User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I stayed up all night to finish this book, because the climax is simply unputdownable. I am hesitant to formally review it because it's one of those few books that can't be confined within the bounds of a critique or summary, and one that is so magnificent and moving that the idea of reviewing it makes me feel insolent already! So I'll just note what I feel about the book, and the kind of effect it's had on me.
It's grim. Very grim. There are moments of tragicomedy, of overjoyed glimpses of the sun on a very grey day, but it's not a happy story, and it makes no pretensions to being one. The heartwrenching ending had me involuntarily wondering what kind of person would want to write a bleak tale like that -- and then I understood Mistry's message through the book, that this is fiction, but not made-up; this is a novel, but larger-than-life; this is yesterday, persisting into today and reaching out its long clammy fingers into tomorrow.
Life's vicissitudes toss four unlikely companions into one living space, a dingy little flat, in the "City by the Sea," Bombay. Widow Dina Dalal has lived for decades in solitude, barely making ends meet, watching the sun rise and set everyday with the same transparent indifference; college-student Maneck Kohlah has left his much-loved life and his family's little general store in the Himalayas to study air-conditioning and refrigeration in the city, a course that his father believes will equip him to deal with a world that is hell-bent on destroying nature to further technology; tailors Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, uncle and nephew, have left their village, and their traditional "untouchable" occupation of tanning animal hides to seek their fortunes in this city of dreams and earn enough money to go home and live more comfortably. This is the story of how these four people find family in each other, find friendship, laughter, and a courage to struggle and persevere despite all their troubles. This is the story of shattered dreams, of Indira Gandhi's cruel Emergency, of how each person's life is webbed and entangled in its own drama, of caste, poverty, and a positive survival instinct corroded into a dog-eat-dog mentality that strangulates, just as time itself does.
Many parts of the book brought tears to my eyes, but by the time I finished it, I was actually sobbing. Somewhere in these six hundred pages the reader becomes friends with the characters, begins to share their joys and sorrows, and desperately wish for a happy ending that he/she knows, deep down, is not to be.
This is a life-changing read, and one that I would be truly sorry to see anyone miss out on.
Rating: really liked it
Brutal, awful book about India in the aftermath of partition and in the midst of the catastrophic State of Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi.
If I hadn't already read several firsthand accounts from this time, I might have questioned whether anyone could possibly suffer as many atrocities as the characters do in this book. Extreme poverty, inter-caste violence, forced sterilization, the obliteration of basic human rights... I knew about some of what went on during this time, but I don't think I ever really
knew until this story took me inside what happened.
I have put this book off for years because of its 600+ pages, but it was a mistake. Between the fast-moving narrative and the well-drawn characters, I could hardly put it down.
Rating: really liked it
“You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.' He paused, considering what he had just said. 'Yes', he repeated. 'In the end, it's all a question of balance.’ ” 
A Fine BalanceI sometimes take a moment to focus on the corner of my office. The way the two walls come together forming a line, a demarcation. I think of it as bringing the two halves of my brain together, to focus, to think, to ponder. It is an illusion of course, but I’m fortunate that some of my life can be given to fanciful thoughts like thinking I can marshal the powers of my mind by staring meditatively at a conjunction. We all worry about things, ponder things, and even dream about being somewhere else or about being someone else. We all have loose threads that bother us, sometimes they are consuming us, and little do we know these bothersome threads are becoming stronger, like a man imprisoned, who spends vast amounts of time doing pushups and situps, waiting for the bars to open.
But it is a small matter, because I eat three meals a day, take a hot shower every morning, and sleep six solid hours a night on a bed that is not too soft nor too hard.
I have rights that protect me from my government (at least for the moment). I have law enforcement that doesn’t have to be bribed to protect me from those that wish to do harm for harms sake. I have a circle of family and friends who wish me well and will lend a shoulder to lean on if I falter. I have healthcare and life insurance in case I am unlucky. I live in a bubble of civilization that almost insures me a certain length of life span.
So when I do get time to snip those loose threads of my life I’m doing so with a brain that has the luxury of worrying about something more than just
NEEDS. As large as my “problems” become they are still,
but a small matter. There are a vast array of characters in this novel. Some are at a slightly higher economic level than the rest, but regardless of their circumstances no one can feel safe, no one can worry about matters beyond the most basic needs of water, food, and shelter.
The bulk of this story occurs in 1975 in an unnamed Indian city by the sea. It is the time of The Great Emergency which really means that the government has declared a form of martial law...for the safety of the people of course. They have implemented a rigorous Family Planning Program that at first entices people with cash and better ration cards for food if they are willing to have the operation for sterilization. When bribery doesn’t elicit the results the government wants their methods become more invasive and more drastic.
The government also implements a beautification program that translates to bulldozing all the temporary structures that have been erected around the city. These were thrown together to house the influx of country people coming to the metropolis to try and scrounge a living doing what others don’t want to do. The hodge podge of housing built out of cast off materials, rubbish to people of means, is not beautiful, not in the way that we are taught to evaluate beauty, but the creativity and the determination to build something for themselves is beyond beauty. It is simply magnificent. As they make a little money they fix something, add something, make it more their home.
You build it and they will come. There is no field of dreams in this India.So the government eliminates these eye sores, but does not provide a place for these people to live. They are thrown to the elements to shift for themselves. If truth be known the government would like to see these people vanish, stacked in the same pile as the rubbled remains of their homes.
“What sense did the world make? Where was God, the Bloody Fool? Did He have no notion of fair and unfair? Couldn't He read a simple balance sheet? He would have been sacked long ago if He were managing a corporation, the things he allowed to happen...” The two tailors Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash were there when the bulldozers started knocking down homes. Only after all the homes were destroyed did the monster machines stop for twenty minutes to allow people to salvage what they could.
