A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

Anything which seemed like a clutching at bygone days made her wary. The road towards self-reliance could not lie through the past.

“You want it both ways? First you said struggle, don’t give up. Now you are saying just accept it. Swaying from side to side, like a pot without an arse.” “Your grandmother Roopa used to say that,” laughed Ishvar. “Make up your mind, yaar, choose one thing.” “How can I? I’m just a human being,” he replied, laughing again.

Distance was a dangerous thing, she knew. Distance changed people.

But too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart,

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.’

“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.” He paused, considering what he had just said. “Yes,” he repeated. “In the end, it’s all a question of balance.”

Have I told you my theory about them? I 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.”

Sometimes, dogs came into their debates—imperialist dogs, running dogs of capitalism. Sometimes the dogs were pigs, capitalist pigs. Money-lending hyenas and landowning jackals also put in occasional appearances.

I N ABOUT A WEEK, the alchemy of time had translated the noisy nocturnal street outside the chemist’s shop into a lulling background for the tailors.

MORNING LIGHT did not bring answers to the questions Dina had wrestled with all night. She could not risk losing the tailors again. But how firm to stand, how much to bend? Where was the line between compassion and foolishness, kindness and weakness? And that was from her position. From theirs, it might be a line between mercy and cruelty, consideration and callousness. She could draw it on this side, but they might see it on that side.

the secret of survival was to balance hope and despair, to embrace change.

“You know, Maneck, the human face has limited space. My mother used to say, if you fill your face with laughing, there will be no room for crying.” “What a nice saying,” he answered bitterly.

Will I ever have the courage? Do I have the wisdom to make the right decision?”

Where humans were concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure; and sorrow, for the hopelessness of it all. And maybe Maneck was right, everything did end badly.

“There is always hope—hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost.”

“After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents—a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.”

In fact, that is the central theme of my life story—loss. But isn’t it the same with all life stories? Loss is essential. Loss is part and parcel of that necessary calamity called life.”

The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing. Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring.”