The Parsis, or Zoroastrians, contribute a significantly small portion of India’s over all population. Because of this, not a lot is known about this ethnic group especially concerning their family dynamics. Home on the Hill, the book written by W.D. Merchant about her childhood, had it been written properly, would have given valuable insight regarding the everyday life of a girl in a particular Parsi family. However, because of the author’s inability to portray her parents without partiality and her incapacity to give information regarding the Parsi household in general, this was not achieved.

According to the book, the author was born in Bombay India in the year 1946. She was educated at Elphinstone College, Bombay University, and later completed her graduate studies at both Western Michigan University and the University of Chicago. Currently, she resides here in the U.S. and teaches sociology and anthropology at South Suburban College, in South Holland, Illinois (Merchant, 1991, 133).

Ms. Merchant begins her book by giving her readers a glimpse of her youth by the use of old photographs. Through this, the readers gain a sense of familiarity with her childhood thus giving them a visual reference to her descriptions as she narrates her youth. After the pictures, she immediately proceeds to talk about her parents and how they each treated her as she continuously tried to gain their approval even at an early age.

In the first chapter, she briefly talks about her father as an individual and his many eccentricities. She even discusses how he would never show any display of emotion in public, unless it was negative, and how he would always beat her for refusing to eat. Despite the abuse she received, however, she still nonetheless wrote numerous accounts of her father’s kindness whether it be in helping her pack her books for the next days classes or just answering his daughter’s questions regarding the planning of strategies, religion and many others (Merchant, 1991,13).

In the next chapter, she then talks about her mother and how she ran the household. According to the author, her mother was a proud woman who often chased the help away because of her shrewdness and her inability to be satisfied. This can be observed as Ms. Merchant talks about how her mother would scrutinize everything she bought in the market and list in detail every fault that she could find, actual or imagined (Merchant, 1991, 21-22). Moreover, the author also discusses the abuse she received from her mother as she assisted her in daily household tasks and other instances when she attracted her mother’s wrath.

In later chapters, she subsequently engages in a wide range of topics that may initially seem trivial but in retrospect may have actually influenced her life a great deal. One topic that comes to mind can be found in chapter four of the book that briefly concerns her parents’ divorce (Merchant, 1991, 60). During this time she was already in college and was torn by the fact that her parents’ turbulent marriage was about to come to an end. In order to escape any sort of involvement in the whole ordeal, she resolved to detach herself by concentrating on books and other activities thus temporarily separating herself from her troubled family. Looking at this, one cannot help but wonder if such actions might actually be caused by years of enduring her parents’ constant bickering and the mild abuse she received. She eventually hit a low point in her life when she was asked to testify against her father’s (the one she truly favored) abusive behavior, thus leading her to attempt to take her own life. Through this experience, she was able to achieve a brief separation from her family and thus relieve herself of a burden even for a short while. Through this scene, and many others, the reader can thus observe the troubles she endured as she tried to please both her parents and cater to their eccentricities no matter how irrational they may have been.

Home on the Hill not only showed the negative aspect of Merchant’s youth but also depicted the simple pleasures her family enjoyed before her parents broke into their usual squabbling. She paints pictures of car trips into the country side and the singing of songs as her father’s Morris drove through narrow back roads and one lane streets (Merchant, 1991, 63). She also talks about the way she and her brother used to wear ribbons of gold all over their bodies and mimic the movements of Parsi dancers, all to their parents’ delight. Furthermore, the author writes of instances when her parents spoke highly of her and gave her praise and support thus urging her to continue to do well. This can be observed when the author, as a child, caught a dishonest maid and brought her fraudulence to the attention of her parents. As a response, her parents lavished her with praise to the extent of telling their neighbors about her “heroics.” Through these examples, the reader can recognize the effect her parents had on her youth as she endured the abuse and enjoyed the praise she received from them.

Since W.D. Merchant does not follow a chronological order in her writing, it seems as though her book is somewhat disorganized and therefore difficult to grasp. Because of this, her narrations were difficult to follow and her story was somewhat confusing as she skipped from one time frame into another without any semblance of order. This type of narrative strategy did not work well with Ms. Merchant’s book. For although she creates vivid descriptions of events, settings and characters, she, however, failed to relay the proper sequence of different events in her childhood to the reader. Moreover, there were even instances when she completely failed to cite what age she was when talking about a specific incident in her life. Because of this, the reader is left wondering whether or not his understanding of the events narrated is in fact correct and in proper order.

Furthermore, it looks as if she truly favored her father more than her mother for it seems that she intentionally omitted specific accounts of her father’s delinquent behavior. Through this, it appears as though she tries to sway the readers’ opinion into liking her father as much as she does. However, this strategy was not very effective for the author herself, aware of her personal bias, admits to her own partiality. Nonetheless, she still tries to excuse her father from the reader’s judgment and the scrutiny he would have endured had she gone into more detail regarding her father’s conduct.

In contrast, she describes her mother with the utmost disgust, to the point of loathing. Furthermore, she writes in complete accuracy how her mother mistreated her and her siblings be it during the first day of school or while she was fondly reading her favorite books.

As mentioned above, the unequal portrayal of the author’s parents was a feeble attempt to solicit the reader’s sympathy towards her father. By unequally portraying her parents, she deliberately tried to influence the reader’s estimation by manipulating her facts and knowingly distorting the images she presents. Through this, she undermined the reader’s own interest in reading her work by attempting to sway that person’s opinion rather than letting one formulate his own interpretations based on the data she presents. Because of this, one cannot truly appreciate what she is trying to convey because it seemed as though she would have preferred to think for you if she was given the chance. Moreover, because of her desire to persuade the reader, she failed to give insight on how her family, as part of an ethnic group, truly functioned. Rather than concentrating on the fact that she could be giving valuable information regarding her ethnicity, she instead spent most of her time trying to mask her father’s deficiencies.

In conclusion, through W.D. Merchant’s accounts of her childhood, her readers were able to take a small glimpse as to how she was raised as a child. In addition, as her parents struggled to endure one another’s eccentricities, the author was able to paint a clear picture of how she and her siblings had to walk the thin line between their parents’ love and wrath as her parents continued to live with each others misconducts. By doing this, she was able to recount instances about her childhood that were both good and bad, thus creating scenes for her readers to see why she grew up to be what she is today. However, it was somewhat discourteous that she attempted to undermine the reader’s interest by deliberately trying to sway that person’s opinion regarding her parents, particularly her father. Hence, due to this personal agenda, even though she gave vivid accounts of her childhood, she failed to give any insight into how a Zoroastrian family truly interacted and how a Parsi child was raised.

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