Bhima, the main character of The Space Between Us, returns as she struggles against the circumstances of class and misfortune to forge a new path for herself and her granddaughter in modern India.
Poor and illiterate, Bhi a had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for Marie than 20 years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. Bhi a must now find some other way to support herself and her granddaughter, Maya.
Bhima’s fortunes take an unexpected turn when her path intersects with Parvati, a bitter, taciturn older woman. The two acquaintances soon form a tentative business partnership, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. As they work together, the two women seemingly bound by fate grow closer, each confessing the truth about their lives and the wounds that haunt them. Discovering her first true friend, Bhima pieces together a new life, and together, the two women learn to stand on their own. ( )

Class divisions lay at the core of Thirty Umrigar's powerful novel “The Space Between Us.” Those divisions in modern India have eased somewhat in the sequel, “The Secrets Between Us” (2018), yet as the title suggests people remain separated, partly by the secrets they try to keep hidden and the pride that prevents them from speaking about them.

After being forced to leave her longtime position as a servant for an upperclass woman in the earlier novel, Bhima now works for two other women and still lives in a slum while trying to save enough money to pay for her granddaughter's college education.

Through a series of circumstances, she finds herself forming a business partnership with a bitter woman named Parvati, even older than she is. Though impoverished, Parvati turns out to be educated and has a good business sense. Bhima is illiterate, but is more able-bodied. Together they begin making money selling vegetables in the open market.

Parvati's secret is that she was sold into prostitution by her father when she was a little girl. Once a great beauty, she was the pride of the brothel, where she kept the books, as well. Eventually she married a police officer, one of her most faithful clients. He turned brutal, however, and his death left her in poverty. "...Without my secrets I am nothing," she says at one point.

As for Bhima, her secret was told in the previous novel. Her husband and son abandoned her years before. She raised their daughter, who died of AIDS, living the granddaughter, Maya, in her care. The reasons behind her firing in the other novel are also a secret she wants to keep hidden.

Gradually these very different women reveal their secrets to each other and begin to draw close, no space at all between them.

Umrigar draws her characters beautifully, making them real and their actions understandable. The novel's last line may be one of the most moving you will ever read: "Although it is dusk, in Bhima's heart it is dawn." I have revealed the ending, but you won't cry until you have read the rest. ( )

3.5 stars

Bhima is no longer working for the family she had been, and is now living in the slum with her granddaughter, Maya. However, with some help, she has managed to send Maya to university, while Bhima herself is now working two jobs (cleaning and cooking) for two other people. She really dislikes the woman at her morning job, but at her afternoon job, when her employer has a friend move in – a friend who has moved back to India from Australia and seems to have forgotten the customs – Bhima is not only treated very well, she is treated more like a friend.

The often disagreeable Parvati has an argument with her nephew and he kicks her out of where she has been living. She finds a room to rent at a brothel, and sells vegetables at a stand during the day to make her daily rent. Circumstances bring the two older ladies, Bhima and Parvati, together and they form a business partnership.

This is a continuation of “The Space Between Us” by the same author. Despite this being a sequel (and although I have), I don’t think you need to have read the first book to read this one. The bits you need to know are told to you in this story (good thing, because I wouldn’t have remembered any of it!). I liked this. I considered upping my rating to 4 but decided to keep it at a “good” rating for me. It’s not fast paced, but it’s a nice story of friendship. With the way it ended, I feel like there is a possibility for another continuation (with a different focus). If another book came out with these characters, I would read it. ( )

Thirty Umrigar is now my most favorite author. I listened to The Secrets Between Us is powerful and has many truths about, life, forgiveness, women and poverty. I found myself smiling and often with tears rolling down my cheeks often. Now that I am 76 years old, I enjoy a story that illuminates truth and wonder.

The first women, Bhima, the grandmother, a housekeeper who loses her main employer grows through hardship and by introduction a woman who teaches that love can be shared by people of a higher caste and knowledge of self worth.

The granddaughter, Maya becomes a bridge between Bhima and the higher caste women.

The third woman, Parvati, which is a Hindu goddess that ironically sounds like the English word poverty! And she is extremely poor, selling six cauliflower a day that look like they are ready to be thrown out. Plauged by tragedy, she is very hard and mean on the outside but when Bhima comes to know her, the intelligent and wisdom shine through frim the inside.

There is so much more! But this tale needs to be shared by everyone for its beauty, love and friendship that is like sisterhood. ( )