The tailors are working for a woman named Dina Dalal who is fortunate to have her own apartment. She still mourns the death of her husband taken from her in a freakish accident many years ago. She nearly went over the brink with grief.
“Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.” She has a relationship with her brother that is complicated. She dislikes having to accept his help; and yet, finds herself going to him for money when she is short of rent. In a bid for more independence and more financial security she decides to start making clothes for a large manufacturing company, but her eyesight is failing and so she hires Ishvar and Omprakash to do the sewing.
Further help arrives in the form of Maneck Kohlah, a rich boy in comparison to the other people in the apartment, who contributes much needed rent while he is going to school.
She is not supposed to run a business out of her apartment. She is not supposed to sublease. The landlord is looking for any reason to get his hands on this apartment so he can finally break the rent controls. It is a recipe for disaster born out of desperation. It is a bid for freedom.
“After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.” Through a series of unpredictable events they all end up living in the apartment together. The tailors out on the veranda. Dina shoehorned into the sewing room. Maneck in Dina’s old bedroom. There are difficulties mainly because Omprakash begins to resent Dina’s position as overseer. Om perceives her as a big shot, a rich person, when nothing could be further from the truth. Being a manager myself I really identified with Dina’s issues. She would try to be more lenient and the two men would take more and more advantage of her. She would try yelling and the men would become resentful. She would try negotiating with them, but any concessions she was willing to make was never enough. How quickly the men forgot how bad things were before the found the benevolence of the woman with an apartment.
Despite those issues for a little while, too short of time, they were happy.
“…God is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don’t fit well together anymore, it’s all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it.”The mystery of happiness. It is so hard to obtain and so difficult to duplicate. You can bring together the same people under the same circumstances and not be able to achieve it again. There is a magic missing, a zing, a spice, a mood or just the will to let it happen.
There are a host of satellite characters who add so much vitality to this novel. My favorite was the Beggarmaster. As his title indicates he managed and took care of an army of beggars. He also, for a price, extended protection to people like the tailors, to people like Dina. He is as powerful as a magistrate and the police know not to mess with him or his people. He sees everyone the same whether they are people missing limbs or people still retaining every body part they came into this world with. He sees the world through the lens of the poor.
”Freaks, that’s what we are--all of us.”... “I mean, every single human being. And who can blame us? What chance do we have, when our beginnings and endings are so freakish? Birth and death--what could be more monstrous than that? We like to deceive ourselves and call it wondrous and beautiful and majestic, but it’s freakish, let’s face it.” The Beggarmaster would have been perfectly at home stepping into a Dickens novel as would many of the characters in this novel. Many reviewers have made comparisons to Charles Dickens and nowhere is it more apparent than in the cast of characters that Rohinton Mistry has assembled. Dickens would have also certainly loved taking on the issue of forced sterilization, the issue of sanitation, the issue of deprivation, and the overreach of a government completely out of touch with the largest majority of their population...the poor.
You will find yourself living with these characters. You will even feel like you are sharing their deprivation through the power of a gifted writer’s words. Success is fleeting. Disaster ever present. Hopelessness is a shadow around everyone’s heart. No one is immune and everyone is walking on the ledge hoping the wind doesn’t blow. The things that matter to them the most are the essential things. The very things the rest of us take for granted.
Rohinton MistryRohinton Mistry very well may have written a masterpiece. This was recommended to me as a favorite book. I can’t resist when people say a book is their favorite book. So what I would like is for everyone to share their favorite book with me on the comments thread. I will do my best to eventually read every one of them that I haven’t read before. This novel is Highly Recommended!
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Rating: really liked it
But rest assured: This tragedy is not a fiction. All is True.
Hence started my journey of a fine book, A Fine Balance. I have no sane excuse for my ignorance about Rohinton Mistry novels. I just didn’t have a single clue about him or his achievements till I joined Goodreads. Yes!! Though it’s not a big deal as one is not supposed to know everything but here’s a writer of Indian origin, writing unbelievably great books about Indians and is still remain unacknowledged by a common Indian reader is densely pitiable. His Facebook page has 7000+ odd likes where, as I gauged from the comments, majority is of non-Indians. But then he is no marketing guru but a writer who writes and writes well, so well that it can make you cringe at the comfortable life you’re having or at least makes you open your eyes to take a good look at the hardships of the hapless lots around you.
I don’t read about Politics because it disgusts me. I don’t have a deep understanding about the 1970’s Emergency period because fortunately nobody in my family or acquaintances got affected by it, so basically it’s the experience which tells a story, just watching, simply gives an indifferent shrug. On the surface I know that it happened under the PMship of Indira Gandhi. School mainly tells you: She was the First women PM of India. She was the daughter of honorable Pandit JawaharLal Nehru. She was the mother of one of the youngest PM of India, Rajiv Gandhi. She was the reason why India didn’t face another partition by launching Operation Blue Star, hence reduced the idea of Khalistan into ashes because of which she was later assassinated. Nothing more, nothing less always a glossy and martyred picture of Daughter of India, Ironically.
So how does it feel to read A Fine Balance? What does it promise to convey its readers? What makes a 600+ page novel readable or rather a page-turner? What’s different about the lives of Dina Dalal, Ishvar, Om and Maneck that you haven’t witness before especially being an Indian? Well the answer could be “May be nothing is different, all trite”, or; “It’s helluva great story, I haven’t read anything like this before”. But the answer remains somewhere in between and the secret is Rohinton’s great writing. His matter-of-factly narration, awesome character building and plot settings can give you the pleasure like watching
‘Hum Log’ on high definition channel. He is not a man of big bulky words, dictionary is almost dispensable while reading him but the words are piercing enough to make you feel the subject. The story reflects through them in an unmatched finesse. There is no room left for any improvement as he has used every single component at his disposal in building this masterpiece, just like Dina’s quilt in the novel.
