A Fine Balance

I'm re-reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. This time of year, I start thinking about "beach reading," by which I mean something juicy, totally engrossing and narrative-driven. Reading to get sun-burned by (because I stay too long, not wanting to put the book down). A Fine Balance isn't a beach read. It's like several novels in one and each story winds out in an inevitable flattening of the dreams of the characters. It is as sad it sounds. Sadder, because some of the things that can happen in India in 1975, especially in a Bombay slum, are so uniquely, strangely, heart-breakingly tragic that they're not even on my radar of potential tragedy. In my darkest 4 a.m. moments, I never wake and feel a wave anxiety about treasured pet monkeys. (if you've read the book, you'll probably remember this horrendous scene)
But Mistry is a genius because along with the sadness, there's the balance that the title refers to. And the book manages to be more beautiful than depressing.
I've also been watching a film called Raga about Ravi Shankar in the 1960s and 70s. He brought Indian music to North America and Europe, and Beatle George Harrison became his student and later used the sitar in some of his songs. Ravi Shankar says that in every raga, there is sadness, and he's always looking for the way to express it. Beauty, but also sadness. That's the fine balance, I think. As a writer, I'm always thinking about how to express it.