This small volume covers Thrity Umrigar’s childhood, and ends with her going off to the US for graduate school. It’s pretty intense, since her mother was abusive. But she lived with an extended family, so she had some support, and she knew she was deeply loved by many people.

I didn’t really know anything about the Parsi people – a religious sect in India – so that was definitely interesting. They were followers of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by Muslims. Not that Umrigar goes into this particularly, but she mentions that the Parsi people are considered a bit “mad”, and she gets into the spirit of that when she’s a kid, and becomes a trouble-maker.

The memoir also covers the events going on in India in the 1960s and 1970s, and how Umrigar gradually awakens to a political and social consciousness. The writing is heartfelt, sometimes a bit too florid, but convincing.

Some quotes:
< Indeed, I have lived so intensely in the fictional world of small-town England, that I know more about this world than the hot, crowded equatorial city of dark-haired men and women that I dwell in. Nothing that I am reading either at school or at home reflects this world. At home, I read one Enid Blyton novel a day. In my English-medium school, Hindi is taught like a foreign language. My literature textbooks carry poems by Wordsworth and stories by Dickens. Nothing by an Indian writer. >

< Every once in a great while, it occurs to me that I lead a schizophrenic life: I am a Parsi teenager attending a Catholic school in the middle of a city that’s predominantly Hindu. I’m a middle-class girl living in the country that’s among the poorest in the world. I am growing up in the country that kicked out the British fourteen years before I was born but I have still never read a novel by an Indian writer. >

Excelente livro sobre uma parte da India que o Ocidente desconhece totalmente! Muito bom!

3 STARS

"First Darling of the Morning is the powerful and poignant memoir of bestselling author Thrity Umrigar, tracing the arc of her Bombay childhood and adolescence from her earliest memories to her eventual departure for the United States at age twenty-one. It is an evocative, emotionally charged story of a young life steeped in paradox; of a middle-class Parsi girl attending Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu city; of a guilt-ridden stranger in her own land, an affluent child in a country mired in abysmal poverty. She reveals intimate secrets and offers an unflinching look at family issues once considered unspeakable as she interweaves two fascinating coming-of-age stories—one of a small child, and one of a nation." (From Amazon)

I enjoyed this memoir. Great writing.

This was a delightful and touching memoir. I read it in a day. It made me laugh, made me tear and packed a few punches too. Definitely a good read.

I'm usually a bit wary of books that begin in a character's childhood and progress chronologically through their adult years, as these books usually fall into two categories: (usually boring) biography, or gigantic, David Copperfield-esque novels. However Umrigar's memoir works well within this plan, perhaps because it is written in the present tense and feels much more novelistic than many memoirs or works of nonfiction. Like Knausgaard's autobiographical novel, it's nearly impossible to believe that Umrigar really remembered all the details and tidbits of conversation that occurred decades ago, but those interested in reading an engaging story instead of classifying will find much to like here. I do think that parts of the work drag a bit, and that perhaps not every year of her life needed to be included, but the long, slow buildup makes it almost impossible to put down the book once you get to the last few chapters. Umrigar's family by that point has started to feel a bit like your own, and at the books' end, you'll be feeling emotions almost as strong as the characters.

Having read The Space Between Us, it was interesting to read about the author's childhood experiences. She actually reminded me of a girl that was in my class in elementary school. What angst!

This autobiography by Thrity Umrigar dealt with her childhood years spent in Bombay, India. It shows us glimpses from the first 2 decades of her life, upto the day she left for USA as a journalism student. This was a very intense and involving book. I was sympathetic to the various family trials faced by her in her tender years. I got a glimpse of how it is to grow up in the 60's and 70's - how your ideals are shaped, and what are your influences (personal as well as political). The characters I liked most were her father, Babu, her uncle and her loyal unmarried aunt Mehroo. I loved the first part more than the second, which was grimmer and slightly depressing.