The story revolves around four main characters, Dina Dalal, a widow and a self-respected lady who treats her independence dearest than any of the relations left in her life. Ishwar, a darji (tailor) whose father sent him to get equipped with tailoring in order to earn him a life of repute which he wouldn’t have got under the fate-imposed Chamaar profession. Om, Ishvar’s nephew, again a darji, a young and aggressive lad and an orphan whose life is dedicated mainly to his uncle Ishvar and vice-versa. And, Maneck, a guy from Mountains, whose struggle to know and feel his worth in lives of others especially his parents and a college friend remained unending. The story is about how four of them got together in one flat not willingly but due to twists and turns life threw at them. It’s a journey of how reluctance was over-powered by compassion, how loneliness made room for companionship and how a house became home , how four of them amidst many doubts and objections became “there for each other” Kind, but it was a home of cards waiting for a gush of insensitive wind to tumble it and its housemates.
It’s a sad novel, heart wrenching in fact. It will make you cry (except in case of defective tear ducts) and it will make you very angry. It has its dose of humor but simultaneously it carries an air of apprehension around it like how a moment of happiness is short-lived and shall soon be replaced by gloominess and sorrow. It’s something I felt while watching Clint Eastwood’s
Million Dollar Baby and
Gran Torino, where as an audience one starts to feel that good days will be balanced out with bad days because Life, the bitch, usually gives us lemons, and to the unfortunate lot, it plants a lemon tree at the backyard of their wretched life. But throughout, this book echoes one universal law, that despair doesn’t have a favorite victim. It befalls upon everyone at some point of time, triggered by fate, destiny or power hungry human beings.
History is a witness to how Power breeds evil, breeds mainly on the blood of innocent lives who would have never imagined that their destiny would sacrifice them to such inexplicable atrocities. This book depicts the story revolving around such atrocities and enduring them, living through them, dying through them or merely surviving through them and resilience is the main key to such survival. Rohinton has captured life through his characters, has captured India through an unfortunate time, has captured ugliness of human face and has finally captured resplendence of human soul through his mesmerizing words.
READ IT !!!
Here's my audio review of this book: https://soundcloud.com/readbetweenlin...
Rating: really liked it
Like most Americans, I remember clearly the date September 11, 2001. I recall where I was standing when I first heard about the attack on the Twin Towers. My first child, a son, was almost eight months old at the time. My first reaction was fear; later, sorrow and grief set in. In my mind ran the thought that life as I knew it would never be the same again. My son would grow up in a world dominated by the unknown and the constant threat of danger. How could I possibly protect him from such uncertainties? Then I paused to reflect further and feelings of intense guilt erupted. The bubble of security I had been living in was burst. It struck me that the fear I was experiencing was one that millions of others across the globe are forced to live with on a daily basis. How lucky had I been? How presumptuous to assume that my family should be exempt from the horrors and injustices of the world? Well, admittedly and quite thankfully, we remain in a state of relative bliss, but a greater awareness has grown. I know that at any time, I could find myself standing in the shoes of another much less fortunate. I will not take for granted my rights and protections.
So, I digress a bit. This book,
A Fine Balance, has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. What this book accomplished, however, was similar to that which happened to me following that tragic event. I was once again placed figuratively in the shoes of another human being, actually in the shoes of several individuals that faced indignities, discrimination, and monstrous hardships on a regular basis. Rohinton Mistry spins a stunning and heartbreaking tale of four individuals whose lives intersect for one year during 1970s India, under the rule of Indira Gandhi. It was a time of great political upheaval resulting in ‘the Emergency’ of 1975. Human rights were suppressed, mass sterilization was enforced, the slums were destroyed, and the jails were full of Gandhi’s opponents. How this emergency affects these four as well as a number of secondary characters is nothing short of abominable.
Dina, a widow struggling to make ends meet independent of her domineering brother, has been struck with diminishing vision. She is in need of two assistants to help with her tailoring business if she is to succeed. Ishvar and his nephew Om, a pair with a sad background story of their own, are skilled in sewing and jump at the opportunity to work under Dina’s supervision. Maneck is a young college student that feels as if he has been cast aside by his parents and turned out from his relatively comfortable existence in his hometown by the mountains. Dina needs additional income and Maneck is distressed by the conditions at the youth hostel. A simple solution for both situations is found when Maneck moves into her home as a temporary boarder. We learn the stories of each, what their lives have been prior to their encounters with one another. Ishvar and Om are descendants of a lower caste. How this affects their relationship with both Dina and Maneck is one of the most touching portions of this novel. This is where I was able to grasp snatches of hope among the ruins of so much despair. A proofreader on a train ride has a chance meeting with Maneck and makes a statement that will continuously echo in this young student’s mind, as well as the reader’s, for the duration of the novel:
"You see, you cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end, it’s all a question of balance." While reading of one tragedy heaped upon another, one more story of wretchedness and loss, you will start questioning this balance as Maneck often did. What is Mistry trying to tell us? Is it possible to always find this balance? Cannot the scales be tipped so much against some individuals that the balance can never be achieved? And yet, there are characters in this book that despite all adversity, continue to hold onto a dream of a better future. Some accept their lot and others refuse to do so, abandoning all faith.
