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A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry

4.34 · Rating details · 132,537 ratings · 9,224 reviews

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.

The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uproote ...more

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Paperback, 603 pages

Published November 30th 2001 by Vintage (first published 1995)

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Aug 16, 2007 Z rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone looking for a deep and complex read

Shelves: favourites

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 s

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.
...more

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Jun 05, 2014 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“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 Balance

I 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 bringi ...more

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May 01, 2012 Garima rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize, my-2-cents, bharat, favorites, miles-to-go-before-i

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 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... ...more

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Jun 13, 2018 Candi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, asia, book-i-own, favorites, chunksters

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 uncer 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." ...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Jason rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, reviewed, for-kindle, wine-club

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 Balan 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.) ...more

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May 16, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Kara by: Vesna Sukalo

Shelves: 2010-read, indian-fiction, canadian-author, favourites, own, historical-fiction, postcolonial, 2010-best10

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 t ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Paul Bryant rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels

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 ...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fast-tracked, favorites, india, lit-fic, r-r-rs, sociology-poverty, insti-crit, contemporary-fiction, indian-fiction, epic-stuff

“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 th
...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Carol rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dark, chunkster, read-2016, historical-fiction, favorites, cultural-india, 2016-super-favorites

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 so

...more

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May 31, 2018 Kevin Ansbro rated it really liked it

Shelves: human-emotions, indigenous, gentle-humour, immorality, wry-humour, human-cruelty, human-imagery, morality, indian-fiction

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. ...more

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Nov 05, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

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 d ...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Kris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 1001, fiction, five-stars, india

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 ...more

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Jan 01, 2015 Gautam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, indian-lit

A man with paralyzed legs lies on his itchy straw bed, staring at the murky ceiling that seems closing in on him, as his eyes have been fixating it for too long. The time seems reluctant to move on as there is no sign of movements around him; the world seems to have divorced him. His room has no windows that rewarded him with a view of a green patch or a shimmering rivulet to vouch for his existence. The life, as it seems, has no prospect, he thought. As the bleak moments ostensibly passed, he, ...more

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May 30, 2018 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: borrowed-from-library, favorites, historical-fiction, more-than-5-stars, india

This book is an exercise in emotional overload. I had to read it one section at a time, interspersed with breaks to digest and recover. Every moment in this book that is happy or positive is offset with ten sadnesses and cruelties that rip your breath from your body.

The four main characters, Dina, Maneck, Ishvar and Om, are drawn with so much detail and clarity, that I felt by the end that I had traveled a road with them and knew them intimately. They are far from being the only characters to ha ...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Stephen P rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A book, along with two others which mysteriously appeared on my living room couch. My wife, equally at a loss had no idea where they came from. No one had been to the house previously, certainly not the dear family friend who just finished A Fine Balance and asked if I would read it. Reluctantly taking a break from Walser and The Tanners, I began my 600 page responsibility to a person who has always been there for us.

The book's first four pages were partially folded from use, not to signify any A book, along with two others which mysteriously appeared on my living room couch. My wife, equally at a loss had no idea where they came from. No one had been to the house previously, certainly not the dear family friend who just finished A Fine Balance and asked if I would read it. Reluctantly taking a break from Walser and The Tanners, I began my 600 page responsibility to a person who has always been there for us.

The book's first four pages were partially folded from use, not to signify any important passage or point. The remainder of the pages were white and crisp except for the occasional single letter or short word erased from use. It wasn't clear whether they were fading or attempting to emerge. No name of ownership or penned notes showed anywhere or any other sign the book hand been read in another's hands.

