leavingsealevel's review against another edition
3.0
Good, but of course the two stories I liked the best were the two shortest stories.
komet2020's review
5.0
"INDIA GRAY" is a collection of 4 stories of varying lengths ('Outnumbered at Oxford', 'The Ayah's Tale', 'India Gray', and 'Bitter Tea'), all of which are set in venues as diverse as 1919 Britain and the Asian subcontinent from the time of the British Raj to the early 21st Century.
Sujata Massey is the type of writer who has a rare skill in creating characters who are real and easily relatable to the reader, and in also educating the reader about the cultural nuances, history and relationships among people through economical, insightful prose. What is more: each story is centered around 4 remarkable women (Parveen Mistry, a law student at St. Hilda's College, Oxford; Menakshi Dutt, a young Bengali woman working as an ayah for a wealthy British family in 1920s Bengal; Kamala Lewes, a Bengali polyglot, married to a British civil official, and working for the Red Cross in a military hospital in Assam, India during the spring of 1945; and Shazia, a teenaged Pakistani living with her family in a village in NW Pakistan controlled by a Muslim fundamentalist), who --- despite the social and cultural restrictions of their time --- show remarkable resourcefulness and strength of character in dealing with a variety of challenging situations.
I so much enjoyed reading "India Gray" and felt pained after reading the last page. More please.
Sujata Massey is the type of writer who has a rare skill in creating characters who are real and easily relatable to the reader, and in also educating the reader about the cultural nuances, history and relationships among people through economical, insightful prose. What is more: each story is centered around 4 remarkable women (Parveen Mistry, a law student at St. Hilda's College, Oxford; Menakshi Dutt, a young Bengali woman working as an ayah for a wealthy British family in 1920s Bengal; Kamala Lewes, a Bengali polyglot, married to a British civil official, and working for the Red Cross in a military hospital in Assam, India during the spring of 1945; and Shazia, a teenaged Pakistani living with her family in a village in NW Pakistan controlled by a Muslim fundamentalist), who --- despite the social and cultural restrictions of their time --- show remarkable resourcefulness and strength of character in dealing with a variety of challenging situations.
I so much enjoyed reading "India Gray" and felt pained after reading the last page. More please.
beebeereads's review against another edition
3.0
I picked this up on Kindle Deals because it contains a mystery novella which serves as a prequel to The Widows of Malabar Hill which I read last year and enjoyed. That was a fun read. Another novella included in the collection was The Ayah’s Tale, a touching story about the relationship between an English boy and his Indian ayah (nanny). The author used a clever invention to tell the story using both voices. I would rate that novella on its own a 4 star read. The other short stories were less intriguing to me, one about India just after WWII and the other set in Pakistan in a village taken over by the Taliban. The stories themselves were interesting, but I am not fond of short stories as I prefer to get to know character and place better in a longer plot line. I will continue to read the mystery series as new ones are published. Her writing is warm and readable for a break from heavy topics.
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