"If time were a bolt of cloth, I would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily."This is a difficult book to review in the sense that I cannot pinpoint any single emotion to convey. Yes, it was depressing at times. But sometimes, too, I laughed and held onto a very fine strand of hope. At one point I stopped and mulled over whether so much ‘bad’ could really exist in the life of any one person. Maybe the author was exaggerating; surely he has a trick up his sleeve. But then I considered the time, the place, the fact that this wasn’t happening in my little cocoon but elsewhere in the world. Maybe, just maybe, Mistry’s characters represent an entire body of people that were mistreated and victimized during a time when rights were stripped and awful injustices were the order of the day. I embraced it as a warning of what can happen when power is abused, when persons forget about the humanity in everyone, and when we fail to acknowledge our own role in helping to balance the scale.
If you haven’t already read this remarkable novel, I urge you to do so. It will surely leave a lasting impression. I also encourage you to pair it or follow it with a lighthearted read in order to soothe your spirit!
"People forget how vulnerable they are despite their shirts and shoes and briefcases, how this hungry and cruel world could strip them, put them in the same position as my beggars."
Rating: really liked it
Audiobook narrated by Vikas Adam. A format I highly recommend for this novel.
“Please always remember, the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt. To quote: ‘All things fall and are built again, and those that build them again are gay.’ ” “Yeats?” guessed Maneck. The proofreader nodded, “You see, you cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” He paused, considering what he had just said. “Yes,” he repeated. “In the end, it’s all a question of balance.” Maneck nodded. “The above paragraph summarizes the novel quite well, I would say. The conversation was carried out by Manek, one of the main characters and a mysterious character who reappears three times in the novel. My buddy readers are also fascinated and confused by this key person and his role in the story.
The novel takes place during the State of Emergency period installed by Indira Gandhi and follows the lives of four characters and how their life is affected by the draconic regulations. The first chapters show us how those people of different ages and social status came to meet each other. Then, we are introduced to each character’s life story. We have Dina, an independent widow who tries to survive on her own and not depend on her domineering brother. She is a tailor but her diminishing sight forces her to look for help. Ishvar and his nephew Om are two tailors who ran away from their village due to caste violence and are desperate to find a job in the city. Lastly, there is Manek a young student who is looking for a place to live, unhappy with the squalid conditions in the hostel where he had accommodation.
The writing gave me Dickensian and Hardy vibes. We follow the three characters through their failures, hurts and minor successes. I started to care a lot for this characters and I could not stop from suffering with them every time something bad happened. And here is the problem and the reason I gave the book only 4 stars. Too many bad things happen to this limited number of people, especially to Om and Ishvar. I could not bear it at some point and felt really depressed. All those bad things are real and many people were affected but those two felt like the unluckiest people in the world. The writing had some humour, probably intended as some sort of anaesthetic for the pain the author inflicted on his characters and the reader. I broadened my knowledge about the caste system, forced sterilization and other horrible practices. I also improved my knowledge of the Partition and The State of Emergency. I am glad I read A Fine Balance, I believe it is an important novel but one has to be in the right state of mind to cope with all that misery.
Rating: really liked it
This is probably the most depressing book I have ever read in my entire life. Not only is its chronicling of four lives bleak and without the slightest hint of hope or redemption, but it does this with a comprehensive scope and an unforgiving manner. Even re-reading it, knowing what was going to happen, did not mitigate my sadness. If anything, it amplified my emotions, because for all of the good things that happen in this book, the moments of joy, I knew how it was all going to go wrong. And this is not some adventure story or a romance where things get bad for a few hundred pages before the protagonists rise in the face of adversity. No, in
A Fine Balance, everything goes to hell. And it doesn't get better.
I could spend several paragraphs discussing how this book is depressing. Suffice it to say,
A Fine Balance is set in Mumbai, India. It covers over 30 years, from independence in 1947 to the Emergency of the 1970s. Rohinton Mistry follows four characters: two tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash; the widow, Dina Dalal, who employs them in her apartment; and the college student, Maneck, rooming with the widow. These characters endure poverty, oppression, and abuse by those in power and those with power. The tailors, their relatives victims of caste violence in their village back home, arrive in Mumbai only to live in a slum that gets demolished, its slum-lord now in the pay of the government. But living on the streets is not an option, for during the Emergency police have broad discretion when it comes to "beautifying" the streets of the overcrowded, overpopulated city, and losing their residence is by far one of the lesser misfortunes that Ishvar and Om experience.
The Emergency happened before I was born, in a land far removed from me. It is nothing more than a name to me, a period in the recent history of a country related to mine by imperial ties and immigrant exchanges. So this book lacks the personal resonance it has for those who did live through this period, whether in India or abroad. And I haven't really ever experienced any of the hardships Mistry depicts here. Nevertheless, I can still appreciate
A Fine Balance as a depiction of suffering during a time of turmoil and tyranny. And yeah, it is depressing, but I do not agree with those reviewers who find this a valid reason for panning the book. Mistry makes you feel sad for a reason.
While not perfect, Mistry's four protagonists are all good people. We learn this early in the book, for he recounts their past to us in a series of flashbacks so verbose as to transcend mere exposition and become true parts of the plot and narrative. Dina grows up under the thumb of her older brother, her dreams of becoming a doctor squashed by a patriarchal society. Instead she resorts to marriage as an escape, enjoys a happiness too rich to last long, and becomes a widow. For her, as with everyone, the question is how to make enough money to get by. Ishvar and Om come from a caste of tanners; their father made the defiant transition to tailoring and paid for the insolence with his life. They carry on in his tradition, but they have come to the city seeking work. Maneck has come to the city also looking for escape and edification; he is enrolled in a one-year college certification on air conditioners. He's not a very good student, but he is happy he has left his hometown, and with it his unsatisfying relationship with his father.