On a good day I can read thirty pages. Immediately the words vanished and one hundred pages were completed each day. Immersed in a foreign culture, India, 1975, under the brutal reign of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi and her State of Emergency, the tortures of a caste system, the mass murders of a government discarding citizen rights and reaching for complete and lasting control, left me as fearful as the characters whose lives I lived. The world of death and torture was hideous, the stench of relentless fear. Other manners of the denial of life emerged more silent yet still brutalizing the living of a life. In small villages in order to provide safety for oneself and one's family life had to be ordered according to one's station as provided within the unwritten sanctions of caste. Aspirations, dreams, uniqueness were sacrificed to live as one was expected to live by the citizen's of the town. The hope flourished that children would follow suite, marrying and having their children quietly dragging the yoke of this life, participating in the small happinesses of the allotted conventions. In the large and growing cities life also was abdicated by the grasp for power where no matter where it was found there was a higher power controlling it, or the striving for upper or middle class existence with its conformity, safety, accoutrements, and agreed upon cliche's which passed off the burden of hypocrisy, the breath-quickened unreasoned reason for the, "Necessary," flood of blood. Precious life was taken, but also discarded by buckling to what others thought, the pronounced model of success, being, "Right," kneeling before the altar of arbitrary convention created to support the edifice of reigning power.

The great vampire that sucked the blood out of life was, time. It devoured individuals. Families were crushed, their ways of life vanishing, then vanished. This is the work of the world, the passage of time lost opening to its precarious renewal in different forms. A tragedy in this story is that time passed but did not open onto a new time for the many that might provide a continuation or a new existence with further meanings. Many reached a dead end as did the repetitions of the changing of power in new vestments with old designs of clothing hidden beneath.

Yet, there was a woman who defied custom and went off to make a life on her own despite the expectations that she was chosen for success within the fence-lined beliefs of her village. It was always difficult, one obstacle after another, then another waiting in line to follow. She was not the customary hero, nor never sought that trophy. Her heroism was in being herself and trying to survive where odds said she could not. This question hung in the air till near the end of the story, survival. Over time she found unexpectedly a familial love with the two tailors and a young border who lived with her in her small flat. Concern, giving, and caring sprung from people I never imagined could, would. The evil also carried hearts which could warm at times. Did she make the right choice? It could have been easier if she listened to the insistence of her brother and married at an early age, or marry at all. Tough, with all the difficulties she did live her life, patch-worked as it may have seemed to those doing what they were supposed-to-do. Those readers who love quiet heroes, this is a woman to adore, a story to adore, who can adore unexpected small gestures of kindness that flourish tender within bleakness.

This is beautiful and seamless writing that does not call attention to itself but gifted to the reader for the telling of this story. As I write I am understanding why when I finished and since, I have been emotionally wrought. I wanted to get back to reading Walser, a newspaper, listening to music, anything. This may be due to something personal within me and my identification with these characters and this story, or the literary accomplishment, or both. Although writing about it has now helped me to understand it there is still no resolution. I sit here embroiled. The past tells me to allow it to rage within and not get in its way. In the end it will open up for me, as great books do, a life with a fuller meaning.

...more

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Sep 20, 2010 Whitaker rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction-1950-and-after, india, z_2010-read

This book was like a punch in the gut, or a hard kick to the balls. The kind where you double over dry heaving. That's how powerful it was.

Mistry's novel traces the lives of four people over the period of about one year when they come together under one roof. That one year is also year one into Indira Ghandi's State of Emergency, declared after the Indian Supreme Court rules her election illegal.

There are some excellent set peices. notgettingenough's review describes one. I won't repeat it here This book was like a punch in the gut, or a hard kick to the balls. The kind where you double over dry heaving. That's how powerful it was.

Mistry's novel traces the lives of four people over the period of about one year when they come together under one roof. That one year is also year one into Indira Ghandi's State of Emergency, declared after the Indian Supreme Court rules her election illegal.

There are some excellent set peices. notgettingenough's review describes one. I won't repeat it here, but recommend that you go read what she has to say.

