parsi inheritance laws made it mandatory for them to share wealth among many family members, including females. These are the two big reasons that Parsis became India’s wealthiest community during the colonial period.

To create authentic details for Perveen’s life, my India trips include visits with people who are experts in social customs, especially the Parsis. My journeys also involve a close look at old buildings of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. When I travel, I stay in heritage hotels, historic social clubs and the older homes of relatives and friends. This places me in a world where there might not be waffles on the breakfast menu on central air conditioning, but there are fabulous masala omelettes and wide-open windows into India’s luxurious past.

Before I began this series, I had the impression that only the British colonials lived really well in bygone days. How wrong I was! Many merchants, nobility and professionals all lived grand lives. These families hired top Indian architects and craftsmen to create their own glorious residences that could rival Downton Abbey. This the world that Perveen is fortunate enough to take for granted.

  

I got a surprising look at historic luxury in a not-particularly well-known city on India’s western side. Ahmedabad, the largest city in the state of Gujarat, dates from its establishment by a Sultan in the 1400s. As time went on, it grew and was nicknamed “Manchester of India” for its textile production from colonial times through the 1960s. In The Widows of Malabar Hill, Perveen gives legal assistance to the three widows of a deceased mill owner. This made me very interested in staying in The House of MG, the former home of 19^thcentury textile magnate Mangaldas Girdhardas. The British counted on exporting textiles, and Indians who owned mills were often very rich. Gujarat also had unbelievably artistic embroidery and mirror work done by hand in villages for wear by ordinary Indians. The House of MG has its own gallery showing saris and other antique garments, often worn by textile village children that were collected by a family’s matriarch. It also has gorgeous guest rooms with original tile floors and restaurants serving classic vegetarian Gujarati food.

This Gujarati city was also a center of wood carving, so lovely carved wood is part of every guest room décor. A number of havelis (fine historic homes) throughout the city are open for viewing and one can see things like the old well systems that collected rainwater and stored them in underground step-wells in the homes’ basements that were accessible by stepping down to them. I had a great time wandering about exploring old Hindu, Jain and Muslim houses of worship and residences, though Old Ahmedabad itself is depressed, with many of the havelis unoccupied and falling into ruin.  Locals hope that UNESCO ‘s 2017 recognition of their walled city as a World Heritage Site will bring rejuvenation to the city similar to what has happened in Kerala in the original section of Kochi.

Fort Kochi (the old name is Fort Cochin) is an old port at the Southern tip of India. It was first taken from Indian rule by the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and fnally the British, until Independence in 1947. Dozens of historic buildings stand proudly including a famous Jewish synagogue decorated with blue and white tiles. Many of the old townhouses have been converted into boutique hotels. 

The place I keep coming back to is Brunton Boat Yard, an expansive hotel made from the structure of a former maritime business. A tall stucco wall going around the boatyard shelters it from town noise, and the large, antique-furnished guest rooms either look out on the Arabian Sea or a green garden. The very simple teak furniture in the rooms and waiting area speak of the minimalist aesthetic of South India. The menu is lavish, with plenty of giant prawns and different cuts of meat on the menu and Portuguese stews as well as South Indian dosas and idli. Alcohol is drunk freely throughout the state, and vintage cocktails such as the gin-lime are easy to come by at the hotel bar.

Mumbai is a short flight from Kochi. While it is much larger, in South Mumbai I found a haven of architectural restoration. One of the best examples is the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, which is both a massive boathouse and an Indo-Saracenic clubhouse in South Bombay’s Colaba neighborhood. The RBYC was founded in 1846 and got the “royal” in its name thanks to support from Queen Victoria.

The club’s president is called the Commodore and the bellhops wear sailor suits. Today, the membership is almost all Indian. If a visitor can secure a member’s sponsorship to get a reservation, it’s a very special place to stay. I just made my third visit. 

Between staring at the encaustic tiled floors, trudging up the circular staircase and watching the old brass elevator rise, I am in historical heaven. The furniture in the rooms is simple, but the bathrooms are large and nicely updated, the air conditioning is a chill parade, and the closed-in old balcony porches all have sea views. I could rave to you about the great, well-priced food in the club dining room—especially the Indian dishes and delicate Anglo-Indian sandwiches—but it’s not a restaurant open to the public. Perveen Mistry’s father, Jamshedji, is most certainly a member. The club’s Dolphin Bar is such a convenient place for him to submerge government officials in alcohol to get necessary information!

Another private club I was lucky to research in person was the Ripon Club, a place for Parsi “lawyers, businessmen and accountants” in Mumbai’s historic Fort district. The tiled floors and antique dining room furniture is spectacular. Like the RBYC, the food here is to die for, and most of it is Parsi or Chinese. Perveen stops by here to rescue her father from a lengthly afternoon nap in one of the infamous teak lounge chairs.

I had a tasty lunch at the Ripon Club with a Parsi woman lawyer showing me around various places in legal Bombay. In the club’s old days, only men could be admitted as members. So in my fictional world, Perveen will find a way to storm the bastion.

Just plotting it makes me smile.

Sujata Massey is the author of 14 books including 2018’s The Widows of Malabar Hill, a mystery set in 1921 Mumbai. She lives and writes in Baltimore with her husband, two children and a Yorkshire Terrier and a Beagle. Her books have won the Agatha and Macavity and been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark awards.