These are ordinary, everyday people. They do not invite the misfortune that befalls them. Why do bad things happen to good people?
A Fine Balance is many things, but it is not theodicy. It is instead a look at the consequences of a certain zeitgeist present in India at the time of the emergency. We see it in the way that Ishvar, Om, Dina, and Maneck all become victims, yes, but this zeitgeist pervades the novel on every level. It is present in the attitudes of Mistry's minor characters, in the exclamations of approval from Mrs. Gupta and Nusswan regarding the Emergency and its effect on trade unions, in the derision of Beggarmaster and the guilty conscience of Sergeant Kesar. Just as ordinary people ignored the obvious injustices happening during the Holocaust, so too did ordinary people rationalize and justify the brutality and the injustices that occurred during the Emergency. Some, like Mrs. Gupta or Nusswan, do it for economic reasons, whether or not they believe such actions are truly justified—scarily enough, some do. Others, like Sergeant Kesar, care less about the political significance of their actions and more about the moral significance.
I like Sergeant Kesar. He is a very minor character, but he is an example of how Mistry manages to make the scope of his political themes so broad. There are plenty of stock characters in
A Fine Balance, but for every goonda mindlessly enforcing the will of a landlord or minister, there is a Sergeant Kesar or an Ibrahim, an authority figure with a name and a face. These are antagonists or sometime-allies who, for one reason or another, are probably good people but have managed to end up in the wrong line of work at the wrong time. They struggle with their jobs, with the way they interact with people like Dina Dalal. This struggle is a poignant counterpoint to the innocent suffering of our four protagonists. The Emergency is not a monolithic movement of one group oppressing another. It is, Mistry shows us, a tumultuous period of conflict as one government tries to stay in power while elements subvert it for their own purposes.
That seems to fit with India, a country always in flux as a result of its vast population and rich history. Indira Gandhi's desecration of democracy destabilizes the country, but it is just another straw on the back of an already over-laden camel. From Ishvar and Om's backstory we learn of the deterioration of the caste system, and the resulting resistance from those, like the Thakur, who have power in the villages. From Maneck's childhood we see how urban development and expansion, commercialism and competition, are changing India's rural landscape and endangering some enterprises, like his father's general store. Dina's tale is more personal and more gendered, but it is also a story about family and independence. As she points out, independence is an illusion. We are all dependent on each other, especially in a city as big as Mumbai, and the culmination of the relationships of these four characters is an illustration of their interdependence. Ishvar and Om's detainment and disappearance profoundly affects Dina and Maneck, both personally and professionally; likewise, Dina's troubles with the landlord threaten Ishvar and Om's livelihood.
But I digress. In
A Fine Balance, Mistry juxtaposes the turmoil of the Emergency with many other events occurring simultaneously to alter India's zeitgeist. The result is a snapshot of a country that has always fascinated me for its conflict and its contradictions. Mistry's descriptions of life in Mumbai, especially for the impoverished, are almost beyond my ability to grasp, so different are they from what I know. India is in that interesting zone between developing and developed nation (though I am aware such terminology is, as ever, controversial). Its economy is so huge, so rich, both real and with potential, yet its massive population faces problems of education, poverty, and health. It is a fascinating country with very real challenges, both now and in the 1970s when this novel takes place.
All this, of course, does not really address that central question: why so depressing? Why couldn't Mistry weave a thread of hope through his quilt of a story? In my opinion, Maneck's ultimate fate obviates any possible solace one might find in the tenuous equilibrium achieved by Dina, Ishvar, and Om. It is a grace note that manages to overpower the end of the book, cause shock and dismay, and colours anything that follows. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read the book, but it is an action of such implicit nihilism that it is emblematic of the tone of
A Fine Balance.
Simply put, if this book ended on a "happy" note, if Ishvar, Om, Dina, and Maneck emerged with little in way of complaint, then their suffering would have been meaningless. That is a major claim to make, I know. Other books involve characters who suffer greatly only to emerge triumphant and all the better for it, so what makes these ones different? It is both the nature and the degree of their suffering. Their experiences are so brutal, so dehumanizing, that any serious redemption would minimize them too much for the reader. In order to emerge from such experiences triumphantly, it would have to be through actions of their own doing, through some form of resistance that overcomes the adversity. This would contradict the sense of powerlessness that Mistry wants to communicate, the utter helplessness in the face of an implacable political climate created by corrupt politicians and police. Ishvar and Om are not, cannot be revolutionaries. Dina and Maneck cannot be subversives. So when they suffer and submit and then it is
over … well, it cannot really be over, not until they are devastated. Mistry must administer a coup de grâce that finalizes the destruction he has plotted since page one.
This book is fiction, so it must have a beginning, middle, and end. But it is as close to being true as fiction can get, both in verisimilitude and in attitude. It is neither uplifting nor endearing but wearing. Even the most optimistic person would feel besieged by Mistry's careful and persistent erosion of everything good from the universe of
A Fine Balance. And this holds up to repeated readings, because his depictions of characters both major and minor are just so vivid, so believable, so tortuously touching, that you cannot help but care about what happens to them, even when you know it will be nothing good.
And so, I am not sure what to say, except that this is one of my favourite books, and in my opinion, one of the best books ever written, period. There will always be those who disagree, who pick it up, trudge through fifty or a hundred or two hundred pages, and then declare it a waste, a wash, unimpressive or boring at best. I don't know how to respond to those people, or even if I should respond. All I can say is that few books have ever affected
me so much as
A Fine Balance. Many books have moved me; many have entertained me and charmed me and made me laugh and cry. But
A Fine Balance has left an indelible mark upon me. It is a work of consummate skill. This book is fiction, so it must be false. But it is a sad, depressing book, because somewhere out there in the past and the present and, yes, the future, every single bit of it is, in some form, true.