My own personal favourite was the scene where the tailors, together with the inhabitants of their shantytown, are forcibly gathered by the police and bussed to a location where the "beloved" Indira Ghandi would be giving a speech. The ceremony, filled with much bowing and scraping by her political allies, ends with a helicopter flying past and throwing rose petals on the prime minister. The people pretty much ignore the entire ceremony, cheering only when told to do so. They do, however, get some excitement when the helicopter's strong downdraft causes a large signboard cut out in the shape of Indira Ghandi to fall on the crowd below.

Another hardhitting scene occurs several days later when the police and labour contractors come to round up the beggars and poor sleeping in the street. They have clearly been told by the Ghandi adminstration to clear the streets of the poor and give them jobs as part of a "beautification" project. What this means is that the poor are rounded up by force, beaten if necessary. When the contractor protests that he can't do anything with injured people, the police officer in charge replies, "Don't worry, my men know how to hit people without leaving visible marks." The contractor pays the police officer, brings the poor to a construction site, and is paid in turn for them. The poor are, of course, forced into hard labour, their only pay being a meagre portion of food and shelter. Slavery, of course, by another name.

Other atrocities follow: corrupt officials who carry out vascectomies on old men to meet their imposed quotas, the shantytown gets bulldozed to the ground. All of this brings brownie points to the officials for "doing their job", and a little extra money on the side as well. Mistry works a fine balance with these scenes: comedy and absurdity juxtopose neatly with the pathos and despair.

In the end, however, I was hard pressed to give this book five stars. I'm docking it one star because the ending didn't work for me. The last third of the book sees the comedy and tragedy heighten to the point of melodrama, which was pitched at a level higher than I would have liked. Perhaps I needed to read it straight through rather than over several weeks, so that the emotional impact would outweigh my difficulty in suspending disbelief. It's wholly subjective, of course, and I would certainly recommend this book as a good read.
...more

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Oct 21, 2016 Margitte rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family-sagas, india, historical-fiction, reviewed, 2016-read, drama, food

1975. India. The Great emergency. Martial Law. Murder-on-instinct; survival of the fittest. The old, disabled, the poor - fair game. Political mayhem. Family Planning Program going as insane as the population explosion. Riots, violence, families destroyed. Chaos. A Beautification Program chasing people with bulldozers like unwanted sewerage down the isles of perfection. Their lives worth less than the holy cows meandering the trash heaps and destitution of the destruction everywhere.

Despair in ...more

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Sep 04, 2013 Jaidee rated it liked it

Shelves: three-stars-books

3 "tragedy diminished by histrionics" stars !!

I know this is a good book and that Mr. Mistry is an excellent writer. The use of language is mostly elegant, vivid and the stories interweave in a logical and natural way. There was not a dull moment to be had in this sprawling saga set in 1970s India. The characters were likable and their struggles are real, heart-wrenching and horrendous.

I have a HUGE issue though with the presentation of the characters' emotional and psychological lives. Although ...more

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Jun 15, 2016 Rose rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-reviews, historical-fiction

One of my favourite books. I am happy to have my copy signed by Rohinton Mistry. This story takes us to the streets of Bombay in the 70's. A story that intertwines the life of four people during a time of political unrest. It casts a very descriptive view of life in India at that time. ...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Nidhi Singh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 2014, india

This was life? Or a cruel joke? He no longer believed that the scales would ever balance fairly. If his pan was not empty, if there was some little sustenance in it for his days and nights, it was enough for him.

This is one book that made me want to clutch the life I live, as some blanket of security, and hide within. I have never known what it is to live with such constant uncertainty. That one could be completely uprooted today, the next day, or any day. Each day of struggle, each day of
This was life? Or a cruel joke? He no longer believed that the scales would ever balance fairly. If his pan was not empty, if there was some little sustenance in it for his days and nights, it was enough for him.

