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First, are Western readers just plain curious about the Parsis? After all, they are probably most widely known for a single practice: the way they dispose of their dead by leaving them in a tower for vultures to feast on. This ceremony receives full attention in Such a Long Journey, which presents all the gruesome details along with the ritualistic. As far as Parsi life goes, though, Mistry has some competition, because the Pakistani writer Bapsi Sidhwa, now a United States citizen, has written a robust novel that portrays this community during the colonial period, The Crow Eaters (1980), another that depicts a Parsi family in Lahore during the time of Partition in 1947, Cracking India (1991), and a third set in the postcolonial era, An American Brat (1993), that treats not only contemporary Parsi life in Pakistan but the community's immigrant experience in the United States as well. Although Sidhwa has received her share of attention, it has been far overshadowed by that accorded to Mistry. His meteoric career cannot then be credited altogether to the exotic nature of the Parsis. Instead, he has turned their lives into a metaphor that stands for the human experience: the fears, the joys, the ambitions and failures, the terror and the conflicts, finally the sense of balance that once attained will allow the characters to withstand the outer world, a world awash with dangers to personal fulfillment and identity. .
Another question arises when considering the two novels: does the expose of political corruption and tyranny during Indira Gandhi's tenure still hold that much interest? She is long dead, assassinated, and her sons are dead as well. Only the Italian-born daughter-in-law remains to carry on the dynasty. The tempest that is Indian politics before, during, and since Mrs. Gandhi's years in power probably fails to intrigue most readers of Mistry's work. It is not the history or the actuality that attracts in Mistry's fiction, but the way he uses these elements.