Rating: really liked it
Liking this book makes no sense. Not only are its characters subjected to like, the bleakest set of circumstances ever, but then those circumstances are presented to the reader with such an alarming degree of authorial detachment that you almost have to wonder whether Mistry himself—fed up with the unending series of hardships his characters are required to endure—didn’t just raise his arms in the air and say, “Oh, fuck it.” And yet I could not tear myself away from this train wreck.
A Fine Balance presents neither a balanced nor a very fine account of a group of four Indian residents during the late 1970s. These folks, heralding from different castes and backgrounds, are tossed together by their individually perturbing situations to forge an unlikely bond—not unlike the bond formed among the cast members of
Big Brother or
The Real World except that in this case, the glamorous hot tub around which the characters congregate is replaced by a broken propane stove and a rusty tap from which water can be drawn only occasionally. For those not brushed up on their political history, the late 1970s saw India under the rule of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who, though largely considered one of India’s greatest prime ministers on account of her centralizing policies (the constitutionality of which, I suppose, could be debated), was certainly not among those in the author’s favor. Throughout the story, Mistry’s characters are continually being caught in Gandhi’s crossfire even while remaining mostly oblivious to the political climate surrounding them. We get the distinct impression that Mistry is trying really hard to keep his own opinions from interfering with the story, but it is pretty obvious dude’s got some serious bitterness issues to work out.
Anyway, this book is not without its flaws. A few characters bump into each other under repeatedly, under no plausible pretext other than pure coincidence, and this coincidence occurs frequently enough, especially toward the end of the novel, that the reader has to remind himself that this is India we’re talking about here, right? The one with a population density of a thousand people per square mile? Mistry makes us feel like this might be an India under glass, where the characters are tiny steel balls and Mistry is controlling the flippers.
This book is good, though. For all its doom and gloom, I still see the hope in its pages. Three of its characters are clothing tailors, and one of the repeated themes is something about how life is like the patchwork of a quilt, the good parts and the bad parts being sewn together—but if one were to try to remove the bad parts, he’d only end up with holes in his life.
(I suppose you’d
have to think positively when you share a crapper with 150 other villagers.)
Rating: really liked it
Rohinton Mistry has written three whopping novels set in India, Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance, and Family Matters, and they're all brilliant. He doesn't have pyrotechnic prose like the DeLillos and Pynchons, he's the tortoise to their hares, he plods on with his careful beautiful pictures of the details of people's lives, the complexities and the horrors and the unnoticed pools of affection, where the money comes from and where it goes, how they get through the day and how they don't - his camera never lies. I recommend all of these three novels without any ifs or buts. You may be weeping at the end of them, because life is sad, but you won't mind that.
Rating: really liked it
“Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.”
~ King Lear***
“Why did I dislike him so much, she asked herself? Where humans were concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure; and sorrow, for the hopelessness of it all.”
~ Dina, A Fine Balance
Lear’s Patchwork Quilt A Fine Balance is a true modern epic, built on the ordinary. If one could read only one book about India, this would make a very good choice. On city, one village, one town, three families - this is the tight canvas in which Mistry paints, or rather, is the quilt that he weaves. They fit together to form a Persian carpet that captures within it an entire country’s desolation. As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, Mistry creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state, at once unsettling, pitiful, and maddening in its clarity.
Never dramatic, never superfluous, the details keep getting added to the quilt, no stray piece left untended, every discarded cloth-piece added and stitched in with exquisite care. Mistry’s quilt is perhaps among the greatest novels composed on modern India, at least in terms of sheer ambition of the construction and the constrained canvas in which it is accomplished.
Every anguish, spread across four generations, every tumult and gasp of a country is squeezed into the harrowing tales of a few poignantly realized figures. Indeed, the whole drama is almost Shakespearean in scope - with distinct echoes of King Lear in it - in the pride and distance of each character; in their imaginary walls, which crumple with closeness.
Lear’s Storm, Writ LargerMistry is often compared to Dickens, the archetypal author of the Uncaring State. For me, the comparison that kept forcing itself was with Shakespeare. As I mentioned above, I could hear distinct echoes of King Lear as I was reading this magnificent book. However, I was not sure if I was reading this
into Mistry since I had just gone very deep into Lear (in which I was reading too much of Plato, to be honest). I did not trust myself and decided to investigate - and I found (to my relief) that Mistry loves King Lear - he had even made an entire novel out of it (not this one, but ‘Family Matters’). It thus turned out to be a very lucky coincidence that I read King Lear almost in parallel with Mistry.
In any case, I now feel justified in elaborating on this theme - on the logic that a possibility of a King Lear influence having contributed to 'A Fine Balance' cannot be discounted.
I have to confess that once I made this discovery, I became overzealous and did make an attempt to draw the plot of King Lear directly into Mistry’s novel, but Mistry is too much the master for that. I tried to connect the abiding theme of love in both, trying to imagine Dina as an abandoned Cordelia. I tried to think of Maneck as a proxy-Edgar, one who was spared tragedy - but only the obvious hard-hitting ones that we dignify by the word ‘tragedy’, not the creeping disenchantment with life that can be even more cruel. I tried to deconstruct and see if the intermixing story lines of Fine Balance serve the same function as in Lear, the two story lines, the two tragedies mixed into one, joining to form a single base line to the symphony, echoing and reaching the same notes - a
ritornello, of sorts. None of this worked satisfactorily.
