Summary of first ten chapters in An American Brat

1. American Brat

2. Chapter-1
• Cyrus Ginwalla - father of Feroza, Zareen Ginwalla
– mother of Feroza.
• Zareen complains about the behaviour of Feroza
and says that, “ She’s becoming more and more
backward every day.”
• Feroza didn’t attend the phonecall, if some one
whom she did not know speak in the phone. She
objects to her mother wearing sleeveless blouse
to the school.
• Zareen told Cyrus that they must send Feroza to
America and Manek will look after her.

3. • Manek was Zareen’s younger brother, only six
years older than Feroza.
• Cyrus accepted to think about it. When Zareen
started talking about Feroza, Cyrus thought about
the incident which happened a week earlier.
When he returned from his sports store, he saw
Feroza talking to an unknown youngman. He
came to ask Feroza to act in a play, but she
refused saying that her father won’t like it.

4. Chapter-2
• Cyrus was glad Feroza didn’t discuss the incident
with Zareen. Zareen was seventeen, when she
married Cyrus. Zareen developed headache
thinking about the response of Cyrus. She felt
guilty that she had not visited Data Gunj Baksh’s
shrine. She said a short Zoroastrian prayer,
invoking Sarosh Ejud, the Angel of Success Who
Protects Mankind With Effective Weapons. When
Feroza returned from her school both of them
went to Data Sahib.

5. • Zareen and Feroza went to the women’s
section covering their head with dopattas.
Zulfikar ali, Bhutto’s sister was at the tomb.
• Feroza always shut herself inside her room.
She had been a stubborn child. She didn’t
attend any parties and avoided her parents’
evening guests.

6. Chapter-3
• The family waited for three successive
evenings for the trunk call to America. On the
fourth evening, Cyrus told the operator that
he want to talk to the party at once, as his
mother’s died. The call was connected to
America and Cyrus informed about sending
Feroza to America for three months. Manek
said he will look after her. Feroza was happy
about going to America. A week later Cyrus
came home with the Airlines ticket for Feroza.

7. • Khutlibai, Zareen’s mother came to her house.
She inquired about each servant’s health and
their families’ welfare. Khutlibai asked Zareen
why do they want to send Feroza to America? She
is too innocent and young to be sent there.
Zareen’s lips were quivering and felt like a four
year old child before her mother. The ayah came
with the soup and she escaped to the bathroom.
While drinking the soup Khutlibai made a noise.
Zareen asked her mother to stop that noise and
said that she hates that noise and even feels
ashamed of her.

8. • Khutlibai left the house angrily. Next morning she
phoned Zareen to come and see her. Zareen visited her
mother the next afternoon in her house in Punj-Mahal
Road. Khutlibai and Sorabji Junglewalla had moved to
the house in 1940.
• The walls of the drawing room were decorated with
the portraits of dead ancestors. Faredoon Junglewalla,
her great-grandfather and Putlibai, her great-
grandmother.
• Zareen informed her mother that Feroza is going to
America the next Friday and Manek will look after her.

9. • Khutlibai told her about how Manek in
childhood days chased her with gun and
Feroza was injured. She was afraid that Manek
will not take care of her properly and will only
push her into a well. But Zareen convinced her
mother saying Manek will surprise them and
will take care of Feroza .

10. Chapter-4
• Two weeks before they informed Manek about
flight details and he assured them that he would
be at Kennedy Airport when Feroza arrives there.
He asked Feroza to do her duty-free shopping at
Dubai Airport, since it was the cheapest. He
wanted her to buy a cassette player and a camera
for him there.
• Thee days before her departure she visited the
fire temple agyari. She prayed to Ahura Mazda to
protect her and give her power. She looked at the
atash, the holy fire.

11. • On Friday the house was filled with relatives.
Soonamai, Cyrus’s mother visited him rarely. She lives
with her eldest son Rohinton and wife Freny in Kot
Lakpat. Khutlibai launch the good luck ceremony
followed by Soonamai, uncles and aunts.
• In the airport schoolgirls from Sacred Heart Convent
came. Zareen’s brother Behram and his wife Jeroo had
turned up from Rawalpandi.
• They advised her not to talk with strangers. Cyrus had
given Feroza one hundred American dollars, purchased
on the black market and so had Khutlibai.

