Swimming Lessons by Rohinton Mistry

Many Americans are under the impression that India is composed of majority Hindus and minority Muslims, with little understanding of the true ethnic diversity that exists in India. The impression that many westerners have of India is based on a partial understanding of the origins of the caste system, some information about Gandhi, and very little information about the interrelationship between British imperialism in Africa and India. In Swimming Lessons, Mistry focuses much of his attention on the Parsis. The Parsis are practitioners of Zoroastrianism. They make up a very small religious minority in India, though they have a much larger presence in some small communities. For example, in Swimming Lessons, many of the main characters that recur in the short stories are Parsis. Furthermore, as one might expect, when some of these characters immigrate to North America, they have a different immigrant experience than...
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