Honor

“Smita Agarwal looked out of the car window onto the streets of a city she had once loved, a city she’d spend the last twenty years trying to forget.”

This quote foreshadows Smita’s painful past. Until she reveals her trauma later in Honor, the reader is left to speculate why she is trying to forget India and whether or not she’ll be able to remain professional while covering Meena’s story.

“Mohan’s tone was ironic, as if he was mocking himself. Still, no self-respecting American male would have admitted to such a thing. If one of the Indian American men her mother had tried setting her up with when she was younger had made such a confession to her, she would have been contemptuous. But as she stood there in the hospital hallway, Mohan’s admission felt normal. Human. She could see his point of view.”

Mohan just admitted he does not like being alone and is not independent like Smita. She cannot help but compare him to Indian American men but realizes he is more authentic, or “human,” as she calls him. This reflection suggests she is dynamic, someone capable of change. It also suggests Smita and Mohan’s relationship will become less antagonistic as the novel progresses.

“Mohan nodded. After a moment, he said, ‘You know, I had this friend in college. He went to London for a month during summer vacation. One month. And when he came back, suddenly he was talking with a British accent, like a gora.’

The elevator doors opened, and they got in. Smita waited for Mohan to say more, but he had fallen silent. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ she asked at last.

‘I hate this inferiority complex so many of our—my—people have. Everything about the West is best.’”

Gora is Indian slang meaning “white” or “white-skinned” and is often used as a racial epithet. Mohan is often defensive about India, causing Smita to see him as “some kind of nationalist” (30) with open displays of “wounded pride” (9), like Indian American men she knew. His friend lauds European culture, and he himself sees this as a sign of an inferiority complex, perhaps internalized racism.

“‘And you’re the one who is eyeing this dosa like you’re a bloody famine victim.

Eat. It’s obvious that you’ve missed the taste of home.’ The tears that sprang to her eyes took them both by surprise.”

A dosa is a crepe made from ground black lentils and rice, a popular street food in India. Mohan’s informality, his assumption of Smita’s taste and dark humor about famine-like hunger, shows progression in their relationship—but her visceral reaction to the word “home” reinforces her personal struggle with India.

“How alarmingly easy it had been to get millions to participate in genocide during both the Holocaust and Partition. Human beings could apparently be turned into killers as effortlessly as turning a key. All one had to do was use a few buzzwords: God, Country, Religion, Honor. No, men like Rupal were not the problem. The problem lay with the culture from which they bubbled up.”

The equation of two genocides, one being the globally known Holocaust, allows Western readers to understand the horror of both. The ease with which people commit atrocities is shown through simile, the “turning” of a “key.” The “buzzwords” used to manipulate people reinforce the novel’s title and themes.

“‘That’s it exactly,’ Smita thought. ‘Meena’s face was a map created by a brutal,

misogynistic cartographer.’”

Smita and Mohan look at pictures of Meena before they interview her. Meena survived her two brothers’ attempt to burn her alive, but half of her face was scarred in the process. Mohan describes her face as a map, to which Smita mentions the brothers’ hatred and fear of women.

“With his Ray-Bans and in his blue jeans and sneakers, Mohan looked like a

modern guy. But really, Smita thought, he was like all the other pampered Indian men she had known in America.”

All three items of clothing mentioned by Smita—Ray-Bans, blue jeans, and sneakers—are not only Western but also iconically American. Her frame of reference for Indian men are Indian American men whom she does not hold in high regard. However, her insistence that Mohan is “pampered” like them is her way of denying her growing feelings for him.

“In Birwad, we have a saying: ‘A mongoose cannot lay down next to a snake.’

Thus it is between the Hindu and the Muslim. Besides, my neighbors said, how could I win against my brothers when nature had made it so that no woman can prevail against the might of a man?”

Meena is an illiterate woman from a rural village in India and thus uses local sayings rather than formal literature to illustrate points—which makes her voice feel authentic. The mongoose and snake are both indigenous to India and considered natural enemies. Meena finds the same animosity between Hindu and Muslim people. While simplified, this idea is reinforced by her village’s belief that men’s superior “might” will always prevail over women—which is men’s way to maintain power.

“Because had I not been stepped upon by men all my life? Had I not already been treated like a worm? Even if God Himself put His foot on my head, how could He crush me lower than I already was?”

Hinduism is described as a complex system of belief, with the possibility of gods. In this quote, God is anthropomorphized as a punishing foot, and reincarnation is implied with Meena likening herself to a worm. Thus, the potential cruelty of both men and God in a patriarchal culture is made clear.