12. Chapter-5
• Feroza bought the cassette player and camera
for Manek at the Dubai Duty-Free. In the
evening landed at Heathrow Airport in
London. The flight for Newyork would take off
at two in the morning. Feroza slept very little
during the twenty-nine hours to arrive at
Kennedy Airport. The officials asked her a
number of questions and she felt very difficult
as they didn’t believe whatever she said.

13. • Feroza said that she is going to stay with her
uncle. She was again asked to go for secondary
inspection. She told them that he was a student
but also works at two other jobs to make extra
money. It was a crime for foreign students to
work. Manek came and informed them that he
was a student at M.I.T and he works in the
university cafeteria. They doubted that Feroza has
come here to marry Manek and repeated the
same to her. Manek confirmed that she will leave
after three months and both of them signed a
form.

14. Chapter-6
• Manek tells Feroza that they can spend one week
in Newyork and then get back to Cambridge.
• At two in the morning Manek and Feroza reached
YMCA on Broadway. She gave him the fawn-and-
blue cardigan knitted by his sister. She was
surprised by his uncharacteristic behaviour.
• When Manek booked room in YMCA, he came to
know that 15th floor was reserved for married
couples and 22nd floor for women only. So he
booked a room in the 15th floor.

15. • Manek called her boochimai, and left her in
the women’s restroom. There she saw some
men and ran to the room to inform Manek.He
told her that it was women’s restroom and
when she came back found the toothpaste
tube lying there. A woman was found there
and Feroza told her that she saw two men.
She asked her to tell the management.

16. Chapter-7
• Manek and Feroza went on a tour of Newyork
• They saw Statue of Liberty, Empire State
Building, twin World Trade Towers and Zoo at
Central Park.
• Next day they visited Wall Street, where
money changes hands in one hour than in a
whole year in Pakistan. Then they went to
Bloomingdale’s.

17. • Manek was not interested in following Feroza
to all the places. He asks her to come to
Lexington Avenue entrance. Then they went
to the major museums in New York.
• On the fourth day Feroza hated the idea of
visiting museums again and insisted on
window-shopping on Fifth Avenue.

18. • Manek advised Feroza how to behave in the
public and also asked her not to look into
other’s eyes.
• He pointed out who are the criminals around
them – a male prostitude and a drug-dealer

19. Chapter 8
• Manek wrote to his University and the bank to
sort out the trouble with the immigration
authorities.
• He asked Feroza to return bu one-thirty, after a
window-shop around YMCA.
• He asked her to remember the address- YMCA at
Broadway and sixty-third street.
• Feroza had problem in getting down from the
elevator on the fifteenth floor.
• The next day morning they got the 10 o’clock
train to Boston.

20. Chapter-9
• On hearing of Feroza’s arrival, two weeks earlier,
he had moved to the two-story, three bedroom
house in Somerville. He scolded the Pakistani,
Jamil, for not having taken care of his golden fish.
• Feroza behaved disrespecfully before his friend.
He recalled how there was nobody to teach him
about how to behave in the new place.
• That afternoon they went out for a drive across
the Charles river in his fifth-hand, two-door 1971
Ford. He bought it for sixty dollars from the girl
who gave him the golden fish.

21. • Feroza was able to understand the humiliations
endured by Manek in an alien land. Manek told
her about the accident he had in New York. He
had spent a weekend in Southbridge, near
Connecticut-Massachusetts border. He was hit by
a car and severely bruised, lain there in the snow
and no car stopped to help him. He walked six
hours to get to a hospital. This had happened
almost a year ago and he didn’t write about it to
his mother.

22. • He had told her about the free food offered
for desi students every evening in Houston’s
bars. They went to Newbury street, where a
hair cut costs two hundred dolllars, and then
Public Garden and down Marlborough street.
Boston became Feroza’s second favourite city.
• Manek told her about Father Fibs, who was a
storyteller. He was known for rendering long
passages from Hamlet and Othello.

23. Chapter-10
• Monday morning Manek returned to his regular
routine life. When he was out Feroza used to
watch a small black and white TV.
• One day Father Fibs came to his house. Mrs. Fibs
gave Feroza a gift-wrapped box of candy.
• Later he told them that in future how like a bird
when they start to fly they will fall and it will hurt
them. But they should not be frightened for their
wings will become stronger.