A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

A Fine Balance In Brief

Determinedly clinging to her independence after the sudden death of her beloved husband, Dina sets up as a seamstress. As her eyes begin to fail she recruits two tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Om, supplementing her meagre income further by taking in Maneck, a student, as a paying guest. What begins as a result of economic necessity eventually becomes an arrangement between friends, each of whom has a demon with which to wrestle. Dina must conquer her fear of losing her rent-controlled flat to help Ishvar and Om who in their turn must cope with the destruction wrought on their family as a result of stepping outside the caste system. Even the privileged Maneck is troubled by his fathers apparent rejection. When Ishvar and Om are caught up, not once but twice, in the governments cruelly administered policies their unlikely family is first threatened, then torn apart. Through a cast of vividly drawn characters and with great wit and humanity, A Fine Balance explores the effects of the state of emergency on the lives of ordinary people in 1970s India.

Critical Reaction
A masterpiece of illumination and grace. Like all great fiction, it transforms our understanding of life. Guardian Mistry is a master blender of the picaresque and the tragic . . . To say he captures the textures of India well and creates larger-than-life characters is to note the least of his achievements. If anything, his success is to make life seem so much larger than the characters a far tougher task for the novelist . . . Enthralling. Observer This is a work of genius. I cannot begin to review it without saying so. It should be read by everyone who loves books, win every prize, make its author a millionaire. Literary Review

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Background
Born in Bombay in 1952 Rohinton Mistry missed the dark days of the state of emergency, having emigrated to Canada by 'pure coincidence shortly after it was declared on 26th June 1975 in response to civil unrest at Indira Gandhis refusal to resign after being found guilty of corruption. In the 70s emigration was considered the best option for well-educated young Indians and armed with his Mathematics degree Mistry took up a job in a Toronto bank, studying English and Philosophy part-time. He began writing seriously after winning a university writing competition. Since then he has published a collection of short stories followed by three novels, all of which have met with a good deal of acclaim. A Fine Balance was published twenty years after he left Bombay, returning only to visit, but Mistry found no difficulty in summoning up the city. He explains When you have grown up in one place and spent the first 23 years of your life there that's how old I was when I left it is almost as though you are never going to be removed from that place. Mistry had originally planned to write a short novel. It began in his minds eye with the image of a woman at a sewing machine . . . As I began writing, though, the story grew and I found myself getting interested in other details of the characters' lives: Dina's life and where she had come from, why the tailors were there and where had they come from, and so on. So it all just grew and I was enjoying myself. It seemed to be working as I wrote so I began letting the canvas grow, as it were, letting it expand. I quickly realised that if I continued in this way, it was going to give me a unique chance to tell not just a story set in the city, but also a story about village life. India still lives in its villages (about 70-75 per cent of the population is rural) so this had a particular appeal for me. The novel would give me the chance to write about this student who comes from the North, the foothills of the Himalayas. I had travelled a little bit there, and found myself writing about it. That's how it turned into such a big book. Although flattered by the comparisons made by many critics between his own writing and that of Tolstoy or Dickens, Mistry explains that he has made no special study, nor am I particularly drawn to these authors. In fact, if I were to choose my favourites, what I enjoy most, they would probably include some American writers, like Cheever, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Updike. Comparisons have also been made between A Fine Balance and Salman Rushdies Midnights Children, also set in Bombay during the state of emergency, but the two have little in common. Famous for its magic realism, Midnights Children is set amongst the Muslim middle-classes, while A Fine Balance is very firmly in touch with reality and with the dispossessed, a very deliberate decision on Mistrys part. He has said 'I don't think these people have been represented enough in fiction. Most fiction is about the middle class; perhaps because most writers are from the middle class. He is also dismissive of any talk of happy endings: 'Given the parameters of my characters' lives, given who they are, how can you expect them to have any more happiness than they have found? I think that the ending is a hopeful one: The human spark is not extinguished. They continue to find humour in their lives. This is an outstanding victory in their case.' Perhaps theres a lesson to be learnt here. The expectations that those of us who have grown up in privileged circumstances have of a happy ending is so far beyond the reach of the thousands and thousands of Ishvars and Oms in India today, people who keep going relentlessly in spite of the odds as to be beyond imagining.
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For Discussion In their village, the tailors used to be cobblers; that is, their family belonged to the Chamaar cast of tanning and leather-workers (page 95). Dukhi Mochi takes his family out of the untouchable caste to which they belonged. What prompted this unorthodox and brave decision? What are the consequences? Consolation, as always, was found in muddled criticism of the colonizers who, lacking the stomach for proper conclusions, had departed in a hurry, though the post-mortem was tempered with nostalgia for the old days (page 209). How important is Partition in the novel? What consequences has it brought about for the main characters? I told you Im not rich. The bathroom at home is plain, just like this. But theres water in the flush. And not such a stink (page 240). How would you describe Maneck? How aware is he of his privileged upbringing? How does his character compare with Avinashs? Dina is determined to remain independent after Rustoms death. What does this determination cost her? How difficult is it for a single woman to be self-reliant in India in the mid-1970s? Government problems games played by people in power. It doesnt affect ordinary people like you and me (page 75). Dina, Ishvar and Om all find themselves badly affected by the state of emergency eventually. What impression do you have of Indian politics in the mid-70s from reading A Fine Balance? What problems does the government face and how could they be solved more humanely? Thats what I cannot understand. Why did the police take me? Beggarmaster pays them every week all his beggars are allowed to work without harassment (page 327). What other instances of corruption are there in the novel? How does such endemic corruption affect the way in which society works? You tailors have made your payments regularly, so you dont have to worry you are under my protection (page 438). What kind of man is the Beggarmaster? Can it be argued as Dina suggests that he is not a completely bad man (page 556)? What do you make of his drawing of himself, Shankar and Shankars mother? How do Dina, Maneck, Ishvar and Om find themselves sailing under one flag (page 399). How does their new arrangement change each of them and their relationship with each other? The lives of the poor were rich in symbols, she decided (page 511). What does the quilt, Oms ill-fated wedding present, symbolise, and why does Dina leave it unfinished? What other symbols can be found in the lives of the poor? How important is symbolism in the novel? The Maneck we knew would have waited today (page 614). How has Maneck changed in his eight-year absence? Why is he unable to wait for Ishvar and Om? How well have Ishvar and Om dealt with their own changed circumstances? What did you think of the novels ending? What do you think Rohinton Mistry meant by the title A Fine Balance? Why do you think Mistry chose the quotation from Balzacs Le Pre Goriot to preface his novel? How appropriate did you find it?