Eventually, my reconciliation is that Mistry has set his novel in an in-between place - between the lunacy of self-inflicting suffering and the self-wrought tragedy of the end, of Lear. Instead, this epic unfolds in the forest, in the storm, the characters thrown into it directly, with no semblance of a ‘why’ or a question of ‘deserving’ anything. Unlike the Shakespearean tragedy, where there is at least an apparent causation for the tragedies that befall each, the condition of the storm, of wild uncaring nature is the default here. All are equal in this world, the same storm lashes them all.
One of the major themes in King Lear is the path to understanding (and salvation), forged in the wild under this wild buffeting of nature’s storms - where the ships of varying fates are lashed against each other, making them realize the ‘equality of pathetic mortals’, the only salvation allowed to them to be extracted from the whole tragedy.
“You know—things falling apart, centre not holding, anarchy loosed upon the world, and all that sort of thing.”
In Mistry’s world too, the blind force of the Government and the ‘Emergency’ looms large and ominous in the background - affecting these characters, with no personal enmity or malicious intent - almost like a primal force of nature, grabbing, destroying or sparing the lives and joys of the actors - just like wild nature in King Lear.
Mistry also works in a lot of political criticism of the Indian political system. Let us pick a phrase from Mistry to summarize this:
A house with suicidal tendencies. The path seems inexorable. Once tyranny makes an entrance, it allows the government to become more and more authoritative, insensitive, even casual in how they treat human lives (and dreams), without any real conscious intent - like the blind pagan gods of Shakespeare. Thus, maybe a step beyond nature then - as powerful, all-pervading and unreadable as the Gods themselves.
It makes one wonder how unreasonably powerful our modern governments are - capable of reaching in and snuffing out even the minutest blooms of happiness, at random. Isn’t it scary to have such gods amongst us?
“Where was God, the Bloody Fool? Did He have no notion of fair and unfair? Couldn’t He read a simple balance sheet? He would have been sacked long ago if He was managing a corporation, the things He allowed to happen …”
Set against this blind force, the characters of Mistry too blunder blindly through the vast forces of ‘nature’ in search of some reconciliation - their lives too seem to present glimmers of hope until the next wild gust, or random malice, sweeps it away - but finding each other, giving what support they can, realizing that the straws are all that matters to the drowning man, finding what little joys they can in the occasional beauty of their fraying tapestry of a quilt.
“But how firm to stand, how much to bend? Where was the line between compassion and foolishness, kindness and weakness? And that was from her position. From theirs, it might be a line between mercy and cruelty, consideration and callousness. She could draw it on this side, but they might see it on that side.”
If you think about it, that is almost a primal question for a civilized society… From asking a question like that to reaching a point in which the line is erased altogether, at least when seen, at a certain angle, from both sides - that is the only trajectory that deserves the name “progress”.
Emergency is an almost comical word, but it is poignant since, as Mistry shows, most stumble from one Emergency to the next, uncomprehending. Some may escape the blindness and see each other, but perhaps only in the minds of visionary authors.
All this parallels the distinct evolutionary trajectory of the characters in King Lear too, as the Kings and Nobles realize that underneath their garbs, the thin veneer of civilization, we are all equal. And when fates and ‘higher powers’ tear us apart and smite us with lightening, the poor and the rich can see each other, and their equality, in that fateful flash.
The Finely BalancedSo we come back to this:
Indeed, the whole drama is almost Shakespearean in scope - with distinct echoes of King Lear in it - in the pride and distance of each character; in their imaginary walls, which crumple with closeness.The real
fine balance, the real circus act
, is the flimsily constructed wall that balances so finely between people, between families, between castes, between classes, between societies - but it cannot stand up to personal acquaintance. Which is why we use emotions of fear and disgust to prop it up.
This wall, a mere figment of imagination, is made up of stories, fictional ones - the moment it encounters real stories, it tumbles down. Authors like Mistry are the modern equivalents of the quixotic hero, trying to crumple these walls, reaching across thousands of miles, through the pages of a book.
Of course, we can see in figures like Nusswan those people who manage to keep the walls of fine balance erected throughout their lives - we see in them ourselves. Can we dare to see ourselves in Nusswan? In a character like Maneck we can see someone who was perhaps lucky to escape childhood without erecting them. In the other poor souls who haunt the book, we see the ones on the other side of our well-tended walls. Then, in Dina we can see the ones who do break free of these finely balanced walls. And we might even aspire to their tragedy - so that we can be free of these walls too.
That is the power of a work like this - it makes us crave even for tragedy, if only to let us escape our self-constructed prisons! How powerful is that?
Rating: really liked it
OMGOSH! Definitely a five star read for me, but all of my emotions are shot to hell. Did a world like this really exist in 1970's India? Heaven forbid!Rohinton Mistry introduces his four main characters and their individual stories one by one until they merge together sharing a cramped apartment in a world of starvation, suffering and despair.
With civil unrest and demonstrations against a corrupt government on the rise, our protagonists needlessly endure despicable injustices to both body and soul just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While reading A FINE BALANCE, I lost count on the number of expletives I screamed inside as I encountered shock after unbelievable shock.
Excellent, but draining read with absolutely wonderful secondary characters added to the mix and a story I will not forget, and......oh the ending. Don't miss this one......Definitely worth your reading time!
Rating: really liked it
Amazing!!!!
Phenomenal!!!
Amazing!!!!
Phenomenal!!!!
TOO HARD *NOT* TO SHARE SOMETHING ( even for a review-retiree),....
There are a million things I loved about this book.
I chewed and sipped slowly.... pausing to ponder little moments:
“He speaks to trees and rocks, and pats them like they were his dogs”.
