Novel – A Fine Balance
Author – Rohinton Mistry
Goodreads link – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/828697.A_Fine_Balance
I write this review after four days of having completed A Fine Balance. That is the way in which this book has taken me in, gradually, steadily. A lovely story written by Rohinton Mistry, woven around four people, and their lives in the Emergency Era of India.
Dina Dalai – A widow struggling to make ends meet, upon her husband’s death. She needs to eke out a living, from the rent given by Maneck, and the tailoring business which she gets money out of.
Maneck Kohlah – A college goer who has, despite his wishes come to the city for education, leaving behind his beautiful home.
Ishvar and Omprakash Darji – An uncle and a nephew arrive in the city, upon hearing about the business opportunities for tailors. They are originally leather tanners, and changed their professions, due to the oppression they face from the upper caste.
It feels very strange, to even think that three sets of people, from very varied backgrounds can be thrust together. You even end up questioning its purpose, at some point. And yet, they do, despite their shortfalls, of master-servant, landlord-tenant, Uncle-Nephew, upper caste – lower caste getting to know each other, advice, fight, laugh and eventually love each other along the way.
Also a part of the book are a set of people who believe they will not be affected by the Emergency rule in any way, and a set of people who would like to think so, but are tossed about all through the Emergency rule, in the name of what is right.
Although the prose was flowing all through the book, it did have a translated feel about, what with people being referred to as “Monkey-man” or “Beggar Master” and such, all through, which can be easily overlooked, what with the beautiful story line. The mild humor adds to the book’s drifting storyline.
The ending was a tad blunt, left you wondering if a ‘Fine Balance’ lay in the good people suffering, or the rich thriving, or if a man with a career as good as he was in, could end up doing something that not many would dare. What would make people do what they did, one might never understand, but it is the open-endedness in the book that makes for a very good read out of the book.
A must-read for all those, who are looking for a read that is light in content, and yet, heavy in theme.
Rating – 4/5
Reminiscences, Illusions & Dreams 