The story of a community of sex workers in Bombay, The Parcel concentrates on a house of "hijras," men who, not feeling comfortable with the gender they were assigned at birth, severed their attachment to the male gender so they could feel like women. To earn money, the young hijras sell their bodies, the middle aged ones sing and dance at weddings and funerals, and the old among them beg in the central part of the city. Bearing rejection from their families, and cisgender sex workers, even from their own community of hijras who feel sex work is beneath them, the Hijra House family cling together and take care of their own. When Madhu, the protagonist is assigned to"open a parcel," she makes the choice to care, as she wished she had been cared for.

This work is the second I've read by this author, who is talented with his characterization, and knowledgeable of this fascinating subject. It also reminds me of the Netflix series"Pose." ( )

Anosh Irani has a poetic style that shows the inner torments of a transgendered person living in hellish circumstances in a brothel in Bombay. He gives the reader a sense of the terrible violence and abuse done both to and by his subject, Madhu.
This is a terrible story and yet valuable for giving insight into the life and the feelings of Madhu. She chooses castration and a life of prostitution because she knows that her family will never accept her. She has understood that there will not be a place for her in her society, and decides that the support and love she finds within the brothel community is the best life she can choose. She discovers that the love there is mixed with exploitation and abuse, and her only physical comfort is with a man who lives outside the community. Even within the transgendered hijra community, there are castes and rivalries, and many hijras despise those who turn to sex work. She longs for her absent parents, and like the others in her brothel she dreams of a life where she can be who she is, even knowing how unrealistic that is.
In a twisted sense of caring, when asked to prepare a young girl to be raped, Madhu thinks that she can save the girl from a life of violence by teaching her to deny herself and her own feelings – exactly what Madhu cannot do in her own life. She takes pride in her ability to prepare young girls without violence, and feels that she is saving them from a worse alternative. By training the girls to be numb, she thinks, there will be no need to use violence. This will not only spare the girls direct physical violence, but it will leave them with a spark of hope and prevent them from going crazy. Is this merely rationalization on Madhu’s part, or is it a reflection of what she has had to do in her own life?
Irani also voices the rationalization of Bombay’s proper citizens, who know but avoid thinking of the violence and abuse in the city’s prostitution district. They think that by allowing rape in the brothels, they are protecting other girls and women from the violence of men. And so they choose to ignore it, or to avoid dealing with an unpalatable subject.
This is of course a difficult read, both because of the pain in Madhu’s life, and because of the prospect that the girl faces. Madhu and the others in the brothel refer to her as a parcel to be prepared for opening, and that helps them distance themselves from what they are doing. Irani also focuses mainly on Madhu and her struggles, leaving the girl’s world to be seen and guessed at from outside. Without this, it might have been too much to deal with, as perhaps it should be. Reading this, I had a feeling like the feeling I had on reading Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery, that aspects of the story are too repellant to want to read, but here, unlike Eco’s novel, I was also engrossed in discovering the hijra’s life in Bombay, how she chose to live in the brothel and how she turned to sex work and numbing her pain.
And in spite of the evocative language that Irani uses, his narrative can also be distancing. Except for Madhu’s inner thoughts, Irani describes most situations in a detached matter-of-fact style, whether the cell in which the girl is kept or the revenge that a brothel’s leader inflicts on the man who violated her. Madhu’s experiences and feelings are vivid and the language gives a sensuous picture of the parts of Bombay as Madhu sees them.
I was disappointed in the ending, though, which seemed melodramatic, and the liberal tone in the Epilogue seems simply out of place. I suppose that Irani had to so something to close the story, and a realistic ending could lead readers to despair. After all, there are few happy endings in a story like this, whether it takes place in Bombay or in North America. The book explores a life and a perspective that is rarely shown and calls for empathy where it would not often be offered. And that is enough in a well-written novel. ( )

"The parcel" is really a ten-year-old girl, sold by her family into prostitution. This is the story of Madhu, born a boy but is transgender and lives as a woman. At 40 years of age, Madhu has left prostitution and is now a beggar. She is pressed into service by the head of her clan to prepare "the parcel" for life as a prostitute.

This is an incredibly deep novel about marginalized people who aren't accepted by their families and society in general. We watch Madhu participate in the victimization of the parcel, knowing that she herself was similarly victimized and marginalized. There is no moral ambiguity in Mr. Irani's writing; there is a recognition that characters have complex motivations and of the crucial need for belonging and acceptance that can bring people to dark places. A difficult read, but a good book. ( )

There are certain topics that, if one is writing a novel of, you expect to be devastating. I'd say that a novel about breaking-in an underage, trafficked prostitute should probably be devastating. The Parcel isn't particularly devastating, and could use a good edit to remove some of the repeated phrases or explanations. It's a good book, and there's enough that kept me engaged, but, ultimately, it's just a book I read. Good, but not great.

The Parcel by Anosh Irani went on sale September 6, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This was really hard to get into, it has lots of indian words and phrases that I sometimes didn't grasp the meaning of.It's a really well written book and the subject matter is shocking, but it really makes you feel for the real people who go through this.The ending is kind of confusing, I don't really understand what happened, but it was an ok read.

I won this from a goodreads giveaway ( )