“It took Smita a minute to realize what Meena was asking—whether Smita as a Hindu could, would, drink or eat at a Muslim home. Meena had probably guessed at her caste and religion from her name. Good God. It was as if nothing had changed in the years since Smita had left India. What a fossilized country this was, with its case and class and religious bigotries. Smita took in Meena’s disfigured face and knew that her distaste for these customs was itself a sign of privilege. Did she really think India had changed so much just because she herself had managed to escape it?”

Many religions have dietary restrictions that construct communal identity. These restrictions can also relate to purity, like the Muslim and Jewish prohibition against pork. Meena is concerned that Smita’s caste prevents her from eating in a Muslim home and risking “impurity.” Smita is disgusted that the India of her childhood has remained unchanged (even “fossilized”) and is aware that her privilege allowed her to escape Meena’s fate.

“This land is your land…The words of the Woody Guthrie song she’d always loved came into her head, but somehow that lyrics seemed ironic, malicious even. Like it or not, this, too, was her land and she felt implicated and ensnared in its twisted morality and contradictions.”

Folk singer Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” has been described as “the great American protest song,” though some have criticized it as being insensitive to Indigenous rights in recent years. Smita has reluctantly returned to India and now confronts suffering in the form of Meena, who is stripped of many rights as a woman. As a journalist specializing in gender issues, Smita has seen many forms of gendered violence, but she cannot distance herself from Meena and from feeling responsible for and trapped by India.

“‘Little sister,’ I said, raising my voice, ‘this is our older brother, His word is law.’ ‘No. Even if Narendra Modi prohibits me, I’m still applying.’”

Meena remembers a conversation with her younger sister, Radha, who wanted to apply for a factory job. She herself parroted the patriarchal belief that men’s word is law. However, Radha resisted this belief system with her flippant remark about the powerful Prime Minister Narendra Modi—the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a nationalist party that emerged from a Hindu supremacist organization.

“If Radha could have seen all the way to where her stubbornness would take us, maybe she would have buried her desire, and we would have never taken a step out of our village. Because traditions are like eggs—once you break one, it is impossible to put it back inside its shell.”

Meena speculates what would have happened had Radha been able to see the future or at least anticipate it. The sisters likely wouldn’t have left their village, and Meena’s many tragedies likely would have never happened. The egg metaphor describes the fragility and potential destruction of going against traditions.

“But despite her American passport, despite the many miles between her American life and her Indian childhood, there was no denying it—sitting with Meena on that cot, she had felt complicit in what had happened to her. Listening to Meena’s slightly slurred speech, Smita had felt a mix of emotions, felt both American and Indian, a victim herself, but also someone who had escaped in a way that Meena never would. There was no way, however, to unspool this for Mohan without slitting open the yellowing envelope of her past.”

Migrants often experience the dichotomy of belonging to both their homeland and their adopted home. Smita feels this and survivor’s guilt at having escaped the gendered violence inflicted upon Meena by her brothers and village. Earlier, she felt “implicated and ensnared” in India’s “twisted morality” (Important Quote #12), but now she feels “complicit.” She is unable to “unspool” her inner conflict for Mohan, as she has not yet revealed her past.

“Years ago, a Christian priest visited our village, telling us tall stories about a man and a woman and an apple and a snake. Radha and I went to the meeting because they were giving free ice cream, but we left early after we realized that the priest was talking rubbish. Why would the woman be punished for eating an apple? Or for taking it back to her husband? This is what women are supposed to do—share their food. ‘Didi, instead of blaming her, the husband should have been happy that his wife shared the fruit with him, na?’ Radha said.

I agreed with her.

But after Abdul died for my sins, I understood what the priest was trying to say.

I should never had taken a bite of that mango.”

Missionary work played an important role in European colonialism, with the priest’s “tall story” being that of the biblical Adam and Eve. At first, the story is nonsensical within Hindu context, for it is a Hindu woman’s responsibility to share food with her husband. After Abdul’s death, which Meena likens to Jesus dying for her sins, she finally understands the “tall story.” She has become Eve, whose disobedience (consumption of forbidden fruit) is punished with exile from paradise. However, it was Meena’s original act of disobedience, of marrying Abdul, that resulted in finding paradise for a period. Here, she regrets taking a bite of her own forbidden fruit—Abdul’s early gift of mangoes.

“Poor Abdul had thought that his daughter would be the heir to a new, modern India. Instead, she had become a symbol of the old, timeless India, a country scarred by ignorance, illiteracy, and superstition, governed by men who dropped the poison pellets of communal hatred onto a people who mistook revenge for honor, and bloodlust for tradition.”

