A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

‘Nothing is as fine as one’s native place.’

How much gratitude for a little sherbet, thought Maneck, how starved they seemed for ordinary kindness.

A lifetime had to be crafted, just like anything else, she thought, it had to be moulded and beaten and burnished in order to get the most out of

Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.

While her eyes and fingers were immersed in the sewing, she acquired a heightened awareness of noises from the flats around her. She collected the sounds, sorted them, replayed them, and created a picture of the lives being lived by her neighbours, the way she transformed measurements into clothes.

There was no such thing as perfect privacy, life was a perpetual concert-hall recital with a captive audience.

What should have been the occasional spice to vary the regular menu had become the main course, leaving the appetite often confused or unfulfilled.

Rustom would have liked that – the idea of his violin continuing to torment the human race.

Twelve years it has sat in the evidence room, where the windows are broken and the ceiling leaks. Twelve monsoon rains will make human bones rust also.’

By the time he entered his teens, he had acquired all the knowledge he would need to perceive that invisible line of caste he could never cross, to survive in the village like his ancestors, with humiliation and forbearance as his constant companions.

Butter was something Roopa could steal without a second thought. In fact, she did not even consider it stealing. After all, hadn’t Lord Krishna himself made a full-time job of it during his adolescence, aeons ago, in Mathura?

‘God wants my son to cry only half as much as other mortals.’

He preferred to overlook the fact that Ishvar’s smile, too, could only be smiled with half his face.

The chalks and slates fascinated them. They yearned to hold the white sticks in their hands, make little white squiggles like the other children, draw pictures of huts, cows, goats, and flowers. It was like magic, to make things appear out of nowhere.

He observed bitterly that at least his Muslim friend treated him better than his Hindu brothers.

It was not a case of being blind to danger – the danger could be smelt from miles away, her husband was right. Only, removing the blindfold was difficult because of what she might see.

Their next silence lasted longer. Ashraf cleared his throat. ‘I came down to say one thing only.’ Tears were rolling down his cheeks; he paused to wipe them. ‘The day I met your father – the day I told Dukhi to send me his two sons for tailor-training. That day was the luckiest of my life.’ He embraced them, kissed their cheeks three times, and went upstairs.

He liked her explanation. It was easier than contemplating the lean years that had shrunk them both.

‘All people are not the same. Besides, Nawaz’s years in the city must have altered him. Places can change people, you know. For better or worse.’

They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things.’

‘By their hair shall you know them. Health and sickness, youth and age, wealth and poverty – it’s all revealed in the hair.’

‘I’m still waiting to meet one who will treat me as his equal. As a fellow human being – that’s all I want, nothing more.’

the little ones enjoy. Who knows when they’ll get a chance like this again.’

The festivities lasted less than an hour; the tap went dry as suddenly as it had started. Children soaped in anticipation had to be wiped off and sent to bed disappointed.

Please always remember, the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt. To quote: “All things fall and are built again, and those that build them again are gay.”’

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.’

think that our sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing are all calibrated for the enjoyment of a perfect world. But since the world is imperfect, we must put blinders on the senses.’

It would have been funny were it not for the real danger of the workers being pounded to a pulp. But so far, the invisible line was holding, separating the potential from its realization. Strange, that invisible lines could be so powerful, thought Maneck – strong as brick walls.

He missed Avinash. Strange, he thought, how a friendship could spring up suddenly one evening, facilitated by cockroaches and bedbugs. And then fizzle out just as suddenly, for reasons equally ludicrous. Maybe it was silly to have assumed it was a friendship in the first place.

He tumbled them back into the maroon box with its sliding top – from the prison of their squares into the prison of the coffin.

The locks and plaits have broken up, it’s impossible to join them together. Like trying to recover grains of sugar out of a cup of tea.’

If the tailors had stayed around during the day, they would have discovered that illness was an impartial thief who struck in sunshine and darkness.

‘If time were a bolt of cloth,’ said Om, ‘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.’