Book review
The dominant character in this book is never specifically named. The Prime Minister of India was in her first term in office (1966-1977) at the time of this book’s setting, in 1975. An epilogue during her second term, is set to the background of her assassination in 1984. In response to charges brought against her by her political opponents, the Prime Minister put in place a national State of Emergency in 1975, and the governing Congress Party assumed direct, draconian control over the nation.
A Fine Balance is an avowedly political novel. Written as a work of fiction, the trials, tribulations of a number of humble, impoverished, individuals gives the book a personal, and human touch that conveys starkly the horrors inflicted on the most vulnerable in society. No academic, or non-fiction, work comes close to conveying the heartbreakingly awful misfortune that Rohinton Mistry brings out through the travails of his leading characters.
Synopsis
At its most basic A Fine Balance is a story concerned with the struggle to find accommodation and food. In other words, survival at its most basic. Along the way, villains on the streets, exploiters of human capital, and a corrupt, venal police force bear down on the beleaguered. A system of obligation is in place in which debt is dominant, and its not enough to scrounge a place in slums or on railway platforms; people have to pay for illegal “hutments” and Jhopadpattis despite having zero security of tenure.
Working from her small flat in the (unnamed) city, Dina Dalal has a contract with Mrs Gupta, of Au Revoir export, to stitch fabrics for finished clothes. Its a lifeline, but a tenuous one. The central story revolves around Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, and Maneck Kohlah as they sow fabric using two rented Singer machines.
Outside the flat the story revolves around the series of mishaps that beset Ishvar and Omprakash as they seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and are continually picked up and unwillingly transported to a variety of government works, rallies, and social engineering projects.
Ishvar and Omprakash are told “If all our customers were like you, we would be able to produce a modern Mahabbarat” (377). That would doubtless include “Kaliyug, the age of darkness” (100).
When a book’s overriding theme is one of hardship, misfortune and downright injustice, is unremitting woe too much to bear? Is there the need for some degree of lightening up? There is an extended section in the latter half of the book in which the four main protagonists briefly achieve a contentedness and harmony that stands apart from the main part of the narrative. Though I think this section is too extended, the playful antics of Omprakash and Maneck, complete with domestic bliss on the balcony, feral kittens, and the cooking up a variety of tasty foods was still a nice salve for the beleaguered reader (!) to reflect that the band of four had some months of genuine escapism from life’s turmoils.
The life on the streets and the struggle for survival is personified in the figure of Shankar. Such are the low expectations of his life existence that he bemoans that
“pavement life is being sucked away by the emergency bill”
A variety of street ‘managers’ are suitably faceless, ubiquitous and ruthlessly practical. Euphemistically called “Facilitator”, “Beggarmaster”, “Rent collector” , these are men who bear no personal grudge and who could easily find themselves on the receiving end of the same coercion that they dish out.
Characters
The rota of characters is magnificent, compelling and hideously convincing
Dina Schroff (Dalal) is the anchor around which the reader hopes for some sort of fairy story, and of a redemptive ending (it takes about one hundred pages before it is apparent this will not be a happy endings book). The reader first encounters a young woman of youthful exuberance, a degree of wilfulness, and one who is prepared to risk isolation for her independence after tragedy has struck. Her relationship with older brother Nusswan conveys forcefully the patriarchal society in India in which a woman can makes some assertion of personal agency, but is ultimately dependent. (there’s an irony that the nation’s Prime Minister at this time was female). Dina’s spirit shines throughout most of the book… but ultimately just a flicker of that wilfulness remains intact. The portrayal of faux outrage, and chastisement that Dina metes out on her young tenants, is beautifully done.
Ishvar and Omprakash Darji There is a Dickensian feel to the portrayal of Ishvar and his nephew Omprakash. The two characters are the medium through which Mistry shines his light on the hardships of the Indian varna (caste) system.
“Untouchability poisons Hinduism as a drop of arsenic poisons milk” (107)
Originally from the Chamaar caste of tanners and leather workers, they switch into sewing after Ishtar’s father, Duckhi Mochi, sacrifices his personal safety, challenging the established order of things.
Maneck Kohlah Maneck is a university student (refrigeration), and represents an opportunity for a degree of social mobility not available to the majority. Politics has infected student life, and the picture of campus, and student accommodation is a bleak one.
Rajaram / Bal Baba is a hair collector and instructor in the techniques of slum dwelling and slum life. A born survivor, he morphs into Bal Baba, complete with mail order operation, and quack advice for his new found acolytes. Mistry has written a character who literally made my skin crawl at the thought of him. A great portrayal of a chancer who shifts shape and keeps a step ahead of what should be damnation.
Thakur Dharamsi is a mesmerising character; the personification of evil, and a man who harbours extreme malice towards the ashhoot (Untouchables) castes. Dharamsi is going places in the Congress party and his advancement is a microcosm of the campaigns promulgated by the Prime Minister nationally. A huge sense of foreboding descends on the reader when Dharamsi appears, and in a book not short on shock and horror, Dharamsi stewardship of regional Family Planning; the nussbandi procedure (including numerous forced sterilisations) marks the nadir of personal injustice. You want to weep.
Historical
This is a political novel. Historical fiction with a human touch that’s firmly rooted in reality. References include:
• Zamindars. Local landowners (a throwback from colonial rule, and a bulwark of the caste hierarchy)
• Civil disobedience mentioned Jay Prakash Narayan (and the Naxalites, very briefly)
• Twenty Point Programme launched by the Government in 1975
• MISA (the Maintenance of Internal Security Act). 1971 (stringent laws on detention)
• “Beautification” (the name given to slum clearance)
Questions
I am ambivalent about the part in the book represented by Vasantrao Valmik. He appears four separate times in the book, and is the mouthpiece of the book’s title
“you have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair “ (228)
He also quotes Keats : “Things falling apart”
Each time Vasantrao appears it is seemingly a non sequitur and disconnected from the main narrative. He is variously a lawyer, an advertising sloganeer and a political speech writer. Each one of his interjections is puzzling, and intriguing. I would love to know more about what he represents.
Author background & Reviews
There is a notable dearth of information on Rohinton Mistry who seems to want to keep a deliberately low key profile. Mistry himself was born to a Parsi family, a religious faith shared by two of the characters in the book, Dina and Maneck. A Fine Balance is his second novel; shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996, it won the 1995 Giller Prize. His first novel Such a Long Journey , was also Booker shortlisted. The third and most recent of his novels Family Matters was written almost twenty years ago.
When A Fine Balance was announced as a Booker candidate, the Australian writer/critic Germaine Greer on a BBC programme said that she’d loathed the book, and that she didn’t recognise the India she’d come to know in four months spent teaching there in Mistry’s portrayal. ‘I hate this book, I absolutely hate it. It’s a Canadian book about India”. Mistry simply said Greer’s comments were ‘asinine.’
Recommend
A truly memorable read that I will definitely be mentioning to bookish friends, and a must read for enthusiasts of historical fiction.
- Goodreads rating – 4.37
- REVIEW – Jonathan Pool