This is one book that made me want to clutch the life I live, as some blanket of security, and hide within. I have never known what it is to live with such constant uncertainty. That one could be completely uprooted today, the next day, or any day. Each day of struggle, each day of building the hopes for a future which comes undone with the incessant tugs and pulls of life. With my fictional foray, maybe I lived a little of what Om, Ishvar, and Dina lived. Maybe I traced a part of the space they made for themselves. Maybe I felt a bit of what they did. Breathing, fighting, heaving through life. Life hard enough to break one’s bones with the sheer weight of its unpredictability. When one has to collect the scraps of it, weave each day of it, like the patches of the quilt Dina sews. It never seems as bleak to them as it does to me. I can sense the foreboding, the unalterable doom before they can. That it is all so hopeless. But who could have the heart to say it. They are never tired of it; tired of life no matter how much life tires them out.

Where humans are concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure...

I had never thought so much about the worth of human life. How much it is and how little it is. I could figure their histories buried in the casualties of the Emergency: forced sterilization, governmental brutality, upper caste atrocities. ‘A Fine Balance’ encompasses the tale of many who fared no better than jaded cattle, or bent and battered pieces of old furniture. Men and women, hoarded together, in the slums, in the irrigation camps, on the pavements. Infants of beggars sent away for ‘professional modifications’. There are explicit bodily details, of the infestations, the stench, the odor. The intricate descriptions of the physicality of life, so organism like, which breathes and lives as long as it is permitted to, as long as it is of service. With the barest detail of humanity stripped of love, of kindness, of dignity. In a sense, it is the disposability of human lives.

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.

Between hope and despair, are mostly their quiet dreams, the claim to the future of their liking. To have something of their own in the world, their own space, their family, their children, the success they always wanted, the long-awaited return to their land, the ache for their loved ones, the pride of their community. Then there is the anger; silent and smothered, but it lives. And one knows where it comes from, what provokes it and that it wouldn’t die out. It would strike back only to inflict destruction on oneself. But it needs to be seen and acknowledged and avenged. I felt such helplessness, embarrassment, anger with myself and everything. While I can never stop asking more from this life, they have been denied the very least. Everything about this book made me look towards something I long believed or pretended to be invisible.

If there was an abundance of misery in the world, there was also sufficient joy, yes - as long as one knew where to look for it.

And there is beauty in the squalor, hope in hopelessness, strongest bonds formed across insurmountable boundaries. There is an affirmation of life, but not in how everything turns out to be right in the end, how all the good balances the bad. Because that, probably doesn’t or won’t happen. Maybe it lies in the trust and recognition we place in each other. The close family that is formed among complete strangers. Something that Dina, Ishvar, Maneck, and Om built up for themselves. That moment in time would always belong to them, no matter what turn life takes, or how it all concludes in the end.
...more

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Apr 24, 2014 rahul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

As I scramble for words to speak of this book and even manage to get hold of some. I wait till they fall from my tongue into the depths of infinite hopelessness.

And someday, I hope these words will find me again. These words, these thoughts will help me accept the despair that is this thing called life.

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Mar 05, 2008 Kelli Oliver George rated it really liked it

WOW. Beautiful. Haunting. Sad. Compelling. Interesting. Educational. This book covers the stories of four characters living in India during the mid-70s during a time in which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares a State of Emergency and in its name, countless human rights violations were committed. I am not sure I can say much that would do this book proper justice. It certainly had what I refer to as The Linger Factor. After I finished it, I sat thinking about it for awhile. When I woke up at ...more

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Sep 01, 2013 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015

Let me tell you a secret: there is no such thing as an uninteresting life.

Interesting doesn’t even begin to describe the eventful and painful year in the lives of four Mumbai residents, at the times of the Emergency – a period of civil unrest and government crackdown declared by the Prime Minister of India in 1975 as a final straw in her efforts to keep her political power in the face of vigorous opposition. While the politicians are playing their high stakes games, it is the simple people w ...more

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Jul 16, 2010 notgettingenough rated it it was amazing

Shelves: modern-lit, indian

Maybe this review, about exploitation as much as anything, should have stayed on this site...

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(I am told some sort of word minimum is necessary on this site. In order to conform....