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 Both the city in which the novel is largely set and the countrys Prime Minister are never referred to by name even though they are clearly identifiable. Why do you think Mistry chose not to name them? After waiting for months, and sometimes years, the litigants frenzy was understandable' (page 559). Mistrys description of the courthouse is reminiscent of Dickens description of Chancery in Bleak House. What other aspects of A Fine Balance could be described as Dickensian? A Fine Balance has been described as a tragicomic novel. How does Mistry use humour in his novel? How would you describe that humour? How well does it fit with the tragic elements of the novel? Dina and Maneck are Parsi while both Ishvar and Om are Hindus who spent the latter part of their childhood entrusted to a Muslim household. What does the novel have to say about religion? About the Author
Rohinton Mistry was born into a Parsi family in 1952. He grew up in Bombay where he attended university, graduating in 1974 with a degree in Mathematics. He and his wife emigrated to Canada the following year where he began a course in English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto while working as a bank clerk during the day. After winning several awards for his short stories and a Canada Council grant, Mistry began to write full-time in 1985. His first novel, Such a Long Journey, won both the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and the Governor General's Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was made into a feature film in 1998. A Fine Balance won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the Giller Prize, and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize.

Resources
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7D81539F930A15755C0A960958260

Review by A. G. Mojtabai

www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth73 Profile of Rohinton Mistry at the British Council website www.asiasource.org/news/special_reports/mistry.cfm Interview by Nermeen Shiekh published at AsiaSource website www.lubbockonline.com/news/062697/rohinton.htm Interview by Mary Mazzocco published in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Emergency Wikipedias page on Indias State of Emergency 1975-77 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi Wikipedias page on Indira Ghandhi

Suggested Further Reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens The Last Jet- Engine Laugh by Ruchir Joshi Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri

Other Books by Rohinton Mistry Such a Long Journey Family Matters Short Stories Tales from Firozsha Baag
Faber Book Club Guides: A Fine Balance