The Widows of Malabar Hill

Razia is the first wife of Omar Farid, a wealthy mill owner. She married Farid as a young woman and received acres of land as the first part of her dower payment. She and Farid had one child, their daughter, Amina. She is described as a “tall, slender woman with gray streaks running through black hair” who is 30 years old but “looked slightly older due to long frown lines running between her nose and mouth” (83-84). Though technically Razia is the senior wife, Sakina, who has a stronger personality, often usurps her. Razia has a compassionate heart and a strong moral compass. She is willing to do anything for her daughter, including falsely confessing to Mukri’s murder to save Amina. Razia is well-educated and went to school, and she works hard to educate Amina, including teaching her English. She also starts and manages the wakf that Farid Fabrics established. She believed that it was wrong for them to profit from making war uniforms without giving back to wounded soldiers. At the novel’s end, the soldier who has been dispensing the wakf, Captain Ali, makes an offer of marriage that Razia intends to accept.

Amina is Omar Farid’s oldest child and Razia’s daughter. She is 12 years old and longs to see the world outside the zenana, especially to attend school. Perveen is impressed by her “swift logic” and “sparkling energy” as well as the fact that she speaks English (86). Amina’s cleverness endangers her life when she realizes that Sakina must have killed Mukri and finds the other woman’s bloody sari in the secret passageway. However, Massey reveals her tenacity when she recovers from the poisoning and goes on to attend a girls’ school in Bombay. She cheerfully tells Perveen that she is looking forward to her mother marrying Captain Ali: “We could go to New Delhi or Peshawar, Burma or Mandalay. That is how life is for an army family. […] One must learn the languages and see everything!” (373). Her new life pleases her adventurous spirit.

Sakina is Farid’s second wife, though she controls the household and acts like the senior wife. She is one of the novel’s antagonists, though Perveen empathizes with her for the circumstances that led her to violence. Sakina is petite and beautiful, with “long-lashed, beautiful eyes and an unearthly fair complexion that was evidence of life lived indoors” (83). As a young girl, she fell in love with her cousin, Faisal Mukri. The two could see one another since they were relatives in the same household.

Upset by their love affair, her family quickly married her off to the much older Farid. She and Farid had two daughters and one son, his only heir. She hid her love for Mukri and asked Farid to hire him, and after her husband’s death, she hoped to marry Mukri and live off the wakf. Realizing that he lied to her, she decided that he deserved to die and murdered him. She compounded her crime when Amina discovered her, and she tried to kill the girl as well. Though Sakina committed horrific crimes, Perveen also sees her as an unfortunate person who has lived a life dictated by men. She has very little power of her own and struggles to hold onto it, even through violent means.

Mumtaz is Farid’s third and most scandalous wife. Unlike the other wives, she is not from a well-off family. Instead, Farid met her in a bar where she played music. The narrative heavily implies that she was a sex worker. When she meets Mumtaz, Perveen is surprised that she “was not as alluring as [she] had expected” (84). Despite the unorthodox meeting between Mumtaz and Farid, Mumtaz loved her husband and genuinely mourned his death. At the end of the novel, she gives birth to a baby girl and hopes to live close to Razia and Amina, whom she has grown very close to. Though she is kindhearted, Mumtaz is also passive. She spends much of the novel hiding in her room and fearing Sakina and Mukri. However, her compassion is evident when Massey reveals at the novel’s end it is that she employs Fatima and Zeid, allowing them to attend school and paying them for performing small tasks around the house.

Faisal Mukri is one of the novel’s antagonists and the victim whose murder kickstarts an investigation into the secrets of the Farid house. He is an example of the mystery trope of the unlikeable victim—the murdered person that many people disliked or wanted dead. He is in his mid-twenties. Physically, he is well-built, with a mustache and a taste for luxury. He and Sakina are cousins and were childhood sweethearts, but once Farid dies, he is cruel to her, and she describes him as “always cross” instead of the “daring and funny” young man she remembers (356).

He is also very misogynistic and physically threatens Perveen as well as the widows when he doesn’t get his way. He is also lazy and manipulative. After Farid became ill, “Mukri began going to work only two or three days a week, living in the bungalow and using the telephone and the occasional visit to connect with the company” (254). He is a selfish and angry man who sees Sakina as the key to the wealth he desires. He continually underestimates women and is shocked when she kills him.

Mohsen is the guardsman of the Farid household and the father of Fatima and Zeid, who also work as servants. He is a minor antagonist in the novel and assists Sakina by kidnapping Perveen and leaving her in storage at the docks. He does this even though Perveen is the person who convinced the police to let him go because they had no evidence that he killed Mukri. Perveen thinks of Mohsen as a “disagreeable man,” including one who is willing to steal money regularly from the women who employ him. However, when she learns that he spends the money on cream to lighten his son’s facial birthmark, she thinks that “he had some kind of heart” (278). This kindness toward his son is the only example of redemption in Mohsen’s character, and he remains unrepentant for his crimes. At the end of the novel, Mumtaz cares for Fatima and Zeid.

Jamshedji and Camellia Mistry are the parents of Perveen and her older brother, Rustom. Jamshedji is a doting, supportive father who works at the family law practice he inherited from his father. He is “one of Bombay’s most successful lawyers” and eventually uses those skills to protect Perveen in court when she seeks a separation from her abusive husband (229). He loves his family and is a staunch supporter of his daughter’s legal career, encouraging her to be the first woman enrolled in law school in Bombay and eventually to attend Oxford. Though he can be overprotective at times, to Perveen’s dismay, he cares for and trusts his daughter. Physically, he is described as “a trim, good-looking man of fifty with a thick head of graying brown hair. His most dominant feature—which Perveen had inherited in a slightly reduced version—was a beaky nose” (11). Perveen feels a strong kinship with her father, and the two have a close and warm relationship. Jamshedji also has a loving marriage to Camellia, whom he trusts to help him make important decisions.

Camellia is Jamshedji’s beloved wife and a well-known philanthropist in Bombay. In addition to raising Rustom and Perveen, she devotes much of her time to causes championing women’s education and helping poor women and children. As a mother, she encourages Perveen to study rather than expecting her to cook and clean. She is a progressive and intelligent woman, and both Jamshedji and Perveen trust her to give advice. Though she mistakenly hides some of the news of Perveen’s marital woes from her husband to help, she apologizes to Perveen, and the family agrees to be honest going forward.

Cyrus is Perveen’s estranged husband and one of the novel’s main antagonists. He meets Perveen when she is in college, and the two share an immediate spark of attraction. He has “black curls that tumbled perfectly over his forehead […and] an attractive profile with the kind of hooked nose that made Perveen think of portraits of ancient Persian royalty” (32). Though he tells Perveen that his parents sent him from Calcutta to find a young woman to marry who is younger than 18, he admits that he is smitten with Perveen alone. After their quick marriage, Perveen discovers that Cyrus’s beautiful face hides a rotten core. As the favored child of the wealthy Sodawalla family, Cyrus is used to getting his way. He is selfish, concerned with his pleasure and comfort rather than Perveen’s needs. He is also unfaithful to her, infecting her with a venereal disease and then physically abusing her when she confronts him.

Cyrus’s cowardice and weakness cause Perveen to despise him, but she also fears him because of the past abuse and the shame that he represents. He and his family drag out the separation in court, humiliating Perveen before the court finally allows her to formally leave him and their marriage. At the end of the novel, he begs her to kill him before his syphilis infection does. She refuses, leaving him to return to his family and face the consequences of his cruel and violent life. While Cyrus never gets a moment of redemption, this final reunion allows Perveen to put the violent, tumultuous marriage behind her.