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May 30, 2020 Helene Jeppesen rated it it was amazing

One of the best books I’ve read so far this year!! <3

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Aug 01, 2009 K.D. Absolutely rated it it was amazing

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, 501 Must Read Books

Shelves: 501, india, family-drama, sad, 1001-core

I have nothing but praise for this book. This is the book that makes me a reader. No matter how busy I am, I will always be a reader if the book that I have is similar to this. Take away my Facebook account. Take away the online games (Clash of Clans, Angry Bird, Plants Vs Zombies). Take away the television (The Voice Kids, Nathaniel, Pangako sa Yo). But give me this kind of book and I will be a happy camper. I can read all day and night in a corner and will not bother you even in a single minut I have nothing but praise for this book. This is the book that makes me a reader. No matter how busy I am, I will always be a reader if the book that I have is similar to this. Take away my Facebook account. Take away the online games (Clash of Clans, Angry Bird, Plants Vs Zombies). Take away the television (The Voice Kids, Nathaniel, Pangako sa Yo). But give me this kind of book and I will be a happy camper. I can read all day and night in a corner and will not bother you even in a single minute.

It is a long novel but the storytelling is straightforward. It is as grand as Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (5 stars) but bereft of big words and technical literary pizzazz. Rohinton Mistry (born 1952) seems to be telling us that he can write sad and bleak novel about Indian in a plain simple way so that ordinary readers (like me) can appreciate how rich India is in terms of its culture, politics and complex human dilemma.

This is the story of four Indian nationals that happened to be living in the same house: Dina the widow who decides to live in her own by hiring two tailors; Ishvar and Om who are untouchables. On their way to Dina's place, they met Maneck who Dina is accepting as a boarder to augment in the rental of her place. The lives of the four become interwined as they live together and transcends from the cycle of love, hate and love again. As Mistry puts it "life is a fine balance between hope and despair."

It is easy to relate to this kind of story for me because I am also living in a third world country that shares the same situations like that of India. We also had Martial Law for a long time during the reign of the deposed Ferdinand Marcos. We don't have the caste system but we have a wide gap between rich and poor people. We also have the assassinations and killing due to politics and religious fanatics. Lastly, majority of our people live below poverty line that they are having a hard time eating 3 times a day or for those with jobs, still find difficulty in trying to make ends meet.

Good writing. Simple language (no need to open your dictionary). Familiar characters and situations. Heartfelt if not heart-wrenching scenes. Almost made me cry (only if not because I was sleepy from working too much).

A must read! Believe me, you MUST read this. ...more

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Mar 16, 2015 Bharath rated it it was amazing

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 ...more

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Feb 23, 2016 Hugh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-classics, read-2016, modern-lit, favourites, booker-shortlist

This is about as close to an epic Victorian novel as modern fiction gets.

Mistry weaves together the stories of four main protagonists whose fates are thrown together by the upheavals of India's Emergency in 1975. Dina is a Parsee widow, with a rich family but struggling to maintain her independence in her late husband's flat. She employs Ishvar and Om, two tailors taking refuge from their rural community after reprisals following their family's refusal to conform to the expectations of their lo ...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Savanna rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Savanna by: Sarah McConnell and Sara Lozito

Shelves: the-subcontinent, favorites

Unlike many of the Indian novels I have read, this book focuses on the Emergency years under Indira Gandhi. Mistry’s characters live through the terrifying campaigns of forced sterilization and “beautification” (slum destruction). But there is more to the novel than the abuses that occurred during the Emergency. Mistry takes the reader into the world of rural India in the 1960s and 70s where challenges to the caste system often resulted in beating, maiming, and sometimes death. He describes the ...more

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Oct 20, 2018 Vartika rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