I relate to ‘aging’ ownership with nature.
My tree in our front yard & I have been growing old together for 40 years. Our trunks are both thicker. Our leaves more brittle - Our love & stories with deeper roots.
Changes in nature can contribute to our health ... physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
With the fires burning here in California...I was sensitive to the greed that was sacrificing India’s natural beauty.
I felt sadness for an older geezer ( ha, around my age), when Mr. Kohlah watched helplessly as workers were asphalting his beloved birthplace in the mountains.
Luxury hotels were not only changing the mountains - (some people were happy about the business possibilities which is understandable), but my heart broke for how these buildings were changing one aging man. “His senses were being assaulted by invasion. The noxious exhaust from lorries was searing his nostrils”.
From environmental changes comes other changes... a ripple effect: a suffering relationship with one’s wife, or son, or friends, ( family-friends)....
We see how political and environmental change directly affects balance in our daily lives. The concerns and frustrations showed up very personally.
Ok...TRYING to keep this short..
Dina Dalal, Ishvar, Om, and Maneck ( the 4 dominant characters), were each struggling with their own misfortunes, (we fall achingly in love with them)...
while the country was experiencing political unrest: corruption, injustice, human rights violation, forced sterilization, poverty, and oppression.
Yet many foreigners- traveled to India in the 70’s to seek the truth.
I was in India during the mid 70’s, too.
I remember the injustice —but this book gave me a deeper understanding as to why!!!! It also was heartbreaking sad!!!
At age 19, I wasn’t thinking about the Prime Minister suspending the constitution in order to hold on to power. I wasn’t thinking about ‘scandals’ and the Emergency.
I was just trying to survive myself.
“Since the Emergency began, my ulcers began.
Who ‘hasn’t’ related a health issue to an emotional trauma?
This novel filled in many holes of understanding while also giving me the opportunity to tap into old memories.
I hitchhiked on top of those lorries - with rain pouring/followed by the hot sun.
I became friends with a woman from Goa. I remember her struggles & strengths. Her hope and hopelessness.
She was a certified medical doctor who wasn’t allowed to practice until her father gave permission (after marriage)...
Throughout this novel - we have many opportunities to explore symbolic thoughts about balance, power, serenity, acceptance, forgiveness, pain, and compassion that’s bruised the world of inner peace.
Character development...
storytelling...details...and depiction of the human heart doesn’t get much better than Mistry.
This is the type of novel that you wish to have a table discussion with a group... pull out the dust and cobwebs tucked in from every corner...to chat, examine, and express with others who’ve read it.
Mistry crafts his universe brilliantly... his prose of connectedness can be felt across oceans.
I’m sure it’s been said before but I also need to say it....
this novel is an achievement of extraordinary depth - pain - and beauty.
🌎🌈🌚🌕🇮🇳 ⛰💕
“There is always hope— hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost”.
***HIGHLY*** RECOMMEND!!!!
Rating: really liked it
Because it wasn't an unputdownable, hold-you-in-its-thrall page-turner, this novel took me weeks to finish.
My only real issue was that I loved the writing WAY more than the actual story.
And what’s not to like about Mistry's beautifully-crafted prose? I drooled over his penmanship and revelled in his wordplay. Like Rushdie and Shakespeare, he intermingles pathos with humour.
The story, though, didn’t grab me by the ears and snog me.
Which is why it drops one star.
Rating: really liked it
This is a compelling novel. Mistry focuses the story around the lives and interactions of four main characters, who cross paths in an unnamed city in India in 1975 during the State of Emergency. Mistry is unsparing in details of how difficult, even cruel, life is for these characters. Their opportunities are constrained by caste, gender, government corruption locally and across the country, and greed. In detailed flashbacks, Mistry describes the pasts of the characters with such humanity that it's impossible not to identify with them in some way.
This is a fast read, in part because of how beautifully drawn the characters are, and in part because you want to read on quickly to discover how the characters will handle the challenges life throws at them. It's a disturbing read as well, because Mistry provides clear descriptions of the violence, greed, and lack of compassion each character faces. At the same time, though, the novel is filled with countless examples of ways, large and small, that the man characters and others help each other, with the most generous sometimes being the characters with the least power and resources. In the end, I came away with the message that, even in the face of prejudice, greed, and hatred, people can survive hardships through loving ties with others.
Rating: really liked it
You need to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair says one of the characters in the book. And that is what this book does to you – shifting you between hope and despair for it’s characters all through the book. This is the only book I have read which really aims to accord respect to the lives of the poor and downtrodden.
The narration starts around the time when emergency is declared in India. We have Dina Dilal, the strongest character in the book who holds fort despite a marriage of love cut short cruelly by fate. There are Omprakash and Ishvar, who escape the tyranny of caste wars to build a career in the city as tailors. There is Maneck Kohlah who is a student, whose father’s business is shrinking and has his hopes pinned on his son. They all find themselves thrown together in a small dwelling, learning to support each other as well as others. All this, in the middle of oppression, excesses during the emergency, and corruption.
Prisoners of birth (as Jeffrey Archer would put it) do not always have a happy ending. Unlike most other books which would let up on the difficulties for the characters and move towards a happy ending, the realism of this book will smack you in the face. And once you finish, you will ponder over the story and its characters for long, and the lessons it holds. Life is not always fair, but love holds people together giving them hope. Also, it makes you wonder why it is difficult for many to give everyone irrespective of their class or otherwise the one thing they truly yearn for – Respect.
The richness of the characters in the book is simply outstanding – and for that & the respect it accords its humble characters (despite the bleak prospects they face), it should be read.
