Six Days in Bombay

Set in 1937 Bombay during the final years of British colonial rule in India, the novel follows Sona Falstaff, a 23-year-old Anglo-Indian night nurse at Wadia Hospital. Sona is the daughter of a Hindu seamstress and an English soldier who abandoned the family when Sona was three, returning to his wife in England. Her younger brother Rajat died before his second birthday. Sona and her mother share a cramped flat near Victoria Terminus, scraping by on nursing wages and sewing commissions.

When the famous painter Mira Novak, a woman of Czech-Indian heritage, is admitted after a miscarriage at four months, Sona is assigned to her care because she speaks fluent English. Mira's husband, Filip Bartos, brings her in but leaves quickly. Over the following days, Mira draws Sona into her orbit with startling intimacy, sharing stories about her childhood friend Petra in Prague, her painting tutor and lover Paolo in Florence, her Paris art dealer Josephine, and her emotionally neglectful parents. Mira is sexually fluid, boundary-defying, and fiercely opinionated. Sona, whose life has been defined by caution and duty, finds herself both enchanted and unsettled.

Tensions simmer at the hospital. Dr. Amit Mishra, a young Indian physician trained in England, suspects that residual tissue from Mira's miscarriage has not been fully removed. Sona overhears the English house surgeon, Dr. Holbrook, dismissing Mira as unworthy of attention because she is not British. Rebecca Trivedi, a jealous fellow Anglo-Indian nurse, files complaints against Sona, resulting in Matron, the English head nurse, docking Sona's pay. Sona's closest friend, an Indian nurse named Indira, is beaten by her husband for failing to produce a son; Indira eventually cuts ties with Sona after her husband threatens both of them.

A romantic connection develops between Sona and Amit. At a lavish engagement party hosted by Amit's friend Dev Singh, Sona wears an elegant emerald gown her mother fashioned from her own unworn wedding sari. Amit places his hand on Sona's bare back, and on the ride home in a tonga, a horse-drawn carriage, Sona impulsively kisses him. He reciprocates, but they part at her door, constrained by social norms.

Mira's fever breaks and she insists on being discharged against Amit's advice. The next evening, she is readmitted with a dangerously high fever. Sona administers a half dose of morphine and leaves to find help. Upon returning, she sees Rebecca leaving Mira's room and discovers Mira has stopped breathing. Amit performs chest compressions but cannot revive her. Matron finds a syringe and vial of morphine on the bedside table that Sona insists she did not leave there.

Amit departs for Shimla to tend to his ill aunt, first telling Sona that Dr. Ralph Stoddard, an elderly retired doctor and hospital board member, needs a traveling nurse for a voyage to Istanbul. Matron fires Sona the next day. For the first time, Sona stands up for herself, accusing Matron and Holbrook of failing Mira by judging her unworthy of proper care. That evening, she returns home to find her mother dead of a heart attack.

Before her death, Sona's mother reveals a stack of letters containing British money, apparently sent annually on the children's birthdays by Sona's father. The mother confesses that she and Owen Falstaff were never legally married. She urges Sona to use the money to deliver four paintings Mira left behind, each designated for a specific friend; Sona hopes these friends might reveal what truly happened and prove she was not responsible for the death. A note tucked behind one canvas assigns each painting by initial to Sona, Petra, Josephine, and Paolo.

Sona boards the RMS Viceroy of India as Dr. Stoddard's nurse. During the voyage, the doctor arranges for Sona to play cards against wealthy passengers, and she wins enough to fund her European journey. In Istanbul, his son Edward Stoddard, who works at the British Embassy, welcomes them. The doctor gives Sona a hand-knitted cardigan before she boards the Orient Express for Prague.

On the train, a fellow passenger calling herself Agnes Kelmendi befriends Sona and steals half her money. Shaken but resolved, Sona continues to Prague, where she finds Petra Hitzig, Mira's childhood friend, a bohemian painter in an attic studio. Petra reveals a more complicated picture of Mira: someone who dropped friends when they ceased to be useful and borrowed money she never repaid. Sona delivers The Waiting and conveys Mira's regret for having dismissed Petra's talent.

In Paris, a letter from Dr. Stoddard urges Sona to visit her father and reveals that Edward, like Sona, is half-Indian. Sona tracks down Josephine Benoit, Mira's former art dealer from Martinique, who reacts coldly to news of Mira's death. Josephine reveals that Mira seduced her husband, destroyed her marriage, and stole money. She also explains that the painter's intimate gestures were part of a rehearsed routine, not unique to Sona. After rescuing Sona from a sexual assault in a café bathroom, Josephine softens enough to accept The Pledges.

Amit reappears in Paris, having resigned from Wadia Hospital to join a global hygiene consortium. He and Sona spend the night together, but Amit tells her his work will take him across Asia for years, and he cannot ask her to wait. Sona turns away, silently resolving not to repeat her mother's fate.

In Florence, Sona finds Paolo Puccini, Mira's former tutor and lover, living in a palazzo funded by his American wife Whitney's family. Whitney reveals the truth behind the pregnancy: She and Paolo cannot conceive, so Mira agreed to carry Paolo's biological child in exchange for payment. Whitney's father conditioned the couple's apartment and allowance on producing a grandchild. Paolo adds that Mira became pregnant by him once before, and he suspects complications from that pregnancy contributed to her later vulnerability. Sona delivers Man in Abundance.

In London, Sona stands outside her father's house. Owen's wife Marion opens the door and reveals that Owen died of cancer seven years earlier. While Owen was alive, Marion discovered evidence of his Indian family, including bank drafts and a photograph. After his death, driven by guilt, she continued sending the annual birthday money herself. Sona sees photographs of her half-siblings, Alistair and Lucy, and recognizes her own features in their faces.

Back in Bombay, Sona visits Filip, who confesses that he gave Mira the fatal dose of morphine himself: Mira begged for relief, and Filip obtained the drug from the unattended pharmacy without knowing Sona had just administered a dose. He reveals that years earlier, he performed the termination of Mira's first pregnancy by Paolo, and that a complication may have made the later miscarriage more dangerous. Filip tells Sona that the European journey was Mira's design to push her into the world and show her that people are not what they seem. He insists Sona keep The Acceptance.

An epilogue set in 1956 reveals that Sona married Edward Stoddard within a month of her return. Her 18-year-old daughter Indira, named after Sona's friend from the hospital, performs with the Uday Shankar Dance Troupe. Indira is Amit's biological child, conceived during their night in Paris; Sona never told him. Dr. Stoddard served as a grandfather figure to Indira for five years before his death. Petra and her family perish at Auschwitz after internment at the Terezin concentration camp, where Petra spends her final months encouraging imprisoned children to draw. The Acceptance hangs in Sona and Edward's bedroom. At night, Sona looks up at it and whispers, "Hello, Mira."