Walking down the streets of “the city by the sea” from Mistry’s novel, I have often found myself wondering about the lives of others—it is hard not to, for the streets are constantly abuzz with waves of comings and goings; a formidable sea of anonymous faces one feels inclined to try on, tempted to trace the shape of the lives they inhabit and the dreams they’ve come here to chase. Yet, it is not these lives and faces—harrowed, hungry, and hopeful, spilling along the pavements—that feature in th Walking down the streets of “the city by the sea” from Mistry’s novel, I have often found myself wondering about the lives of others—it is hard not to, for the streets are constantly abuzz with waves of comings and goings; a formidable sea of anonymous faces one feels inclined to try on, tempted to trace the shape of the lives they inhabit and the dreams they’ve come here to chase. Yet, it is not these lives and faces—harrowed, hungry, and hopeful, spilling along the pavements—that feature in the stories this city is known for: a lot is said about its secretive skyscrapers, while its struggling masses remain overlooked, left to fend for themselves.

It is lives such as these that Mistry brings into focus with A Fine Balance. Widely considered to be the author’s magnum opus, this delicate, richly textured novel tells a heartrending story of friendship and loss amidst a country in turmoil. Despite being centered in pathos, Mistry’s lifelike prose—exploring the brusqueness of happenstance and lived experience—seems to grip the reader as if by their very fingertips: mine refuse to let go of these pages even after having soaked in them time and again for many years.

The plot is centered around the lives of Dina Dalal, a middle-aged Parsi widow from the city; Maneck Kohlah, a lonely student from the mountains; and two tailors, Om and Ishvar Darji, who hail from a faraway village; as they are thrown together into the melting pot by hardship and necessity. It is through the patchwork of their lives entwining as in a quilt that the reader is made familiar with the wider political reality of India—a reality riddled with caste-violence, poverty, exploitation, and corruption—against the immediate background of the National Emergency of 1975, a period infamous for making political prisoners out of an entire nation.

Mistry is ruthless in exposing the atrocities committed under this ostensibly ‘pro-people’ regime of forced-sterilisation and brutal clampdowns on civil and political liberties, while also paying attention to the deeper rot of evils like caste discrimination, dowry, warped development projects, vote-stuffing, and bribery in public institutions, which pervade to this day. The personal is political, as the suffering of each character—from the protagonists to the beggars, rent-collectors and others who populate the fringes of the narrative—makes evident, touched as it is by the arm of law in alarming but commonplace ways (Re-reading this book in 2020, I also realised how similar India under the dissimilar governments led by Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi respectively happens to be: the opposition is quashed, the media is censored and partisan, and the laws are changed clandestinely—we are, after all, living today in a state of undeclared emergency).

However, it isn’t just what this novel is about, but also how it is written, that makes A Fine Balance such a powerful piece of fiction. It says somewhere in this book that the lives of the poor are rich in symbols, and symbols indeed abound throughout the narrative. The most dominant of these is the patchwork quilt, which appears both as a physical object sewn together by Dina as well as a metaphor for our protagonists’ shared fate. The quilt as the coming together of memories made in Dina’s flat also leads to the question of the quiltmaker—fate, and an unfair system. The chess-set that Maneck receives from his friend, Avinash, too has similar metaphorical bearings.

But there also lingers the minor character of the lawyer-proofreader-propagandist Vasantrao Valmik, who offers much political and philosophical insight, and whom Dina notices “deliberately spinning together the string of accidents that make up life.” As such, he is a stand-in for the author himself, for Mistry too strings together a tale that only towards its end reveals its circular shape, a tight web of foreshadowing.

Overall, this is an intensely poignant and politically charged tale that maintains a fine balance between hope and despair—until it doesn’t. This is one of those books that will plunge you into a state of anguish and contemplation for days; a tragedy that does not end with the last page. But read, anyway. For as the epigraph by Balzac says, "this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true''. ...more

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About Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry

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Rohinton Mistry is considered to be one of the foremost authors of Indian heritage writing in English. Residing in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Mistry belongs to the Parsi Zoroastrian religious minority.

Mistry’s first novel, Such a Long Journey (1991), brought him national and international recognition. Mistry’s subsequent novels have achieved the same level of recognition as his first. His second n ...more