The Widows of Malabar Hill

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of racism, addiction, abuse, and violence.

Perveen Mistry is a young female lawyer working for her family law firm in 1921 Bombay, under the guidance of her father. Her family is a wealthy Parsi family, and she is the first female solicitor in Bombay, though she is not allowed to appear in court. When she arrives at Mistry House, the grand family law office, she is startled to find a disheveled man sleeping at the door. She first assumes he is a down-on-his-luck client but realizes from his clothing that he must be wealthy and Bengali. He refuses to speak with her and flees. She questions the family butler, Mustafa, but he knows nothing of the stranger.

Perveen settles down to work, reviewing paperwork for a recently deceased client, Omar Farid. Farid was a wealthy Muslim mill owner who left behind three widows and four children. His estate trustee, Faisal Mukri, wrote to ask the law firm to authorize a change. The widows want to give up their inheritance as donations to the family’s wakf, a kind of charitable trust that supports the needy and gives a dividend to certain relatives.