Admitting candidly to the fairly negative response from the Parsi community, especially to the lines, ``I was only accidentally born a Parsi,'' she explained that all that she meant was that all births are accidental, since ``we don't decide the family we are born in.''

``Every story in the book is an interaction of the Parsi community with other communities,'' said Meher, in the city for a book reading at the Crossword. ``It's a book intentionally woven around a secular element in contemporary urban society.''

The title story about an inter-community marriage between a Parsi and a Hindu, presents an ideal of secularist ethos, she says.

Similar to the story Riot, a description of a city devastated by communal carnage, Meher talks about her own encounter with raw emotions in '92-93, which brought her face to face with bloodshed and grief that shook her up, and was the most intense experience of her life.

The book also recognises the palpable reality of class differences, she says, and how class conflict is not the only way to resolve them.

On why she calls herself a rebel from adolescence, who for years tried escaping her roots, Meher says it was her work among the street children and slum dwellers that her upper-middle class family frowned upon, and the fact that she was always unconventional by choosing to interact socially with people from all classes and communities.

With an intensely personal touch, the stories have traces of personal experiences in The Gift, about the maid who brought her up, but married and left when she was 12, to Transience, which tells the story of an elderly aunt and her relationship with Rosie the domestic since 32 years.

Meher, whose social work ranged from the '70s campaign to change rape law, to anti-communal campaigns, and housing rights for slum dwellers, is presently involved in awareness programmes for the rights of HIV infected people and their spouses.