Smita ponders the real inheritance of Meena and Abdul’s daughter, Abru. Abdul, despite being poor and likely illiterate, envisioned a more tolerant India, one guided by “his unborn child as an ambassador of this new nation” (90). Instead, Abru became a symbol of old India, a symbol of “impurity” to be destroyed by men like Meena’s brothers. Like Meena’s face, the country itself has been scarred by hatred.

“My heart was singing like a transistor radio, and I was afraid that everyone there would hear it play Abdul’s name.”

Meena recounts when she and Abdul once worked overtime together. The simile of her heart singing like a transistor radio describes her excitement at sitting next to Abdul and speaks to the importance of Bollywood music. Bollywood movies are full of action and romance and always feature musical numbers. These films provide escapism from the struggles of everyday life, giving women like Meena a vocabulary with which to voice their feelings.

“‘What difference does that make?’ he demanded. ‘We are both Hindustani,

no? The same Mother India has given birth to all of us, isn’t’ it?’”

Abdul focused on his and Meena’s shared regional and national identity rather than their communal or religious identities. Hindustani, a language comprising Hindi and Urdu, was promoted during the Indian independence movement and is used in Bollywood movies. It is a language meant to create a sense of community. The word is sometimes used interchangeably with India or “Mother India” to express patriotism.

“Are Abdul’s hands Muslim? Are his fingernails Muslim? Is his skin? What made him a Muslim? What made me a Hindu? Just the family I was born into?”

This quote echoes Juliet’s famous rose-related speech in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in which she argues it does not matter that her beloved Romeo is from a rival family. Meena and Abdul were star-crossed lovers in their own right, who recognized each other’s humanity rather than the ongoing tension between Hindu and Muslim people—and ultimately meet their ends due to this tension.

“Maybe my fear of God would have overshadowed my love for Abdul. Because a woman can live in one of two houses—fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time.

But even as my brothers tied and dragged me like a dumb beast, I knew I was not an animal. As the smoke rose from my hissing feet and just before I fainted, I said to myself: I am a woman who has walked on fiery coals and lived.”

Meena was caught between her fear of God and love for Abdul but knew she had to choose one. It was only when her brothers treated her like an animal, and she survived their trial by fire, that she realized her humanity and her womanhood. Theemithi or “firewalking” is a Hindu practice in which devotees of the South Indian goddess Draupadi walk across coals to prove their virtue. If they are virtuous, they will remain unharmed. Meena’s fellow villagers used this ritual to test her virginity. She was burned by the coals despite only speaking with Abdul, but this gave her the courage to flee and marry him.

“How to make him understand that…all of it, all of him, had become India too? That having spoken out loud the secret that had dirtied her for two decades—and seeing his fine, clean anger and outrage—had set free some part of her that had remained calcified for her too long?”

Smita finally reveals her past to Mohan and realizes she no longer dislikes India. His “clean” anger on her behalf “purifies” her and reinforces her and Meena’s connection through contamination-related imagery. Throughout the novel, the two women and their lovers are meant to reflect one another—with Smita’s Muslim heritage further reinforcing this connection. However, she wonders if she kept the secret to the point of hardening herself permanently.

“In any case, Asif, cosmopolitan and agnostic, had no desire to live in a homogenous place, not after living in the most bohemian part of the city. Where would he go? Forced out of one religion and into another, to whom would they turn? Who were their people? For the first time in his life, Asif Rizvi, aka Rakesh Agarwal, secular humanist, faced an identity crisis.”

Smita’s father, Asif, was once a positive example of new India, both Muslim and secular, a humanist who believed humans could live morally without religion. As a man of two religions, Islam and Hinduism, he became more aware of others’ weaponization of religion. Because of his family’s forced conversion to Hinduism, he experienced an identity crisis—but as of now, he continues to strive for positivity.

“The shouting came from behind them. It came from Meena’s brothers, and several other men who had accompanied them. They were chanting something. Recognizing the chant before Smita did, Anjali swore softly. Then Smita heard it—‘Jai Hind, Jai Hind.’ Long live India. In the mouths of these animals, a patriotic cheer had suddenly become a communal taunt.”

Smita’s Hindi is out of practice, but she soon realizes Meena’s brothers were found “not guilty” for their crimes by the corrupt judge. The phrase “Jai Hind” is a rallying cry that dates back to India’s struggle for independence from British rule. However, in the courthouse, the men-led phrase supports Hindu rather than Indian victory—specifically, victory over Muslim people (Abdul).