Book #13: A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry

WHOA, what a book. This book is long, heavy, and captivating from the first page. Set in an unknown city in India, "A Fine Balance" outlines many of the extreme social issues present in India from the 1950's to the present. The first half of the book gives a detailed background of three main character groups.

1) Dina - as a girl she grew up with an oppressive older brother who emotionally/physically abused her, pulled her out of school and made her a virtual slave in their home. She was able to resist his attempts to marry her off young, and eventually married for love. While she found happiness for a short time, her husband was killed in a hit-and-run accident on their third wedding anniversary. From this time on, her life is marked with trials as she struggles to maintain financial independence in a patriarchal system.

2) Maneck - a boy from a hill station, he's come to the city to get a "heating and air-conditioning" degree. He has severe abandonment issues, as his relationship with his father deteriorated from his youth and he continued to misunderstand his parent's "wanting what's best for him" as a ploy to get rid of him. Maneck hates his dorm at school, and ends up renting a room from Dina (one of the ways she makes money to keep herself from becoming dependent on her male relatives).

3) Ishvar and Omprakash - an uncle and nephew descended from the Dalit (untouchable) caste. While the caste system was outlawed with partition in 1947, it is still alive and well in country villages, and these two suffered extreme brutality at the hands of their "upper-caste" masters. Ishvar's father struck out against the system by sending his two sons to learn to be tailors in town, instead of the traditional leather-work reserved for their family caste. He and the rest of their family were burned in their homes because of his audacity. Regardless of these (and many other) tragic events, Ishvar and Omprakash find themselves skilled but unemployed, and head to the city to find work. They are employed by Dina (her other way of making money to maintain independence), and they form an interesting relationship.

The plot is unbelievably intricate and heavy. It walks through tragic historical events from India's past in individual lives, and by the end of the book, the reader is REALLY invested and impacted. A hard but great read!