Capturing Contemporary India (Fine Balance) By Rohinton Mistry

Abstract

This is the most somber and latest novel. In A Fine Balance India once again becomes the central source of concern. The Narration takes us to the mid seventies when the Prime Minister imposes Emergency without any consultation of the Cabinet. The story revolves around the lives of four protagonists each very different from the next. They find themselves thrown together in the same humble city apartment: Dinabhai, a widow who refuses to remarry and fights to earn a meager living as a seamstress; two tailors, Ishvar and Ompraksh, uncle and nephew, who comes to the city in the hope of finding work; and a student Maneck Kohlah, from a village situated at the foothills of the Himalayas. Maneck's father has sent his son to a city school. Primarily, Mistry manages to bring forth the horror and devastation wreaked by the Emergency in all its vivid portrayal. The novel is considered to be a vehement commentary on the political and social environment of the times and the beautiful tragedy of emergence. The novel begins in 1975 with the accidental meeting of Ishvar, Ompraksh and Maneck Kohlah in a train. The first chapter recounts the story of Dina balal from the age of twelve and the death of her father to the age of forty-two and the hiring of the tailors. The second chapter introduces us to the manager of Au Revoir Exports, Mrs. Gupts. It is through the approval of Mrs. Gandhi's action we are confronted with the complicity of the Indian business houses. In the third chapter we are again taken to the times of Ishvar and Omprakash's story. The starkest depiction of Caste oppression is in this chapter. The fifth section deals with the story of Maneck. His story carries the ecological denudation of the Himalayas and the death of indigenous enterprises. In its particular theme the novel is about Mrs. Dina Dalai, who becomes widow three years after marriage, resolves to remain financially independent takes two Hindu Tailors as boarders to sew dresses for an export company. The two tailors are Ishavar and his nephew Om, who left their village in an effort to escape the repressive Caste system. Maneck, who is the son of the old school friend of Dina is sent to attend the college as the family falls in business. The crux and central concerns of the novel revolves around the dialectical and dialogical interactions of these characters. The dreams, ambitions, the trails, failures and success of these characters in the face of the oppressing order of the society. For four months a family is evolved in the social, emotional interactions of these characters. Eating and sleeping together, sharing the dreams, meals and the space, the characters transcend the barriers of Caste, religion and economic status. The cramped and conjusted space becomes a haven from the political and social turmoils of the society. These four characters experience unpleasant encounters and are repeatedly saved from the quaint character, the Beggarmaster. All this narration of the novel is at the backdrop of the emergency period imposed by Indira Gandhi's rule.