Honor

Protagonist Smita Agarwal has just arrived in India. She has come to help her friend Shannon Carpenter, a fellow journalist who had an accident and is currently in the hospital. Smita covers the gender beat for their publication, and her job requires that she travel. Although she is Indian, she has been away from India for 20 years, and her Hindi is out of practice. She arrives with little luggage and looks for the driver whom Shannon sent to pick her up from the airport. Smita is picked up by Mohan, who is annoyed that she thinks he is a driver. He is an IT executive at the successful Tata corporation. As they leave the airport, Smita looks out the car window at Mumbai.

Smita compares the blue of the Atlantic Ocean that surrounded her interrupted vacation at the Maldives to the brown of the Arabian Sea, commonly used as waste disposal by Indian people. She is currently staying at the fancy Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, where she and her family dined when they lived in Mumbai. This stay brings up memories of her father, brother, and deceased mother. As Smita eats breakfast, her waiter proves sycophantic, which makes her think of class issues in India. She wonders if her mother stayed in touch with their old cook from South India while alive. The waiter speaks of his desire to go to America, which she has heard throughout her travels. After finishing breakfast, Smita is ready to visit Shannon in the hospital.

Smita notes that Shannon’s hospital is dirty. Mohan is also present, taking charge of Shannon’s treatment, and Smita wonders if she truly needed to interrupt her vacation. Shannon explains that she wants Smita to cover the trial verdict of Meena Mustafa’s suit against her brothers. There is a fellow reporter in India, but as Meena is from a conservative village, she will likely feel uncomfortable being alone with a man. Nandini, Shannon’s translator, shows up to assist Smita. Smita reluctantly agrees to cover the trial verdict but wants to do so alone. She and Nandini do not get along, as Nandini’s loyalty to Shannon makes her want to stay in Mumbai. Smita and Mohan go to the cafeteria for a snack, and she perceives him as a nationalist. Mohan wants her to claim India as her homeland.

The narrator reveals Nandini’s poor background and the importance of her employment by Shannon, which explains her loyalty. Shannon’s own childhood growing up in foster homes is also revealed. Smita realizes Shannon needs her professional commitment, not personal friendship. She speaks with Meena’s female lawyer, Anjali, and learns the trial verdict has been delayed. She decides to go to Meena’s former village to interview people involved in the trial. Anjali warns Smita to be wary of Meena’s brothers, Govind and Arvind, and especially the head of their village council, Rupal Bhosle. Smita asks her taxi driver to take her to a market where she can buy more conservative clothing. She decides not to tell her father that she is in India.

Smita finds herself in her old neighborhood and experiences extreme anxiety. She debates exploring or letting the past remain the past. She also wonders if anyone still feels guilty over an unspecified past event. Despite her fear and anger, Smita ultimately decides to visit her old apartment. She finds herself at the door of her mother’s former friend, Pushpa Auntie. After ringing the doorbell, she thinks she has made a mistake. Then, someone answers the door.

Pushpa Auntie proves to be racist, being impressed that one of Smita’s two brothers, Rohit, married a white woman. Smita exaggerates her sister-in-law’s whiteness and tells other lies to impress the woman. It is revealed that Smita’s family was driven away from Mumbai. She and Pushpa Auntie begin to bicker, and Smita is told to leave. She wanders to a nearby restaurant, the Leopold Café; there are bullet holes from an earlier terrorist attack in the walls. Smita ponders her lack of ties to India and how Shannon was able to form ties in only a few years.

The next day at the hospital, Shannon is slated for surgery. Nandini is hostile to Smita, asking why she cannot investigate alone if she was born and raised in India. Smita explains that she left India as a teenager and never drove in Mumbai. She and Mohan go for a walk to look at the sea and buy more conservative clothes. He asks why she was upset when Shannon asked her to cover Meena’s story. Smita says she simply did not expect the request. Meanwhile, the reader learns her mother died by cancer. Smita calls her father and lies about where she is, saying she is still in the Maldives. She talks to lawyer Anjali again, who says the court should be announcing the trial verdict soon. Anjali warns her that Rupal, the head of the village council, was the mastermind behind Meena’s attack; Meena’s facial scars, caused by her brothers’ burning, are described. Smita decides India’s core problem is not necessarily corrupt, violent people but a culture that perpetuates corruption and violence. She realizes gendered violence is everywhere but does not usually stay in one place long enough to become involved in it.

Shannon decides Mohan will accompany Smita to Meena’s former village. Nandini refuses to leave Shannon’s side, and Shannon thinks traveling with a man will help Smita navigate the conservative, rural region. Smita and Mohan drive to the village and discuss cultural differences: Mohan believes Americans “throw out” their children when they turn 18, and Smita thinks he is the same as all the pampered Indian men she knew in America. They have trouble finding their chosen hotel, and when they do, Smita is unable to sign into her room as a woman; Mohan, her assumed husband, must do this for her. They pretend their ordered beers are for Mohan, as it is not “proper” for a woman to drink. When Smita tells Mohan that she feels like she has traveled 50 years back in time, he tells her that the village will feel like traveling 200 years back in time.